Current lightweight Macbooks (Air/ Pro 13") good enough for light work?

BrandonT

BrandonT

Well-known member
Hey guys. I'm looking at some possible travel, and also find myself needing to bring projects to clients to watch over certain portions. For instance, with a two hour video, it would be easier for me to take the project to the client, rather than spend a few hours rendering it out on my 2010 iMac. Then rendering the final version out again after the changes/ titles added. I'm still in a home office, so I'm not where I can ask clients to come here.

So my old Macbook Pro 15" is a 2007. Surprisingly, I can still get $415 for it from powerbookmedic.com. I haven't even bothered to see how well it works with Premiere and native codecs. So I was really just curious if the current Macbook Air (11" or 13") would cut it for reviewing a project and for video village (AVCHD 1080p from AF100). I'm pretty sure it would work, just wanted to ask any way. Final rendering wouldn't be much of a concern for what I'm needing.

Specs on the 11 inch:
1.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor Turbo Boost up to 2.6GHz
8GB memory (upgraded)
128GB flash storage
Intel HD Graphics 4000
1366 x 768 resolution

The 13" Air and 13" Pro are also in the running for around the same price. And the Pro jumps the processor to 2.5 GHz Core i5. But I figure if I'm going for ultra light, might as well do the 11". I have a Think Tank Streetwalker Harddrive (camera bag) that has a really handy section for a full sized laptop. With the 11", I could probably fit it and either a tablet or my portfolio notebook for taking written notes on.

Granted, I need to update my 2010 iMac, preferably this year. But the laptop is going to jump up to top priority on the next travel gig that I get, whenever that is (I'm hoping for something in Vancouver!!). I think these are all due for a model refresh this summer, so before I got serious on the purchase, I would look more closely at that.

Thanks!
 
Are you planning on editing at all on this computer? If so, I'd recommend the more expensive model with the NVIDIA 650M (1 GB) GPU. I'm not a fan of integrated GPUs, as they are of lower performance. If you are only playing back video, I think a basic model would probably be OK.
 
Yeah, a little bit of editing-- but only enough to work with a client or someone acting as a producer or translator (I'm doing a Mandarin Chinese video at the moment). Like to get the quick cuts that they want placed. Or to figure out where titles should go. No rendering out final videos or anything like that. Otherwise, mostly just backing up video if I'm on a long shoot or traveling, and video village. And then just using it as a regular computer around the house or while out. The smallness of these might mean that I'd take it instead of my tablet.

With the current models, only the 15" MacBook Pro has dedicated graphics. My 2007 MacBook Pro is a 15". It was good for me since I used it as my main system until I got my iMac in 2010. But I don't need a 15" again. So it's either 11 or 13, and whether I go Air (more likely) or Pro, dedicated graphics isn't available. This could possibly change when the two lines are refreshed, which looks like will happen in June.

But with my iMac, my dedicated graphics card isn't supported for acceleration for Premiere. My system is 3.2 GHz Core i3, 16 GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD 5670 512 MB. So I'm thinking that the current MacBook Air processor would be at least comparable to my iMac's. The 13 inch Air has a 1.8 GHz Core i5 that will temporarily overclock ("Turbo Boost") to 2.8 GHz. And I get by fine with my iMac as long as it's not multicam or a lot of graphics.

So what do you think? Hopefully June brings a bump up in specs that will sell me on it.
 
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