A recent article on TUAW rates the various MacBook Airs and Pros, and concludes: "If you don't do a lot of heavy-duty graphics/video work and want the fastest computer you've ever used, take a good long look at the MacBook Air."
"The MacBook Air is much more than just a light computer that starts up quickly. It's a computer that very nearly eliminates waiting for any of the normal tasks that most people do all day long. On the MacBook Air, Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel launch a fraction of a second more slowly than TextEdit."
So how is the Air the fastest computer?
Well, it's not the relatively pokey Core Duo processor, but the SSD, or Solid-State-Drive, that takes the place of the normal spinning platter most of us are familiar with.
Eliminate the twitchy mechanical aspects and motors and read/write heads and replace them with chips, and you've got a system that can pull stuff from the drive very, very quickly.
This dramatically improves boot times, app loading times, document saves, and more.
Now, this may muddy the waters even further, but if you want performance AND the fastest computer you've ever used, forget the Air and custom order one of the MBP's with the SSD option.
I just purchased and received a 17" MBP 2.3GHz Quad-Core i7 8GB with a 512GB SSD... and this thing simply screams. (Hey, it's my job.)
Simple example: There's an app called Pixelmator that does many of the things that Photoshop can do. In fact, quite a few people have both on their computer, and launch Pixelmator to do really quick edits and changes.
On the MBP with the SSD, Photoshop launches, from dock-click to ready-to-go, in just 1.8 seconds. Bye-bye Pixelmator.
Most MacBook Pros can get a speed boosting 128GB SSD for an additional $200. A 256GB SSD is more dear, at an additional $500-600. The 512GB... well, let's just say that you either need to be extremely well heeled, or able to deduct it on your taxes.
Preferably both.
But man, is it worth it.
[via TUAW]