13" MacBook Pro or high end 11" MacBook Air for college?

Due to the SSD, the Air will fly. It will be faster than the Pro at everyday tasks. Encoding video and other intensive tasks will be quicker with the Pro. The 13" Air also has a higher resolution and the high-end 11" model and above has the same VRAM as the 13" Pro. Both the 13" Pro and both Airs have the Intel HD 3000.

I am on the 2011 Pro, I bought it a day after it came out. I am debating whether to get the Air or stick with the Pro, because I am thinking of swapping out the optical drive for a backup drive. If you aren't thinking of doing anything specialised like that and aren't working with video, the Air is perfect. The 13" model has an SD card though, so I'd go with that. The more I think about it, the more I see the Air as the perfect choice.

Also, since you are a student, trust me, that weight difference will pay off. You should try to find ways of reducing weight as much as possible. Get textbooks electronically if possible. The Air is ridiculously light and thin.

The Air has actually been found to score on par with last year's high-end 17" MacBook Pro on the CPU front. So audio and other things will probably actually be really fast on the Air, but things that require graphics horsepower will do better with the 15" Pros or even last year's Pros. Since it's between the 13" Pro with the same GPU, get the Air. Last years' 17" MacBook Pro used HDDs I believe, so the SSD will improve the benchmarks even more.

Summary: - The CPU is faster than last years' highest-end 17" Pro.

• The SSD is faster than last years' highest-end 17" Pro, which had a HDD.

• The graphics won't matter because it's between the 13" Pro and the high-end 11" Air. The 11" Air has less resolution, so the GPU won't work as hard.

• The 13" Air has higher resolution, but it won't matter since that's not one of your choices.

• The 13" Pro is heavier, which is important for a student.

• The only advantage the Pro has is another bay for a small capacity SSD/large capacity HDD hybrid, or for a backup HDD. This is convenient, but it also means if you lose your computer, your backup is lost too. This backup method only works as a way to boot up in case of a HDD failure, or it will be perfect as a Time Machine backup.

Conclusion: get the Air. It's a slamdunk! The only disadvantages are storage space and a second bay. Luckily, rumours that the SSD would be soldered on are untrue, so you can replace it if necessary. Or use an external drive if you have a large iTunes library and relocate it there. As for the second bay, maybe the elusive 17" Air will deliver on that ;).