Hi all.
I am getting an Apple notebook in the very near future.
Currently it's a choice between the first gen MacBook Air with 1.6GHz processor, and either the 2.0 or 2.4 GHz Unibody Macbooks.
I would like an illuminated keyboard, but if the lower end macbook satisfies my needs, then I wouldn't pay £170 extra for illumination.

I am an engineering student, needing to take notes, do a few pictures in lectures, then while out and about possibly some Matlab work.
So my main question is can matlab run well on the Macbook Air? And if not, then can anyone tell me if there will be a noticeable difference in speed between the lower and higher end Macbooks?

One final thing, if I but a Macbook Air, then find it doesnt run the things I need it to, can I return it and get a different Macbook.

Incase anyone is interested prices are as follows on the Apple Higher Education Store
Refurbished MacBook Air 1.6GHz 2GB 80GB £749
Macbook Unibody 2.0GHz 2GB 160GB £799
Macbook Unibody 2.4GHz 2GB 250GB £967

Thanks in advance.

R

p.s. I have read around but nobody seems to have asked this before. Any other advice would be greatly appreciated.

The Air wouldn't be good for engineering students. Mainly for your CAD/Lab software reasons. Not enough oomph, caters more for web, email, and paper-writing/note-taking.

How about a MacBook Pro? Out of the budget?

If so, go with the 2.4GHz MacBook. The added clock speed won't cause you to wet your pants, but it will help in number-crunching situations... such as engineering.

First thing to do would be to upgrade the RAM. 4GB does make a difference over 2GB.

And £170 difference for a larger HD, faster processor, backlit keyboard... is quite reasonable.

Well the MacBook Pro is too big. If I push my budget I could get one, but seriously don't want that kind of bulk (I'm used to a netbook)
[Just looked at prices and even with he He discount, the MBP is £1163 ]
so the extra 400Mhz does make a real difference, even though they have the same cache and FSB?

Thanks for the input so far
R

If you're going to go with the 2.4GHz Macbook, the you might as well go with the 15" Macbook Pro. Unless, you don't need the 9600M GT or FireWire, then go with the 2.4GHz Macbook.

Yeah, clock speed really assists in rendering, conversions, etc.  This machine is a 2.4GHz C2D with 4MB L2 and it takes several minutes more rendering than my PD 2.8 with 2MB L2.  And this is done with 2-minute files.  Extrapolate the speed difference for larger files.




My stance on computers is this:

Spend a little more up-front... and enjoy a system more and longer than if you decided to save a few bucks.

If you don't need it for heavy graphics processing then I would highly recommend the unibody Macbook.

I bought the base model unibody Macbook and have absolutely no regrets. I don't look at the keyboard when I type so the lack of backlighting doesn't bother me at all, and it does everything I ask it to without complaint, including HD videos, plus it's 13" and doesn't feel very big, compared to a friends Macbook Pro (unibody) which feels a bit too big.