<p>Sigh. My son has a 1-yr old Macbook Air 13" (nice & light, starts super fast) & is starting as a freshman comp major in fall. I can suddenly foresee the new computer request coming in… but I’m not going to mention it first! 
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<p>Anyone with an opinion of why students get more Pros than Airs? Is it just hard drive space? i.e., when we get the large desktop screen (clearly now when, not if) is the Air enough of a computer?</p>
<p>I’ve never seen a college student with a laptop larger than 13" either. But for composition, I can see how it would make sense.</p>
<p>My son needs the most powerful laptop available to him - as the orchestral scores become huge files. The idea of the large desk monitor is great - but he has survived the last three years of college without it - so it’s not a ‘required’ item for a freshman. He does, however, have a keyboard, good speakers, and a sub-woofer that stays at college.</p>
<p>Ah, the keyboard. Was planning on simply bringing one (also for backup practice) but the pictures of the dorm-room desks look like they won’t fit a keyboard at all (they seem to have side pieces & only jut out a couple of inches), so we’ll have to wait 'til we see whether a stand will fit… do they have good storage at Bard? IU seems to have a company that will bring boxes & pick them up, & keep them for the summer, so I guess it’s just a matter of keeping the box. I’m sure it’ll all become clear shortly…</p>
<p>Yesterday Best Buy sales person told me that Mac Air’s don’t have a way to play CD’s. I am assuming that means no way to import or burn CD’s either-? Is this true?</p>
<p>I do think that a 13" Mac Book works well enough for many composition students, though I think my daughter did her electroacoustic work in the lab, which spared her laptop.</p>
<p>Dorm rooms and composition students - there has always, even in the closet-sized dorm room my son had last year, been room for him to have a keyboard on a stand. We purchased a new one for him freshman year which was shipped for free - every summer since he’s stored it off campus in a storage unit he shares with friends. Now he even uses the storage unit during the year to store things, as his ensemble has acquired keyboards, toy pianos, brake drums, washboards, trashcans, amplifiers etc…</p>
<p>Re Air: Correct! He has an external DVD/CD drive, it works perfectly well and saves a lot of weight in the backpack (costs another $79.00 or so). Airs are based on the idea that everything in the future will be streamed… but the future is not here yet! And the drives will be better & larger in the future. The hard drives are fast & solid - but more expensive and smaller. I think he’ll have to stick with what he can find at school for a while, until things get more interesting… He did compose for orchestra on the 13", but I’ll make sure to check whether he needs new glasses before he leaves (I’m expecting to get the call for a new computer around October. I’ll let you know :))</p>
<p>Re keyboards - You’re right, if it has to happen, there’s always a way! Bc of indecision he signed up late for the dorms & may be in a more open area for a bit, or even a semester, but we can always ship something later. Toy pianos??? That sounds super-awesome. I had a beautiful red one when I was little - I have no idea what happened to it…</p>
<p>Compmom & Spirit: both of your kids are so interesting, can’t wait for more of the story!!</p>
<p>The macbook air was made to be as light as possible, so it does a lot of things that make it a bit less powerful then the macbook pros</p>
<p>-They use solid state flash memory for storage, and the largest capacity is 256 gig (note that macpros are using solid state as well as an option. ). That may not be big enough for something like composition; you could use a cd/dvd external drive to back up the pieces to keep the disk from getting cluttered. Note that neither the mass storage flash drive or the main memory can be upgraded, they are surface soldered to save space.</p>
<p>-It does not have a CD/DVD drive, you need to use an external one.</p>
<p>-It has a couple of USB ports and a thunderbolt port (which is a high speed external port; unfortunately, there is little that supports this other then a display and some expensive disk arrays.</p>
<p>I love the macbook air but it might be limited for what a composition student needs it for.</p>
<p>Looks like it, doesn’t it? Thanks for the further info!</p>
<p>Momophony, you asked why students might need the MacBook pros. Ultimately, it’s the processing speed that causes that to be specced, particularly in music tech classes. Since my son is now a rising (college) senior, I asked him about this thread. He basically said it really depends on how complex the compositions are and that siebelius alone was not a processing hog per se, and how “crazy” the user is (then again he’s only ever run it on a MacBook pro with beefed up memory, as his gear was specified to include the ability to edit film and compose with multimedia.) </p>
<p>We had asked about the air back when he was a freshman, and his dept head had advised against it and noted that in addition to being underpowered it was “a bit fragile for the way these students will be using it.” But again, that’s in a tech-heavy production program that includes a lot of game/multimedia/interactive programming courses.</p>
<p>Can you return the air or exchange it? If you can do it now before it’s actually used, you might be able to stretch the acquisition to last all four years.</p>
<p>Ok, I clearly need more coffee. You said it was a year old. In that case, wait and see just what all he gets into and let that form the basis of his future specs 
it may be just fine for that program initially. It will have more to do with whether or not he goes down the tech rabit hole the way some comp kids do Jacobs has really nice recording studios with well-equipped boards so it’s not as if he won’t have access to record/master some of his work should he so desire and should he choose to receive the training or work with one of the RA students. My son may be different in that he wants/needs to be producing the stuff he writes all the time, and even being a eng major doesn’t mean they let you live in the
studio ;)</p>
<p>Hartt made it very clear at their orientation that the macbook air would not work for their students. </p>
<p>Also, coincidentally, one of the parents at the orientation works for Apple. This father said there is new macbook pro to be released, but he did not know when. This new macbook pro is supposed to be lighter.</p>
<p>The new macbook pro is out there, Apple just released it. Among other things, they offer a solid state disk option, it is more like the air in that it is lighter and thinner and it has the retina display they have used on the iphone and ipad.</p>
<p>We had pretty much decided on the 15" but then my son spoke with his comp professor and he said the 13" because it was less expensive and that the school’s comp labs had tons of large monitors. I still think a 15" might be the smartest move for all the reasons everyone has mentioned. We did look at the new retinal macbook pros but the Apple clerk really discouraged it for a college student saying it was only for users with serious video/screen needs, particularly since it was so expensive.</p>
<p>Super helpful everyone, thanks! Yes, new Pro is vvvery expensive! I think I’ll be sitting tight until I hear a request. Shouldn’t be too long…</p>