Bass

I suppose you are right in that increasing resolution technically doesn't really increase the amount of content that can be physically be displayed on your screen if you take downscaling into account, but there is a significant difference in image quality. You can zoom out a document as much as you want to fit more on your screen regardless of resolution, but if you scale something too small relative to the size of your screen, then resolution actually does start to matter since you will have fewer pixels to represent what you are actually seeing. Granted, on a 13" screen or smaller it can be hard to read smaller text at a high resolution natively, but this is easily alleviated by DPI scaling. The retina MBP is a great example of this. The effective display resolution in the 15" retina MBP is actually set to 1440 x 900 by default, which is the same in the MBA. However, since the native resolution is 2880 x 1800, you are getting much crisper text than on a normal 1440 x 900 screen (eg the MBA) at the same resolution. This actually has the effect of making documents of the same size easier to read on the retina display. There are many images with such a comparison currently floating around the internet if you are curious about what the difference actually looks like.

You can probably fit two documents side by side at MBA resolutions, but my ultimate point is that you can still fit much more at higher resolutions, which is never a bad thing. But if there is one thing I can glean from the responses to each of my posts, I can concede that most people's needs here will be served just fine with an MBA. As a tech enthusiast I have a bad habit of getting excited over features that might seem unimportant to most users, but I feel compelled to mention them regardless. If we are strictly going to constrain the discussion to ultraportable notebooks like the MBA, I feel compelled to mention that there are currently viable alternatives that are just as portable, if you are willing to live without Mac OSX: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6194/asus-ux31a-putting-the-ultra-in-ultrabooks/9

I think that would depend partially on the nature of your program. I got to meet my future advisor in person during a visit after I got admitted to the program, and I have kept in touch with him since then after I accepted the school's offer. One interesting thing he told me was that I would be able to come down early over the summer before the fall semester starts and immediately get paid on my RA stipend. I probably won't do this right away since I currently have an internship planned for the summer, but I don't think it would hurt to let him know what your plans are in advance before your semester starts.

Again, you are referring to the non retina Macbook Pro, please look at the Anandtech review more carefully. The 13" retina Macbook Pro is 3.57 pounds, which is actually a mere .61 pound difference. These specs can also be found on Apple's website. However I am not the type constantly lugging around my laptop everywhere so for all I know this might be a bigger burden than it may seem on paper. Back to arguments about the screen, I would like to add that an IPS display does not only give you more vibrant colors (which is only truly important in a few areas as you said), but a vastly superior viewing angle. This is actually a big deal on a notebook since oftentimes I find myself having to fold out the screen at precisely the right angle for the picture to look good. Looking at it from a slightly off angle will invert the colors. Technically, an IPS display is also imperfect in this area, but in general the picture is still far more correct during off angle viewing. Resolution also makes a bigger difference than you might think. It's one thing if your usage consists entirely of reading webpages, but it can be difficult to fit more than one application on the screen on a typical notebook resolution (eg, 1440 x 900). One thing I love about working on my desktop is that I can fit two applications entirely on my monitors. For me this provides a huge productivity boost in everything I do, including several things I would consider relevant for a grad student (for instance, I could fit source code for data analysis on one half of the screen and a paper describing the procedure on the other). I mentioned this already in another post but when I am forced to work away from home and have only my laptop (also bearing in mind that it is four years old and much heavier than either the retina MBP or MBA), I find it harder to get as much done on my 1440 x 900 screen for this very reason. Again I will acknowledge that this can be compensated for by investing in external monitors, but if you are constantly traveling and therefore need the portability, doesn't having a high resolution screen seem helpful? I shared many of the sentiments some of you currently have before experiencing the benefits myself, and even though it is really just a luxury, it is one worth considering if you are going to stick to one primary computer for your entire grad school career.

First of all it appears that my last post was down voted for some reason. I was only trying to offer my own informative opinion, since many of my friends have had trouble with the choice of what computer to buy and I only wanted to discuss one consideration that many people don't really think about before their purchase. I apologize if I came off as arrogant in my post! I already admitted that I consider myself somewhat of a computer enthusiast so I am aware that the suggestion that I advocated for might not matter much to the OP. But many other people that I know have been in a similar situation and after splurging on a computer with a better display, they tended to agree with my opinion. Now to address the post below mine... On your first point, I realize now that you and many others are referring to the standard 13" MBP without the retina display. If that is what you are comparing the MBA to, then I would actually agree here, the MBA would definitely be the better value (and actually has the better display!). However I was referring to the 13" MBP with the retina display, which costs quite a bit more, but is worth the premium in my opinion. Again, not only because the display is IPS, but because you are getting a much larger resolution. Obviously our fields are different and therefore so are our needs but since another post was asking about video editing, I would also like to mention how Apple has designed "retina aware" software. This basically means you can customize the DPI scaling (eg how big the text and UI appears) for specific parts of the application, so it is possible to view a full 1080p video in your editor while keeping the rest of the text and UI large enough to be readable. If you ask me, this is probably the single greatest benefit of the retina display and I wish something like this could be available on a PC. I am well aware of the benefits of SSD's vs HDD's, in fact I currently have one on my desktop. But the retina MBP also offers SSDs for storage by default, so the MBA doesn't really win there either. Regarding weight, the actual difference between the 13" retina MBP and the 13" MBA is a little more than half a pound. I honestly can't vouch for how much of a difference this would make in practice though since I don't currently own either computer. It might be worth going to a retail outlet to actually test this out yourself if you are currently considering both. Anandtech has written a great review on the retina MBP here: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6409/13inch-retina-macbook-pro-review As well as for the MBA here: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6063/macbook-air-13inch-mid-2012-review So when it comes down to it, the only reason I would pick the MBA over the retina MBP would be price. If you aren't a power user and don't really have any application specific needs the added luxury of the retina display on the MBP might not be worth it to you. But for video editing? If you need to actually do this on your laptop, I think it is no contest.

I would have to disagree with the consensus here. There are certain aspects of laptops that I believe many people overlook in the name of portability, one of which is a quality display. Yes, you could always just buy an external monitor to compensate, but if the whole point of owning a MBA is the portability, then I would prefer having access to a good display when I am not at home or at work. I am not simply referring to screen-size though, but picture quality and resolution. This is where I think the MBA display lags behind as its PC competitors now offer 1080p (1920 x 1080) IPS displays at the same price point. If you have never heard of IPS displays before, just know that they are capable of resolving more colors and have much better viewing angles than the displays most of you are probably used to (TN). A higher resolution allows you to have more applications viewable side by side on one screen, and this can potentially offer a large boost in productivity depending on what your needs are. And as far as apple products go, even the 13" MBP offers a vastly superior display (2560 x 1600 IPS retina display). Unless you need portability at all costs, I can't believe anyone would think that the MBP offers less value! Not too long ago it was not common for stand alone monitors with displays of this caliber (albeit on a large 30 in. screen) to retail for beyond $2000. The fact that paying only a few hundred dollars more by upgrading to a MBP could give you this kind of luxury seems kind of amazing to me. I apologize for rambling on a bit too much since admittedly I am somewhat of a technophile and really value extra screen space (I write a lot of code), but I know that when I have to travel and not have my desktop computer around, the most infuriating fact is being stuck with a crappy 1440 x 900 TN display (similar to the MBA) on my 4 year old laptop. Investing in a new laptop with a better display is definitely something I will have to consider myself when starting my grad school program next fall, so I wish you the best of luck in whatever decision you make. Again, I understand that while the needs of most users are very different from mine, I could never fathom making the compromises involved with owning a MBA as a power user.

Have you visited either school? I would say it is not just a matter of which adviser might seem better to you on paper, but actually talking to both students and faculty that are currently in the program to get a better impression. I am currently a UIUC student myself actually (though not currently in CS or ECE) and can certainly say that I was initially planning on staying here for my Masters, but after visiting another school that accepted me, I was honestly blown away by the quality of the program there in comparison, and of course my POI's research interests matched mine very well. There is probably very little time left to schedule a visit, but I would make every effort to do so if you can, especially if either program is willing to fund your trip.