It's the age old question: MacBook Air or MacBook Pro? The perfect scenario would be the ability to buy both, or perhaps better yet, combine each laptop's plusses and minuses. That, sadly, isn't an option currently, so we all have to choose.

Recently, the MacBook Air received a ever so slight spec bump. Really all that was changed was the processor. Apple elected to equip its lightest laptop with less power hungry and marginally faster Intel i5/7 Haswell chips. But Apple did prospective buyers a solid by cutting the price of the new model by $100 for both the 11-inch and 13-inch models.

Unfortunately, the screen resolution available on the MacBook Air tops out at 1440x900p for the larger display. The 11-inch model sports a paltry 1366x768p screen, which can be found on a $300 Google Chromebook. The Air does have good viewing angles and rich, saturated colors and tones. 

A heavily rumored Retina display was not meant to be, at least for this current incarnation, and that means the MacBook Air remains the sole Apple laptop to lack the high-resolution tech commonplace in today's machines.

The 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro's on the other hand are absolutely gorgeous. The 13-inch model has the same resolution (2560x1600p) found on the 27 inch iMac. The larger screen goes even further by providing a superb 2880x1800p display.

The 13-inch model is the perfect blend of price-to-performance ratio. It features Intel Iris integrated graphics, which vastly outperform the discreet cards found in prior flagship 15-inch MacBook Pro's of a few years ago. The integrated GPU helps keep the 13-inch model cool to the touch, prolongs battery life and still provides the necessary oomph to play games like Bioshock Infinite at decent frame rates.

The 15-inch model is still the best choice for animators, pro photographers and videographers. That's because you can equip them with GTX graphics for maximum on-the-go performance or choose to go integrated again, like the 13-inch, and opt for an Intel Iris Pro. Iris Pro is supported by popular media apps like Adobe Creative Cloud.

The big differentce maker between the MacBook Air and Pro models is the CPUs the machines utilize. The Air's processors are dual-core only and feature lower bus speeds. The 13-inch Pro has higher bus speeds (say 2.4ghz vs 1.7ghz), but again is only dual core. Both of these laptops have i5 or i7 chips. The i7 chip has more virtual cores, meaning some applications will run faster. The 15-inch MacBook has speedy quad-core i7 processors which provide significantly more power.

With the MacBook Air yet to receive a Retina screen update, as well as the 13-inch and 15-inch Pros being more affordable than ever, it's hard to recommend buying the Air. However, if you're in the need for a lightweight, all day long device and a tablet won't do, buying an Air is still a mighty fine choice.