As noted by Dan Benjamin, and Marco Arment in their latest Build & Analyze podcast, the 13 inch MacBook Pro is stuck between a rock and a hard place in Apple’s current portable Macintosh line up. On one side you have the rock, Apple’s upgraded MacBook Air with competing performance and rock star good looks. On the other side you have the hard place, Apple’s stalwart 15 inch MacBook Pro with twice the number of cores and a hard to beat high-resolution display. Customers who want portability are going to choose the MacBook Air. Customers who want performance at going to choose the 15 inch MacBook Pro. The 13 inch MacBook Pro is an awkward compromise kept around for cost conscious compatibility. It includes all of the legacy ports and optical drive the Air lacks, while retaining a sub $1,500 price tag for customers on a budget.

I believe it won’t be long before Apple removes the 13 inch Pro from its lineup. Thunderbolt adapters will make the 13 inch MacBook Pros legacy ports obsolete, and the App Store/iTunes has already made the optical drive a thing of the past. The 15 inch MacBook Pro will continue to improve making its powerful features overkill for anyone who isn’t a professional. So given the 13 inch Pro’s 4.5 pound figure, lackluster screen resolution, and legacy compatibility who would buy one today?

I did.

When I am not writing Egg Freckles, I am supporting the Radiology department at Children’s Hospital Boston. I chose a 13 inch MacBook Pro because of the portability it provides over the 15 inch model, the upgradable performance it offers over the MacBook Air, and the legacy ports I still need to get the job done.

The 13 inch MacBook Pro is more than a pound lighter than the 15 inch model. Its smaller dimensions mean it is usable on an economy class airplane tray table. If I am going to have to carry a computer to and from work, all over the hospital, and around the world on business trips I am going to want to have the lightest computer possible to do my job.

The 13 inch MacBook Pro may not have the quad core processor of its larger sibling, but its does have a respectable 2.7GHz dual core i7 CPU that is noticeably faster than anything available on the Air. The 13 inch MacBook Pro’s real advantage over the air is its upgradability. When purchasing my 13 inch Pro I made sure to outfit it with the latest 6G 559MB/s OW 120GB SSD, which is 295MB/s faster than the standard SSD available in the MacBook Air. The 13 inch MacBook Pro is also capable of taking up to 16GBs of RAM, which is four times the amount of memory soldered onto the 13 inch MacBook Air’s logic board. Between the 8GBs of RAM I installed and the 6G SSD my 13 inch MacBook Pro is ready for any performance obstacles the hospital, or my 24 megapixel Sony a850 SLR can throw at it.

Thunderbolt is the future. It offers 10Gbps bidirectional I/O over a single low-profile cable that can drive a 30 inch display and provide 10 watts of power. Unfortunately Thunderbolt devices are not yet the norm, and my job requires me to interface with other Macs and data storage fast. The promise of FireWire and gigabit Ethernet for Thunderbolt have been whispered since the debut of the first Thunderbolt equipped Macs, but so far the only adapter to be found is Apple’s $999 27 inch LED display. Until more affordable adapters exist, or the MacBook Air comes with gigabit Ethernet and FireWire I am forced to purchase the lightest Mac Book Pro that can get the job done.

The 13 inch MacBook Pro isn’t perfect, it is a compromise by nature. I would like it to be lighter, and would have purchased a quad core CPU if one was available. The low resolution 1280 by 800 display doesn’t bother me, and like the external optical drive on a MacBook Air a large high resolution display can be added when I need one. It will be sad to see the 13 inch MacBook Pro go, but right now it makes one of the best portable computers a IT professional could ask for.