As someone who is new to Mac, which one would you recommend?

I would go for the baseline Pro instead of the air. Aside from the Air the lightest MBP is still very light and thin - I don't see it adding measurably to the weight you have to carry. You don't need the extra processing power of a higher level Pro, and you don't sound like you need the extraordinary portability of the Air.

Going from Windows to Mac can be a bit like being a tourist in some country where English isn't the main language - if you go where other tourists hang out you can get by without knowing the language, but one wrong turn lands you in foreign territory. It can be like that with Macs, where Windows familiarity will be enough for most of what you do, but there can be differences that wil be a problem.

If you want to cut down on weight go for the Air. Not sure what "too light and child like" means. How often do you insert discs now? You can add an external optical drive but I have not used mine in years.

YoYo! So check it dawg: you would NEVER pick apple products - especially macs - for their disk drive, ram, or anything specs. It however looks slick, all white and fancy and of such I say you take the Mac Book Pro (simply cause it looks nice)!

And it's not to bad, you can even run games like Skyrim on it or you can run boot camp and run some windows applications on it too.

So I would say - if your budget tight, go Air; else I would pick Mac Book Pro cause it looks so dam sick!

if you want lots of space on your laptop i recomend the macbook pro (i own it my self and LOVE it)

the amcbook air has less space but is weighs less and is smaller