Anyone go from 13" to 11"

Great deal!

MacLappy said:

2010 13", 2011 13", 2012 11"

Got the 11" sometime last year about June, it's a real delight to use.

I actually carry it around a lot more that the 13". Meaning I use it more often as a portable computer than I ever did with both my 13" air. Battery life has not been a problem so far.

The main draw back is once you fall in love with the 11" it's really hard to consider any other alternative, kind of like how the 12" PowerBook was.

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agree, same feeling with the 11".cant go to another model

i just went from 13" mbp to 11" mba, and i love it. So light compared. The only thing that annoys me, is the way to thick bezel. Could have fitted a 12.8" with ease

Trey M said:

I went from a 2009 13'' MBP to an 11'' Air, then to a 13'' Air. Of all 3, I personally prefer the 13'' Air. The 11'' Air was really great to use, especially in certain scenarios, but after about 2 years of use I couldn't deal with the battery life anymore. It is easily the worst drawback for an 11'' Air and it's the reason I'd recommend against buying one for most users. Also, as easy as the laptop is to carry around, the screen just wasn't big enough for me to feel productive with using that laptop. Eventually, I caught myself using my 15'' every time since I couldn't have multiple windows on the 11'' open, which is why I've moved to the 13'' Air.

If apple threw a hi-res display with more real estate and more promising battery life on the 11'' Air, I'd probably get one again. But seriously, I was getting under 5 hours on my 11'' Air with only Chrome and maybe a text-editing program open. Under 5 hours!

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LOL...How old are you? You had a 2009 MBP, right? So you KNOW what battery life used to be like? I have a 2008 MBP still humming along...maybe 2 hours unplugged (new battery last year). 5 hours in this small of a package is HUGE!!! Don't get me wrong...I'm ALL for better battery life...but it's ONLY been in the last two years we've gotten to the point of 5 hours of useful battery life in a portable...and one that weighs two pounds!!! Come on...give it a bit of time. It's definitely NOT Apple's fault...they've put the biggest battery in the Air that'll fit...it's up to Intel (Haswell's priority is energy saving) to provide more efficient and faster chips.

Seriously...that made me laugh. 5 years ago, we were lucky to get 2 hours unplugged from a decent machine

2010 11" owner here.

in 2012 bought 2012 13" to replace it thinking the 2010 was getting long in the tooth.

while the larger screen was nice, found the 13" bulky and noisy. returned it after trying it out a couple weeks. started using full screen mode more on the 2010 11". didn't really need the increased cpu power.

may upgrade to 2013 11" if we get ips screen and better battery life. otherwise the 2010 has been awesome - take it everywhere.

Back in 2004 I used my educational (college) pricing to purchase a 17" PowerBook to replace my old Titanium PowerBook, which was handed down to my wife. I used the 17" PowerBook daily for about 3 1/2 years, until I found a deal on a NOS 12" PowerBook that was the same processor speed (1.5Ghz G4) as my 17". That 12" PowerBook was the most portable little workhorse I could ever imagine, which is why I chose it over the newly released intel machines. I used the 12" PowerBook up until late 2009 when it was becoming more and more apparent that I needed an intel powered Mac. As luck would have it I inherited a 17" MacBook Pro. The performance was amazing but damn was that thing big. Going from a 12" back to a 17" bugged me from day one. I refused though to spend money on a 13" MacBook / MacBook Pro though because I knew Apple had to make a smaller model at some point to compete with netbooks and win back the old 12" PowerBook fans...

Then October 2010 hit and the new 11" & 13" MacBook Airs were announced. Working for Apple at the time I was excited because I knew we would receive them quickly. I held off on ordering until the next day when the 11" models arrived. I went into work early, picked one up, booted it and smiled. I went back to the GR during my lunch and ordered one. Haven't looked back since.

Fast forward a few years and I'm working at a large non-profit that gave me a 13" MacBook Pro when I started. I'm not one to complain so I was excited to have a newer MacBook Pro. However, a few months in we had an employee order an 11" MacBook Air and then change departments, leaving the Air without a home. So rather than send it back to Apple I adopted it and now have my personal 11" MacBook Air and my work 11" MacBook Air.

tldr; No regrets going from 17" to 11", 12" to 11" or from 13" to 11"

akdj said:

LOL...How old are you? You had a 2009 MBP, right? So you KNOW what battery life used to be like? I have a 2008 MBP still humming along...maybe 2 hours unplugged (new battery last year). 5 hours in this small of a package is HUGE!!! Don't get me wrong...I'm ALL for better battery life...but it's ONLY been in the last two years we've gotten to the point of 5 hours of useful battery life in a portable...and one that weighs two pounds!!! Come on...give it a bit of time. It's definitely NOT Apple's fault...they've put the biggest battery in the Air that'll fit...it's up to Intel (Haswell's priority is energy saving) to provide more efficient and faster chips.

Seriously...that made me laugh. 5 years ago, we were lucky to get 2 hours unplugged from a decent machine

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I could live with 5 hours but in almost every situation by just using Chrome and 1 other application (iTunes, word, whatever I was using) it would end up around 4 hours battery life rather than 5. If I strictly used Safari I'm sure I could've gotten closer to 5 but that shouldn't be necessary just to get 5 hours out of it.

All I meant was that I didn't find it worthwhile for a $1000+ machine to last significantly less than 5 hours, which is why I traded it out. I could get quite a bit more battery life in an older MBP so it just made it worthless for me.

New MacBook Air 11" rated at 9hrs of battery life. Guess battery life should no longer be a reason for not getting the 11" this year.

Battery vs Speed

I've ordered a 11' i7 but i see at the bottom of their tech specs page that all tests were performed with the i5 processor, I think I'll get less battery with the i7, can anybody tell if there is a real impact on i5 vs i7 speed?

I would rather get more battery life if speeds are the similar, now I'm using a MBP early 2011 with a 1TB 5400 hd so I guess I'll notice the difference.