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flynz4

macrumors 68040
Aug 9, 2009
3,242
126
Portland, OR
Double? You're dreaming.

I know, I've upgraded nearly every time a new chip is released & implemented in a new MBP. They never live up to the marketing hype. It's just a fact of life and not a knock on Apple or Intel. They've got a job to do and Apple is the master at marketing. They can sell anything, how do you think they generate the billions they do, by convincing people they've got to have it at all costs.

When one keeps it in perspective it's no surprise, nor is it disappointing.
It's just a fact of life, and it's only a computer.

Then I'm a good dreamer. Ive have '09, '10, '11, 12 and now '13 MBAs. This one is about double any of them. It's the first laptop that I never needed to worry about charging during a normal day. I just charge it at night... like my iPhone.

/Jim
 

Booji

macrumors 6502a
Nov 17, 2011
790
516
Tokyo
What does Chrome do that Safari doesn't that causes it to be more power-hungry?

I'd love to know. I use the coconut battery app and when I use Chrome, the power consumption zooms up. Safari is very efficient. Somebody told me that Chrome treats each tab as a full running instance running in background all the time, while Safari only runs the open tab.
 

Booji

macrumors 6502a
Nov 17, 2011
790
516
Tokyo
Today I ran my 11" all day....at the end of the day there was no heat at all...practically room temperature - the metal even felt cold. Haswell is really amazing!
 

w00d

macrumors member
Sep 14, 2010
92
0
I'm interested in the real world battery life. A fact that's hard to discover since most people who buy one will naturally make rather exaggerated claims. There's so many variables when it comes to battery life, we are all unique in our usage. Short of just jumping in and spending thousands to find out, it's a crapshoot.

Compared to the 2012 MBA 1.8 that I had... the 2013 MBA 1.7 is giving me twice the battery life. Maybe a little more.
 

Aylan

macrumors regular
Jun 3, 2013
165
1
Boston
What does Chrome do that Safari doesn't that causes it to be more power-hungry?

-Chrome has Flash, Safari does not.
-Safari is heavily optimized for Apple hardware and the OS it ships with.
-Different tab management.
-Chrome has terrible resource management!

I just tested the last item. I opened Safari and Chrome and had 4 tabs open on each, all to the same sites (CNN, Facebook, Macrumors, MacNN) Chrome is sitting at around 70% CPU usage (app is in the background) while Safari is at around 20%.

Chrome sucks!!
 

HarryWarden

macrumors 6502a
Oct 27, 2012
608
121
-Chrome has Flash, Safari does not.
-Safari is heavily optimized for Apple hardware and the OS it ships with.
-Different tab management.
-Chrome has terrible resource management!

I just tested the last item. I opened Safari and Chrome and had 4 tabs open on each, all to the same sites (CNN, Facebook, Macrumors, MacNN) Chrome is sitting at around 70% CPU usage (app is in the background) while Safari is at around 20%.

Chrome sucks!!

I don't see why anyone would use Chrome personally unless you own a Chromebook and are forced to. Firefox seems like a better alternative if you don't like Safari. The number of extensions on Firefox far outnumbers those on Chrome.
 

Mike in Kansas

macrumors 6502a
Sep 2, 2008
962
74
Metro Kansas City
A single sample fails to prove anything.

Well, you don't seem to want to believe 3rd party reviews, me or the other posters (w00d, flynz4) anyway, so I guess all that my single sample appears to prove is that you are just contentious. I really don't care if you believe me or not; it's your loss. I'll just be content in experiencing my 2X battery life on my 2013 MBA compared to my 2012 and you can be content in your stubbornness.
 

Booji

macrumors 6502a
Nov 17, 2011
790
516
Tokyo
i5 or i7?

its i5 8GB

----------

I don't see why anyone would use Chrome personally unless you own a Chromebook and are forced to. Firefox seems like a better alternative if you don't like Safari. The number of extensions on Firefox far outnumbers those on Chrome.

I just love chrome and its hard to stay away - its fast, has clean and simple interface, great extensions and best of all the sync across all of my devices (work Windoze PC, iPad, iPhone, Mac)
 

w00d

macrumors member
Sep 14, 2010
92
0
I don't see why anyone would use Chrome personally unless you own a Chromebook and are forced to. Firefox seems like a better alternative if you don't like Safari. The number of extensions on Firefox far outnumbers those on Chrome.

I'm just glad we have several really good browsers to choose from. They all have pros and cons.
 

Spacial

macrumors 6502
Aug 29, 2013
463
0
it's your loss. I'll just be content in experiencing my 2X battery life on my 2013 MBA compared to my 2012 and you can be content in your stubbornness.
I don't understand your desire to assume. My 2012 has been just fine. Perhaps you only read part of my original post then assumed the rest. Or maybe you just like violating forum rules so you can make it personal.

----------

I'm just glad we have several really good browsers to choose from. They all have pros and cons.

True

Chrome works best for me. Fast reliable and loads of great extensions. Far better than safari.
 

AXs

macrumors 6502a
Sep 7, 2009
515
2
when I'm plugged in, I use chrome.

But through out the day I use Safari and Click2flash. It really prolongs my battery life, plus I just like the swipe back and forward motion, and the zooming motion is better. But most importantly, less power as it is OS X native.


As for regards to battery life in general, the 2013 Air can surely get 2x of the 2012 model. The overall consumption of the 2013 model is lower than the 2012 model - especially at higher clock speeds. So even if Peak usage of 2012 is 7 hours vs 12 hours on 2013, for good medium usage it will be 5 hours vs 10 hours - which is double.

I don't know why 2012 users would be offended by that. Of course new technology is going to surpass the older one.
THAT is what the 'big deal' is, with Haswell - or with newer technology in general.
 

jdechko

macrumors 601
Jul 1, 2004
4,230
325
It really reflects the fact that processor power has outstripped our need for it. Most modern programs can run on earlier generation processors just fine.

Well said.

even with just 1.3ghz/4gb ram - which is apple's default for the air, it can run photoshop, logic pro, edit videos, and play mid-level intensive games with the new HD5000.

Pretty much mirrors my usage on my base 11" Air, with some 3D modeling thrown in there. Just my observation, I occasionally check Page Outs and was at 480Mb of writes after 29 days of uptime. That tells me that 4GB is enough for what I do.

I don't see why anyone would use Chrome personally unless you own a Chromebook and are forced to. Firefox seems like a better alternative if you don't like Safari. The number of extensions on Firefox far outnumbers those on Chrome.

I use Chrome as my "flash" browser. I don't have the standalone flash plugin installed, so when I come across a webpage in Safari that needs flash, I'm able to open that page in Chrome. Also, Safari has an issue with certificates on a web page I need for work, so I use Chrome for that too.
 
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