I bought the 1.7 Ghz 13" MBA...

k3ith said:

but now I'm reading all of these posts in this forum stating that it's really a waste of money if you don't need the extra comp power.

I just figured I was future proofing my MBA (i did the same with the one I'm using right now that's from 2009), but I'm reading that it's going to heat up more than the 1.5 and potentially use the battery faster - how true are these claims?

Should I have just went for the 1.5 or is it not that noticeable of a difference?

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Did you ordered online or you have it with you already? can you post your battery readings with normal use?

No one seems to know this yet.

The i7 appears to be the most popular configuration for the vast majority of people posting on this forum who just ordered the 2013 Air.

<sarcasm font on> Therefore it must be better and Appl should have just dropped the i5 chip design altogether. </sarcasm font off>

ApplNat said:

No one seems to know this yet.

The i7 appears to be the most popular configuration for the vast majority of people posting on this forum who just ordered the 2013 Air.

<sarcasm font on> Therefore it must be better and Appl should have just dropped the i5 chip design altogether. </sarcasm font off>

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I guess everybody is waiting for the lab tests. I've ordered the same machine on June 10th and paid for the extra shipping but no email yet.

Did you ordered last Monday too? Free shipping?

k3ith said:

I ordered it the day it was announced, but paid the extra $14 for faster shipping.

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Same here, I guess the e-mail is coming soon, then I'll post my tests with the i7 for battery, heat, fan speed, etc and if not happy it will go back and I'll get the i5

I ordered my 13" Air (but the inferior i5 / 8 / 256) on Monday and got free expedited shipping upon calling Apple and changing my delivery address. I didn't ask for it, they just gave it to me. It should be here Monday morning if FedEx estimates are accurate.

k3ith said:

Should I have just went for the 1.5 or is it not that noticeable of a difference?

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Will make it easier for your sanity: Probaly won't notice it other than through benchmarks.

When I looked into this, most tests showed a SMALL extra drain in notebooks using i5 vs i7. The disclaimer here is that none of the tests I found were on Haswell machines.

For me the i7 came down to the future proofing element. If that extra cost gets me an extra 12-18 months of usability, the amortized cost of the machine comes down. This is exactly why my mid-09 MBP was purchased with the 2.53.

Don't let forum posts get you worried. I'm going to order the i7 13" with 8gb of RAM and 128gb ssd. It's about what YOU want out of your machine. Different strokes for different folks.

My preference is for higher CPU and RAM. I have network space at home to store things as needed, so any hard drive capacity beyond the baseline isn't a wise use of my money. The common 'wisdom' around here is the exact opposite, and that's cool too.

Just enjoy what you ordered and don't second guess yourself!

WoodNUFC said:

Don't let forum posts get you worried. I'm going to order the i7 13" with 8gb of RAM and 128gb ssd. It's about what YOU want out of your machine. Different strokes for different folks.

My preference is for higher CPU and RAM. I have network space at home to store things as needed, so any hard drive capacity beyond the baseline isn't a wise use of my money. The common 'wisdom' around here is the exact opposite, and that's cool too.

Just enjoy what you ordered and don't second guess yourself!

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Exactly. It only matters what you anticipate on doing with the machine. Don't forget that there's turbo boost up to 2.6 ghz if your computer needs it.

For me, the 1.3ghz number seems low, but frankly there's so little I do that needs higher CPU clock speed. The more important numbers to me are the RAM and the SSD capacity. And, of course, the battery life but that's a no brainer with the Haswell generation.

WoodNUFC said:

Don't let forum posts get you worried. I'm going to order the i7 13" with 8gb of RAM and 128gb ssd. It's about what YOU want out of your machine. Different strokes for different folks.

My preference is for higher CPU and RAM. I have network space at home to store things as needed, so any hard drive capacity beyond the baseline isn't a wise use of my money. The common 'wisdom' around here is the exact opposite, and that's cool too.

Just enjoy what you ordered and don't second guess yourself!

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You make many good points. My issue is that the applications I use would chew up so much space that 128GB would not cut it for me. And that is something people need to keep in mind - how much space will the applications themselves use up. 128GB will be enough for some people and some will need more.

ApplNat said:

I ordered my 13" Air (but the inferior i5 / 8 / 256) on Monday and got free expedited shipping upon calling Apple and changing my delivery address. I didn't ask for it, they just gave it to me. It should be here Monday morning if FedEx estimates are accurate.

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Mine is being shipped UPS and arrives tomorrow according to UPS i7/8/128

My critical question for the upgrade: "Does the $140 difference justify marginally higher benchmarks and will it actually provide an *observable* increase in speed to my daily tasks?"

My answer was an easy no. But, as others mentioned, to each their own. That being said, I believe the increase in battery life from the i5 outweighs the slight, observable performance increase the i7 might provide. Waiting an extra second or so for a sizable task to complete but having more battery life fits my needs.

Neeyul said:

My critical question for the upgrade: "Does the $140 difference justify marginally higher benchmarks and will it actually provide an *observable* increase in speed to my daily tasks?"

My answer was an easy no. But, as others mentioned, to each their own. That being said, I believe the increase in battery life from the i5 outweighs the slight, observable performance increase the i7 might provide. Waiting an extra second or so for a sizable task to complete but having more battery life fits my needs.

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Just following up on my take on time of ownership. If I thought I'd replace the machine in 3 years or so, I'd make the exact same assessment. In my case the slight compromise in battery life is worth the extra time of service. Never know when that slight difference from i5 to i7 will be what you need to squeak you into minimum resource territory down the road. Not a perfect analogy, but I remember one of our early Intel machines getting an early EOL due to C2D upgrade requirements and it being CD only. Not a perfect analogy to i5/i7 but worth mentioning.

There was a link to anadtech where they did some CPU testing on the 2012 MBA and when I saw that there was about a 16% increase in performance between the i5 and i7 models it was enough to convince me to go for the i7.

May not be noticeable all the time, but I'm a software developer and the need for speed - especially when compiling - never ends.

Should be here Monday or Tuesday - i7/8/512 ordered online the day they were announced. Got ship notice this morning just as I was about to go to the Apple store to see if they had them in stock.