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1.1 Core M or 4GB - which is more limiting?

K

koshper

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 6, 2007
74
0
I'm considering either the entry rMB or the entry 13 MBA but was wondering which of their 2 main spec limitations would present themselves as issues sooner/more often.

Use would be heavy web browsing with multiple tabs, MS Office, YouTube, very basic iPhoto and iMovie use for family vids from iPhone 6 etc

I'm willing to ignore for now the weight, keyboard, ports, battery life, screen size, SSD size etc since that's all another issue altogether!

My preferred supplier only offers these models as entry spec so unfortunately 8GB Air/1.3 Core M aren't an option and the 13 MBP just feels too thick and heavy for me these days.

What's everybody's thoughts?

Thanks
 
I personally think you will value 8GB RAM and the retina display on rMB based on the activities you described.
 
For now, the core m is far behind the i5.
https://www.macrumors.com/2015/04/01/retina-macbook-benchmark-performance/
From the reviews I have seen so far, the core m does noticably not perform as well as the i5.

RAM on the other hand is irrelevant, until you run out.

What will become limiting sooner is fortune telling.
It think both have an equal chance of becoming limiting.

Rule of thumb is, that for your usage, both should work fine.
Maybe wait for some more reviews, before you decide.
 
If the question is 4GB vs. Core M, for the uses you describe, I'm not sure either is going to be meaningfully better, honestly. I spent half an hour fiddling with the rMB at a local store yesterday. One of the things I did was to load up a dozen tabs with 1080p YouTube videos, then open Excel, Word and iMovie with available files. It wasn't a perfect test by any means but the machine was a better use experience than the i5/4GB MBA 11" I had last month. Whether it would actually test as well or better is a different question, but not every difference that's measurable is meaningful.

TLDR: probably doesn't matter for your purposes...make the decision on another basis, like the retina display?
 
newellj said:
One of the things I did was to load up a dozen tabs with 1080p YouTube videos, then open Excel, Word and iMovie with available files. It wasn't a perfect test by any means but the machine was a better use experience than the i5/4GB MBA 11" I had last month.
Click to expand...

I did almost the exact same test. I opened up the tabs and started playing you tube videos. I then opened up all the other apps including GarageBand and Photos and started switching between them and working on different tasks. I fully believe that only folks who edit videos and RAW photos will have a hard time with this machine. The RAM is clearly doing its job and masking the performance hit of the Core M. Apples not stupid. There's a reason this has 8GB RAM standard.
 
Thank you all for your quick responses.

It's great to hear your personal experience presented no issues with the performance on the rMB.

My last performance factor is I tried out the base 2015 11 MBA and one of the biggest things I was most impressed with was how cool the machine remained whilst I did all this.

I hear some reviews saying the rMB gets 'warm'. Not a deal breaker since nobody's saying it gets very hot but there's something satisfying about the metal remaining ice cool under my usage. Maybe it's the fact it makes me think it's handling everything effortlessly.

This is probably something I'll only know once I've got it. Although either way the display is going to be hard to say no to I'm sure.

Thanks again
 
pdutta2000 said:
I did almost the exact same test. I opened up the tabs and started playing you tube videos. I then opened up all the other apps including GarageBand and Photos and started switching between them and working on different tasks. I fully believe that only folks who edit videos and RAW photos will have a hard time with this machine. The RAM is clearly doing its job and masking the performance hit of the Core M. Apples not stupid. There's a reason this has 8GB RAM standard.
Click to expand...

Now if only they will introduce a 128GB model for $999-1099
 
From my experience with using a 1.1GHz model in the store for about an hour is that it's unexpectedly capable of running multiple things at once including iMovie, Aperture, iTunes and Safari without any noticeable choppiness. I was pleasantly surprised to say the least. I'm not at all worried that I went for the 1.2GHz model instead of the 1.3GHz now. Apple could have put 16GB just to be safe which won't impact battery life like a more powerful processor, but unfortunately they didn't. 8GB is enough for most users on the go.
 
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