2010 13" 2.4 C2D to 2013 Macbook Air

[MacR5]

Hi Everyone,

I could use some advice - my wife is using a 2010 13" 2.4ghz C2D, which I have upgraded to 8GB of RAM and a 240GB SSD. She plugs into a 24" monitor while at home but is on the road a fair amount as well so portability is a factor.

I'm curious, assuming I get her an i5 MBA with similar size SSD and RAM, will there be much of a performance difference with the new processors and chipsets? Her primary tasks are lots of email, lots of tabs in Chrome/Safari with Youtube, Netflix and Hulu running, occasional photo editing, word docs, video viewing. She tends to keep quite a number of programs/tabs/emails open at one time.

Attributes such as the lighter weight, long battery life, nice form-factor, will certainly help - but if it's mostly a lateral move than I may save the money and upgrade next year or the year after.

Thank you all for your input!

 

[Buck987]

Is the present set-up sluggish?

 

[MacR5]

Not particularly. It does hang a bit when using expose from time to time or switching between spaces. That said, it's 3 years old, if I get a new computer, I want it to last 3+ years and hence the questions about performance.

 

[yosemit]

It would double the CPU performance. Geek benchmarks score here:
http://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks

MacBook Air (13-inch Late 2010), Intel Core 2 Duo L9600 2130 MHz (2 cores) 1188
MacBook Air (13-inch Mid 2013) Intel Core i5-4250U 1300 MHz (2 cores) 2366

Note the i5 is marked as 1.3GHz but it boosts to 2.6GHz.

 

[MacR5]

Awesome, thank you for the reply!

Any idea if the machine will be snappier running at 27" screen at 2560x1440? Her current machine's still pretty decent but not super smooth.

 

[WillFisher]

I went from a 2010 13" 2.4ghz to a 13" Air, 1.3/256/8

This thing I would not trade for anything. Its light, super quick and does its job in every way.
Mine personally ran my standard 1920x1080 monitor a little better, its now 100% smooth as apposed to 99%, so quite possibly will run smoother!
Hope this helps!

 

[MacR5]

Awesome, thanks Will!

 

[calvol]

Unless you really need to open apps a couple of secs quicker, I would hang on the 2010 Air, and upgrade next year, when there will most likely be a significantly redesigned Air--- rumored 12" with IGZO screen, DDR4 memory, smaller bezels, Broadwell chip, and Thunderbolt II. I have a 2010 running fine with a Dell 24" display, hang on to it a while longer.

 

[alphaod]

My mother had a 2010 13" MacBook Pro; the issue was for photo editing it was getting slow, and it had a traditional HDD, so it wasn't terribly responsive all the time.

I gave her a 2012 13" Retina MacBook Pro (i7 3.0GHz/8GB RAM/512GB SSD) as an upgrade. I no longer get complaints and service calls.

 

[MacR5]

I think this is all good advice.

I upgraded her MBP with an SSD and that made all the beach balls go away and had a huge impact on performance. I think she'll be able to make it another year, until the next Airs are released. Sounds like those will be sweet, I may pick one up for myself as well.

 

[Miltz]

I think it's worth the Upgrade. You'll see 3 time the performance increase when the system is stressed. Buy it today or tomorrow to save money. Best Buy has awesome deals.

 

[Buck987]

3 years is pretty good turnover...I would go for it. Your present system is not likely to get any faster.