2011 11" MBA to 2015 12" rMB...

[Eggtastic]

So its been roughly 4 years since I obtained my 11" MBA. It runs great, no problems (minus the charger cable which has worn out, I can always snag a new one) AND the battery life is terrible. Standard usage is 2.5 hours with normal web browsing. I went to see the new rMB first hand. Wow, beautiful machine.

My plan is to obviously sell the 11" MBA and upgrade to the 12" rMB. This will be my main machine, and I don't need a processor-heavy computer. I want one of those new ultra wide screen monitors, but worry the rMB won't be able to process it. I also am hearing that next year the rev 2 will bring even better battery life and faster processor. Anyone else go from the air to the rMB? I found a thread or two but nothing past that, so I figured I bring this up. Also, if it is your main machine, does it handle well, and do you pair it with a display and other accessories?

Thanks

 

[zhenya]

My wife has that same model Air that she uses every day. I too have used it extensively, and I have the rMB. I'm sure that the next revision will bring improvements, but I doubt it will be substantial in either power efficiency or raw computing power. In any case, the chip itself is only a small portion of the overall power use, so even some magical 20% reduction in power use in the next generation would only improve battery life by 5-10%, or a half-hour to hour, tops.

Most of those ultra wide monitors aren't actually pushing a huge number of pixels, so the rMB can probably drive it, as it is capable of 4k@30hz from the HDMI port. Do you have one in mind?

For most activities, the rMB is every bit as fast as my wife's Air, some things considerably faster. There is some more lag in the Yosemite animations and in scrolling some web pages, but I would expect to see that rectified with El Capitan as Apple adapts OS X to hardware that is less CPU-capable.

 

[Queen6]

Need now, buy now, better is always around the corner...

2011 Air vs. 2015 Retina Macbook, new MacBook is significantly better on multiple levels, equally there are trade off`s for the extreme ultraportable form factor.

Q-6

 

[Eggtastic]

Yeah true. I understand the trade offs, but for my needs it will be fine. Battery life could have been a bit better though haha.