2015 MBA i5 or i7?

[adam9c1]

I have a 2015 MBA i5 8GB 128 that's great.
I'm not the first owner and the machine has a few dings and the frame is tweaked. To keep it level I have a bottom case on it which sort of evens out the tweak where it sits flat.

I'm possibly in a search for another MBA. You see. I need a machine that will run Mojave to do my ACSP certification studies on. I'm totally torn as to what to do.
As I have a early 2012 MBP i7 8GB SATA SSD + SATA SSD (instead of the optical drive) that is in a very good condition for it's age. but sort of sluggish compared to the 2015 Air.

So if I do get another Air...
do I search for another i5 or will I feel a boost with the i7?
With my current AIR I use it mainly for web browsing.
I'm looking for something long term and thus maybe "future proofing" with the faster CPU makes sense?
On my 2015 Air I'm currently running 10.13 and I do notice the machine does struggle some rendering pages in Safari. It's not all that super snappy. The OS itself is great but I feel the bottleneck is the GPU.

Do I just suck it up and use my 2012 pre retina Pro for the ACSP studies? One PITA thing is carrying another power adapter brick (MagSafe vs MagSafe 2) and the extra weight... I did get used to the lightweight of the Air FAST and while I took good care of my machines I feel the AIR Needs case protection on the top to protect the LCD, and I NEED the bottom case to make MINE even.

CliFF:
Do I get another MBA and if so do I go i5 or i7 or do I suck it up and use my pre retina 2012 for studies?

 

[upandown]

I vote to get an i7 so it will run faster for longer since you're looking at a computer that's already a few years old. Also maybe wait and see what apples cheaper macbook is like this fall.

 

[adam9c1]

I know I don't have the budget for a brand new machine. Period.
Best Buy has a trade-in offer of $415 for this laptop with power adapter, I did have it "appraised" once and was told would not get any extra due to the dual SSD drives. I no longer have the optical drive as I tossed it out so basically I would turn it in as is and get perhaps little less.
I think I could get around $400 via craigslist but also weed through the scammers etc.

My take on whatever happens next with Apple budget notebook is either the 13" AIR gets axed and the 12" gets a speed bump and the current spec 12" is the budget laptop, or a 13" "new AIR" comes with "old style" prior to 2018 touchbar keyboard, or gets canned all together and we see something revolutionary - laptop iOS hybrid where it runs iOS but has a keyboard.... I just don't know.

I have a damn well taken care of 2012 MBP that I just sort of don't want to turn into ACSP study box that is at the end of its purposed life (I don't see a next-gen OS being supported by this thing).

And buying a brand new laptop is just out of the question.

Maybe I DO try to sell the 2012 pre retina i7?

I tend to hold on to machines for a long time and don't have massive funds for a big purchase but am able to do incremental upgrades.
[doublepost=1534394027][/doublepost]BTW I'm a big fan of that "vintage" keyboard...

I'm a tech geek and work as a support tech and I know eventually I'll HAVE TO progress to the new keyboard design by force, all of my current machines both at work and home have the "traditional" keyboard. Everytime I stop by the Apple store and test out typing on the new keyb it feels off..

The only computers that don't have the "classic" keyboard are my Win gaming box and my Win7 Dell laptop which I very rarely use (if I need the Microsoft Win10/BIOS experience).