Advice for Macbook air 11" 2012 model

[s1t0]

I think I will buy the 11" inch MBA and I think I will go for the core i7 and expan the ram to 8GB are these things worth it ? I will pay 150 and 100 extra for those things, will they be necessary ? Im doing this because I love portability of the MBA and sometimes I want to play good games(this is not really important) and do some simple things in illustrator and dreamweaver. Will I be satisfied ? PLEASE. Someone help me thanks

PD:Is there a big difference between core i5 and core i7?

 

[hardax]

8gb of memory is a must in my opinion. From looking at your list of things you want to do with it, have you considered the 13". Illustrator on the 11" seems painful in my opinion. I dont see you getting a lot out of an i7 compared to the i5.

 

[LaWally]

Upgrade to 8GB - highly recommended, especially since you cannot upgrade after the fact

Upgrade to i7 - coin flip. You are paying about 10% of the overall MBA price for about a 10% improvement in geekbench score, which is an overall measure of relative system performance. Disclaimer: Take geekbench scores for what they are worth.

And on a personal note:

Upgrade to 13" - recommended, but this is a highly personal issue. Many people love their 11" MBA, but I find the increased vertical space on the 13" to be invaluable.

 

[paulrbeers]

I generally see little benefit from processor upgrades. Unless you are taxing the processor a lot (i.e. doing a lot of video encoding) your processor will probably rarely run at 100% anyway which means the extra 10% in speed goes unused. And if you think the processor upgrade will somehow future proof you, I hate to break it to you that when your laptop becomes too "old and slow", 10% faster processor isn't going to make much of a difference.

Memory on the other hand, totally worth it. 4GB is minimum at this point especially since Lion can use 2GB just for the OS. That only leaves you 2GB worth of memory for day to day tasks. That's not a lot (probably enough if all you do is surf the internet and check your email). 8GB is getting to be a must anymore. I have a 2011 Macbook Air and I wish it had 8GB....