Another... which MacBook?

[Killerbob]

I currently am using a MacBook Air mid-2012. It was the Air Daddy of its time; 13", 2GHz i7, 8GB RAM, 250GB SSD. I love the portability, it is however a bit slow for what I now need to do with my laptop; I am using Office 2011, run Lync all the time, as well as MS RDP. Also I most of the time have a Win7 Parallels VM running. In Win7 I have MS 2014 with Outlook and Excel running, in addition to some helpdesk software etc. Especially when I use big spreadsheets it feels rather sluggish... Really sluggish😡

So I am ready to go out and buy a new laptop, and I am torn between the latest of the greatest MacBook Air 13" or a fully configured MacBook Pro 13".

The MBA would be:

13", 1.7GHz i7, 8GB RAM, 512GB PCIe storage.

The MBP would be:

13", 3GHz i7, 16GB RAM, 512GB PCIe storage.

I know the 15" MBP would give me the Quad-core i7, but I just can't go back to 15". I like the portability too much.

So, would the MBA suffice, or do I need the juice of the MBP?

Price is not a consideration, this is for work...

 

[Meister]

In Win7 I have MS 2014 with Outlook and Excel running, in addition to some helpdesk software etc. Especially when I use big spreadsheets it feels rather sluggish... Really sluggish😡

Excel hasn't changed much over the last 25 years or so. How can it be sluggish?

I think someone should sue MS. 😡

Both of your options will work fine. Take your pick.

 

[Killerbob]

I don't know. It is however really slow in updating Excel when I open up the spreadsheets in Win7/Excel 2014. In Parallels I have assigned 1 CPU, 4GB RAM, and 512MB Video memory, to the VM... If I open up the spreadsheets in OSX/Excel 2011 they are faster, but still slowish.

So I am thinking it has to do with the CPU/RAM, and hence I am ready to upgrade. But how much more am I actually getting with the 2014 MBA i7 vs my ol' trusty 2012 MBA i7? And, how about against the 2014 MBP i7, which is still only Dual-core, but has a much higher speed, and twice the RAM.

 

[capathy21]

The MBA would be:

13", 1.7GHz i7, 8GB RAM, 512GB PCIe storage.

The MBP would be:

13", 3GHz i7, 16GB RAM, 512GB PCIe storage.


Price is not a consideration, this is for work...

Since price is not a consideration, I have to recommend the rMBP. Far superior display, more power, more ram, and smaller footprint which to me makes it even more portable.

Yes the battery is better in the MBA by 3 hours or so but honestly 9 hours is pretty damn good. While the MBA is nice, the rMBP is superior in most ways.

 

[Meister]

I don't know. It is however really slow in updating Excel when I open up the spreadsheets in Win7/Excel 2014. In Parallels I have assigned 1 CPU, 4GB RAM, and 512MB Video memory, to the VM... If I open up the spreadsheets in OSX/Excel 2011 they are faster, but still slowish.

So I am thinking it has to do with the CPU/RAM, and hence I am ready to upgrade. But how much more am I actually getting with the 2014 MBA i7 vs my ol' trusty 2012 MBA i7? And, how about against the 2014 MBP i7, which is still only Dual-core, but has a much higher speed, and twice the RAM.

I apologize for going a bit off topic here, but excel has no ram or cpu requirements whatsoever.
That Programm is as basic as it gets.

I always find it curious when people with strong recent machines have problems running ridiculous apps like excel or word that used to run perfectly snappy on any pentium with 8mb ram and no dgpu.

either the devs who write the new OSs and apps must be on crack or your macbook is already broken.

 

[leman]

I always find it curious when people with strong recent machines have problems running ridiculous apps like excel or word that used to run perfectly snappy on any pentium with 8mb ram and no dgpu.

either the devs who write the new OSs and apps must be on crack or your macbook is already broken.

Well, as computers get faster, the software also gets more abstract. E.g. in OS X, the UI applications have tons of complicated indirections, but it allows one to quickly write very powerful and flexible software.

I do agree with you that poor performance on Excel-like applications is inexcusable. That's just laziness.

 

[Killerbob]

@Meister; I completely agree, and if I wasn't experiencing this myself, I'd chuck it down to DFU errors. I know it has something to do with the juice in the VM, and of course it being MS 2014, which is a resource hog. Also, excuse me for not clarifying this earlier, when I run the spreadsheets in Excel 2014, the VM is using RAM like crazy; 1.25GB for kernel_task, 900MB for prl_vm_app, and the usual array of necessary Windows utilities. In OSX I am running stuff as well, my physical memory of 8GB is 100% utilised, and OSX is starting to use Swap.

I am hoping VM Win7 will be better with Parallels 10, and will probably go to Win8.1 then.

As for the choice to be made, I am hearing rMBP... I am liking that it has two TB2 connections. This means I can use one for my HP Z27i (or the HDMI connector) and the other for my external LaCie TB SSD.

With the graphics engine on that puppy, the Intel Iris Graphics, would I be able to use it for decent gaming in BootCamped Win8.1?