Anyone Upgrade from 2013 to 2015 11" MBA?

[jmoore5196]

I have a full-spec 2013 11" MBA that has served me well. Like many of you, I'm fearful the 11" has seen its last upgrade.

I'm just wondering if anyone's upgraded from a similar machine to the new 2015 edition? If so, can you tell a real-world difference in speed?

 

[Manzana]

so I had a 2013 11" MBA that I had no complaint with (except for SSD size). It was the bottom end 4gb ram 128gb ssd. I kept wanting to upgrade ssd and finally decided to just sell it for $500 and I bought a maxed out 2015 11" MBA for $1200 on ebay. Love the new computer, 8gb ram, 512gb ssd, 2.2 i7. A bonus is that the 512 ssd controller is the same as the 2015 13" ssd, I confirmed by running Blackmagicdesign speed test and got 1400 MB/s read/write.

Now for the comparison. The 2015 gets warmer and the battery does not last as long. I needed it for the ssd so that part is all good but I cannot tell much difference in speed! Granted, I do nothing intensive and hardly ever connect my laptop to anything, expect for power every 2-3 days.

 

[jmoore5196]

By how much would you estimate battery life has decreased? Great feedback ... Thanks!

 

[Manzana]

You know, I wish I had done battery test. It is just subjective, it doesn't seem to last as long. Could be the extra ram, or faster processor...screen is the same. One more thing I just thought about though, on my 2015 11" air I have only run it under El Capitan.

 

[motrek]

You know, I wish I had done battery test. It is just subjective, it doesn't seem to last as long. Could be the extra ram, or faster processor...screen is the same. One more thing I just thought about though, on my 2015 11" air I have only run it under El Capitan.

The 2015 model has a Broadwell processor (vs. Haswell) which should take 30% less power under load and result in longer battery life under load.

If your 2015 model is getting hotter and not lasting as long, it's probably worth it to investigate with Activity Monitor. Something sounds like it's amiss.

 

[Manzana]

yeah, it's probably the fresh install of El Capitan

 

[Significant1]

I think it is more that you switched from i5 to i7. The i7 is more unrestricted than the i5. I have the previous maxed out 11" and it also get warm and has worse batteri-life than i5. When I am not pushing it for all it got, I am using Turbo Boost Switcher. To keep it cool: http://www.rugarciap.com/turbo-boost-switcher-for-os-x/

The effect on heat is quite noticeable, so I guess batterlife will be too. It disable turbo boost and restrict to 1.7GHz as max in my case (2.2GHz in yours). It somewhat defeat the purpose of paying extra for the power of the i7 though..

 

[t0rr3s]

Thinking of getting this as an upgrade on my 11" mid-2012. Worth it, guys? On the refurbished store for US$1.2k

>> 11inch, 1.7ghZ i7 512GB 8GB

It's meant mainly to be a work computer, ferried around from work to home and also on holidays. Could really do with extra power as I edit videos on FCPX and do Lightroom processing quite often at work. At home, I have the behemoth that is the Mac Pro 3,1 to do any heavy lifting.

 

[Boyd01]

I have the 2013 11" i7/8gb/512gb MBA. No interest whatsoever in upgrading. I can't imagine that it would be worth it.