Downgrade 2011 13" MBP to 2012 MBA?

[xchaotic]

Hi.

I have a 2011 MBP with aftermarket SSD (Vertex3) and 8GB of RAM and 2.7GHz i7 CPU.

I use the laptop for backend/enterprise development which includes writing emails and some coding and I'd say the CPU is hardly ever a bottleneck...

I would definitely welcome the more lightweight option and a few more pixels are also very welcome as I travel a lot and I think I can live with a tad slower CPU.

Do you think it's a sensible path - obviously the other alternative is to keep using my MBP but tempted to get something shiny for tax reasons and to reward myself for another year of hard work...

 

[Vctr]

Hi.

I have a 2011 MBP with aftermarket SSD (Vertex3) and 8GB of RAM and 2.7GHz i7 CPU.

I use the laptop for backend/enterprise development which includes writing emails and some coding and I'd say the CPU is hardly ever a bottleneck...

I would definitely welcome the more lightweight option and a few more pixels are also very welcome as I travel a lot and I think I can live with a tad slower CPU.

Do you think it's a sensible path - obviously the other alternative is to keep using my MBP but tempted to get something shiny for tax reasons and to reward myself for another year of hard work...

Most people would probably argue with you and say that it will be an upgrade rather than a downgrade

 

[mpaquette]

I have a 2011 MBP with a Samsung 830 SSD, 8GB RAM and a 2.7GHz i7 CPU. I'll be ordering a 2012 MBA with all the goodies (i7, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD). I mainly use my MBP for email, web browsing and running some Windows apps in VMware Fusion for work. I seriously doubt that I'm going to noticed a difference between the 2.7GHz in the MBP and the 2.0GHz in the MBA. The rest is probably a wash. On the plus side, I'll be gaining a slightly higher resolution screen, more SSD space and a much more portable laptop. So I'm considering it an upgrade.

 

[whtrbt7]

Yeah, that's an upgrade for sure. 2012 MBA is wicked fast even with the 11 inch base version. I would still supe up the 11 inch with 8GB of RAM though as well as a 512GB SSD. For coding and emails, that would be a much better fit. Hell, I code on an iPad so this should be much easier/better on a 2012 MBA.

 

[xchaotic]

Yeah, somehow I missed the 2.0GHz BTO option - it only appears on the 256GB SSD variant - too bad as I wanted to keep the costs down.
When comparing to the 2GHz MBA it is a very slight upgrade indeed, even CPU-wise! - at least according to Geekbench - http://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks

 

[whtrbt7]

Yeah, the single logic board is reason enough to get an MBA. If you don't need much space, even the $999 MBA is an awesome machine. I just like to have more RAM most times so I can run more apps at once. Then again, I do graphics and video so my needs are decently heavy.

 

[xchaotic]

Yeah, that's an upgrade for sure. 2012 MBA is wicked fast even with the 11 inch base version. I would still supe up the 11 inch with 8GB of RAM though as well as a 512GB SSD. For coding and emails, that would be a much better fit. Hell, I code on an iPad so this should be much easier/better on a 2012 MBA.

Wow now that you mentioned it, I see that 11" has the 2GHz BTO option too!!!
I think I'll get that instead and eye surgery with the spare change