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First Mac product - Get now or wait?

stu.h

stu.h

macrumors 65816
Original poster
May 8, 2010
1,386
582
West Midlands, England.
As a PC user, but massive Apple fan (Got iPad 2, 4S and ATV2) I find myself wanting a MBA.

I have not really used a Mac, due to the fact of that I would want one if I used one I thought.

Long story short, partners mum bought a 21" iMac and ended up helping them out with a few things that I could (I work in IT), and WOW, how good are they :) :(

They bought the magic pad (I think its called) and its awesome. As well as all the other things that come with OSX.

My pal bought an 11" MBA and he bought that round, I thought it would be a lot smaller than it was, but its awesome, perfect portability.

So I'm thinking of replacing my iPad 2 with a MBA 11" and getting a thunderbolt 27" display for use when I'm sitting at my desk (also to get GB ethernet etc).

I want to go out now and purchase an 11" MBA, but should I wait? Ive done long enough without an Mac and with the Ivy Bridge processors from Intel out shortly would it be best to wait?

I know I wont lose £££ by upgrading (and I would HAVE to upgrade) but I'm not sure what to do...

How much am I expecting to lose if a new release comes out in April/May?

Dilemma ........................ :rolleyes:

Thanks for your help fellow Apple devotees :D
 
I will anticipate a release this summer to this fall. Intel's Ivy Bridge CPUs are coming this April. If you want it get it now. My Macbook air is a work laptop so I'm not too concerned about it getting outdated. My desktop has a Core i5 with a GeForce GTX 470- plenty o' power for gaming!

Intel follows a tick tock strategy. Ivy bridge will be a more refined version of Sandy Bridge so it will only be a slight improvement. The HD 4000 graphics will be the most significant update, but this is an ultra book. Not for gaming :/ so not that big of a deal for me anyway.

I would say just get the 13" MBA. For $100 more (or maybe it applies to the UK too for pounds, not too sure for pricing) you get a bigger screen and bigger battery. As well as an SD card slot. I've done dual screening for desktops. Trust me it's way annoying to have a small screen paired with a large screen. That 11" screen is going to be annoying when you need to look over to the 27" screen.
 
lolwut89 said:
I will anticipate a release this summer to this fall. Intel's Ivy Bridge CPUs are coming this April. If you want it get it now. My Macbook air is a work laptop so I'm not too concerned about it getting outdated. My desktop has a Core i5 with a GeForce GTX 470- plenty o' power for gaming!

Intel follows a tick tock strategy. Ivy bridge will be a more refined version of Sandy Bridge so it will only be a slight improvement. The HD 4000 graphics will be the most significant update, but this is an ultra book. Not for gaming :/ so not that big of a deal for me anyway.

I would say just get the 13" MBA. For $100 more (or maybe it applies to the UK too for pounds, not too sure for pricing) you get a bigger screen and bigger battery. As well as an SD card slot. I've done dual screening for desktops. Trust me it's way annoying to have a small screen paired with a large screen. That 11" screen is going to be annoying when you need to look over to the 27" screen.
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I wont be using dual screen. Either the MBA or the 27". Not both. Yeh its approximately £100 more for the 13", but the 11" is more portable and has a higher PPI.


miles01110 said:
What does this even mean? You don't lose anything. How does an upgrade by Apple affect the amount of money in your wallet? It doesn't.
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Products usually depreciate when a newer model comes out.
 
Its easy

If you want it now buy it now and enjoy it.
Any kind of upgrade is still months away and if you buy it then it will also be "outdated" a few months later.

I love my late 2010 MBA 11" hooked up to an ACD 24", my iPad1 and my 2007 iPod classic. They are all yesteryear models, but do everything I want them to do.
 
Same thing I was wondering, buy now or wait. My current MacBook is 6 years old and still provides what I need but things are starting to not work properly and I need to replace it. I could hold off and hope it does not completely quit working but I am getting a new MacBook Air NOW. Sure, there is probably goinog to be a update several months from now but the way I look at it is that several months from them there will be another. Electronics are outdated what seems as if almost as soon as you buy them anymore. If you want it I say go for it, enjoy it now. There is always going to be something better around the corner but if you keep waiting you will end up with nothing or wondering if you should wait again. Its not worth it unless we are talking about maybe a week to a month and I really don't see anything coming that soon. Good luck with your decision, I made mine and I am going to enjoy my new MacBook Air ASAP! :D
 
MattZani said:
http://store.apple.com/uk/product/FC969B/A

But I'd recommend going for the 1.8Ghz i7 and 256Gb SSD.
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An i7? For what? The phrase that goes around here is "an i7 is 10% faster!" but that isnt true. An i7 is UP TO 10% faster at something like video encoding. For every non-CPU intensive normal process the i7 wont actually be any (noticeably) faster than the i5. Id then say that if your work revolves around video encoding a ULV processor isnt what you should be doing all your work on anyway.

I'd rather save £100 or whatever it is than buy an i7 on a MBA.
 
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Xikum said:
An i7? For what? The phrase that goes around here is "an i7 is 10% faster!" but that isnt true. An i7 is UP TO 10% faster at something like video encoding. For every non-CPU intensive normal process the i7 wont actually be any (noticeably) faster than the i5. Id then say that if your work revolves around video encoding a ULV processor isnt what you should be doing all your work on anyway.

I'd rather save £100 or whatever it is than buy an i7 on a MBA.
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Hmm, £100 and you get .2ghz higher standard clock speed, a better architecture, and a higher speed boost clock speed. On a CPU that uses less power to do the same tasks as the i5, and was proven to run cooler. In the future that could be the difference between running the latest OS and not, if you can afford it, you may as well max these machines, you cannot upgrade the CPU or RAM, and the SSD is costly.

Also, see my sig? I use it to edit 30mb RAW files, and 1080p 24fps video for my Photography Degree. It is my only machine. It handles it fine, yes a higher powered machine may do it quicker, but it never slows down or stutters, and I just leave it to render overnight. The SSD easily handles being a scratch disk too, I'd rather use my MBA than the Uni's 2.4Ghz C2D iMacs for my work, its just quicker. Before you comment on what you should and shouldn't do on a machine, try it for yourself. Unlucky you decided to comment on it with someone who actually uses it for serious work. /rant.
 
MattZani said:
Hmm, £100 and you get .2ghz higher standard clock speed, a better architecture, and a higher speed boost clock speed. On a CPU that uses less power to do the same tasks as the i5, and was proven to run cooler. In the future that could be the difference between running the latest OS and not, if you can afford it, you may as well max these machines, you cannot upgrade the CPU or RAM, and the SSD is costly.

Also, see my sig? I use it to edit 30mb RAW files, and 1080p 24fps video for my Photography Degree. It is my only machine. It handles it fine, yes a higher powered machine may do it quicker, but it never slows down or stutters, and I just leave it to render overnight. The SSD easily handles being a scratch disk too, I'd rather use my MBA than the Uni's 2.4Ghz C2D iMacs for my work, its just quicker. Before you comment on what you should and shouldn't do on a machine, try it for yourself. Unlucky you decided to comment on it with someone who actually uses it for serious work. /rant.
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.2Ghz clock speed increase is not noticeable. Its a number that means essentially noting. The i7s and i5s use the same architecture (Sandy bridge). They both have a TDP of 17W, and the i7 does certainly not run cooler. So about everything you said in your first paragraph is wrong. You should not max something just because you can afford it; you should examine what you are going to use the machine for, and then pick parts which are appropriate for the job. Spending money just for the sake of it is an absolutely terrible idea.

Thats great that you can render on your MacBook Air, I never denied it. But a professional who needs to do rendering quickly would not be using a ULV processor. It just isnt time efficient. I never denied you could do it overnight, but thats the point; you have to leave it on overnight.

Also saying you would rather use your 2nd gen i5 laptop over a C2D iMac rather stating the obvious.
 
An Apple computer is a retail product, it is NOT an investment, you will always lose money on it whatever way around you cut it there is no avoiding that fact.

Stop procrastinating, IF you want a new computer, buy a new computer, if you want an investment, buy gold. :)
 
Xikum said:
.2Ghz clock speed increase is not noticeable. Its a number that means essentially noting. The i7s and i5s use the same architecture (Sandy bridge). They both have a TDP of 17W, and the i7 does certainly not run cooler. So about everything you said in your first paragraph is wrong. You should not max something just because you can afford it; you should examine what you are going to use the machine for, and then pick parts which are appropriate for the job. Spending money just for the sake of it is an absolutely terrible idea.

Thats great that you can render on your MacBook Air, I never denied it. But a professional who needs to do rendering quickly would not be using a ULV processor. It just isnt time efficient. I never denied you could do it overnight, but thats the point; you have to leave it on overnight.

Also saying you would rather use your 2nd gen i5 laptop over a C2D iMac rather stating the obvious.
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Yes but the i7 turbo boosts to a higher speed, and when running the same task the i7 runs cooler as it is using less of its total power, its only a couple of degrees but this was proven when they came out by users who had both.

Maxing is the best way to future proof, sure buying what you need for now seems like a good idea, but what about 3 years down the line? Maybe you need a bit more power, or more storage? You're stuck with the Mac you needed 2 years ago. No ones ever complained that they had too much money, that some was left over just doing nothing, but people complain every day about not having enough.

I wasn't saying it was perfect, but right up until rendering it is perfectly usable, and even on a quad core i7 in an iMac it would still take a few hours to render, its not something that matters, most rendering is done during downtime anyway, no one waits for a render to finish, it takes too long, always will, speeds go up, but so will file size.

You were suggesting a more capable machine, they are considered capable, I was stating what I would rather use.

Look this is beside the point, it was mainly agreed very early on that the 1.8 i7 was a worthy upgrade for the cost, even in the UK, but definitely in the US.
 
Didn't realise this thread was still going.

Well I took the plunge last Thursday on the way home from work.

Went and picked up an 11" MBA (4gb/128GB SSD).

Absolutely loving it, loving the gestures and just seems so nice and slick to use compared to Windows.

Still getting used to things having never owned a Mac before, but GOOD 1st impressions.

Next purchase is a 27" Thunderbolt Display and get it wall mounted

:D
 
I'll respond anyway even though this topic is over, lol.

I say go ahead. The 2011s are great anyway, and even with the ivy bridge processor it still wouldn't be the ideal choice for someone using process heavy stuff like gaming.

Currently own: 2011 Macbook Air 13" 128 ssd
 
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