I dunno guys, sometimes when I open iTunes or Safari there is a bouncing beachball and I think it may take less time to go away if he gets the i7.
To be fair, that is more an issue with ram/ssd than cpu
I dunno guys, sometimes when I open iTunes or Safari there is a bouncing beachball and I think it may take less time to go away if he gets the i7.
And he said "Thankfully none of my tests show substantial scaling with memory capacity beyond 4GB so that shouldn't be a huge deal. Both SSDs are the same Samsung PCIe based solution...."
You can try to rationalize it all you want. At idle both consume the same voltage, the difference being that the i7 is clocked faster and is more powerful than the i5. Period. Whether that is worth $150 for you, that is another story.
So just because word processing won't max out an i5 doesn't make recommending the slower processor any better advice. When it comes to computers, more memory, more disk space, and more CPU horsepower is good. The extra "heat" and "battery" issues have been debunked as myths. My advice? Buy the most computer you can afford. Period. Be you a student or a doctor or a bus driver.
No, maybe not, but I am not in the habit of recommending underpowered configurations especially if I intend to keep the system for a while, as I assume a college student would. If he cannot afford the extra $150, then fine, don't. But if you are spending that kind of money on a laptop and can afford the extra $150, then do. This matter of "worth" is tied to one's personal situation. Not all college students are poor. Many college students are doing computer majors and could definitely use the extra horsepower, whether it be with iMovie or programming or playing the ocassional game.
So just because word processing won't max out an i5 doesn't make recommending the slower processor any better advice. When it comes to computers, more memory, more disk space, and more CPU horsepower is good. The extra "heat" and "battery" issues have been debunked as myths. My advice? Buy the most computer you can afford. Period. Be you a student or a doctor or a bus driver.
And you're now arguing the i5 is underpowered? Bizarre.
The truth sometimes is.
Unfortunately now is not one of those times. Please just stop posting, it's embarrassing.
Ok, I guess i'll go back to my crappy i7 MBA and cry over how much more wonderful the i5 would have been.
Just to be fair, I am a computer science and mathematics undergraduate on my senior year.Many college students are doing computer majors and could definitely use the extra horsepower, whether it be with iMovie or programming or playing the ocassional game.
I am majoring in Biomedical Sciences and Pre medicine. I am looking to buy a MBA and I am uncertain of what core to buy. I know that the i7 has better performance, but at the cost of battery life.
This is probably one of the most first world problems I've ever had, but I don't know what to choose.
I'm stuck in this dilemma as well. I mostly just surf the web/email/itunes and some word/excel. The issue is my excel sheets usually require the windows version which means running vm ware fusion and windows/excel. Not sure how much I feel the upgrade in the VM scenario. Im going to get 8gb ram and 256HD just need to sort out the processor so I can pull the trigger.
I would like another opinion on this. Would I notice a speed increase when running vm ware fusion with an i7 over an i5?
I am trying to figure out the i5 vs i7 too. But I can say that for virtual machines (i'm using virtual box but the same should apply to vm ware) the main speed bump I saw going from my core 2 duo 2009 MBP to my current 2012 i7 MBA was in starting the virtual machine and i think was mainly due to the dramatic increase in SSD speed. Actually getting work done in the virtual machine was comparable. I also needed the PC version of excel for work btw. Unless your excel sheets are very very large the cpu probably won't matter for that particular application.
ZBoater is totally off the point and really deserves no more attention. The "Okay" answer post should be an appropriate end for this "intermezzo". Nevertheless, I just want to make the point that the posts that ZBoater has made and the answers to them are rather interesting "material" for a psychologically minded reader to use for analysis about the human irrational and emotional dynamics that is in high degree displayed in this part of the thread, contrasted to the computer-science based points of view.Ok, I guess i'll go back to my crappy i7 MBA and cry over how much more wonderful the i5 would have been.
I'm flattered. Thank you for such an illuminating post.
I'm flattered. Thank you for such an illuminating post.
I got a bit carried away myself, and sorry for that! I'am glad for your sarcastic and good-humor tone in your reply. My point is really that it is amazing how much personal (emotional) strength most of us (me too) invest in these rather technical matters, perhaps matters that really mean little or nothing in the day to day use of the MBA.
Peace.