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SolarCanoe

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 30, 2008
146
6
My current macbook is just too outdated to edit go pro footage. It lags way too much even with a SSD and 8gb ram. I am curious if an 11" air would be a good enough replacement
 
My current macbook is just too outdated to edit go pro footage. It lags way too much even with a SSD and 8gb ram. I am curious if an 11" air would be a good enough replacement

I have a 2013 MacBook Air with 8 GB of RAM and it can edit 1080p HD video like a champ. Current generation MacBook Air should be able to handle full HD video editing just as well. Not sure if it can handle 4K video though.
 
My current macbook is just too outdated to edit go pro footage. It lags way too much even with a SSD and 8gb ram. I am curious if an 11" air would be a good enough replacement

There's video of the 2015 12" rMB editing 4K video..I'm sure the 11" with an i5 will be fine..
 
:( my 2011 11" i5, 5GB RAM, 128GB SSD cant handle go Pro Studio/footage without lags.
Pretty poor tbh.
Thats why my next one will be an rMBP 13" in ..hopefully..june/july !
 
:( my 2011 11" i5, 5GB RAM, 128GB SSD cant handle go Pro Studio/footage without lags.
Pretty poor tbh.
Thats why my next one will be an rMBP 13" in ..hopefully..june/july !
I imagine a 2015/16 air would probably fair better than yours though right?
 
I imagine a 2015/16 air would probably fair better than yours though right?

I had a 2011 i5/4gb/256gb MBA and upgraded to a 2013 i7/8gb/512gb MBA. Don't know anything about GoPro, but I edit Sony XDCAM-EX 1080/24p HD video and the 2011 machine handled that fine. The 2013 renders faster but otherwise is pretty similar.

The 2011 MBA does not have USB 3.0 so that is one big limitation however. The SD memory card slot on the 13" 2011 MBA is also connected to the USB 2.0 bus and is much slower than newer models. And the SSD is much slower on the 2011 MBA, which impacts performance.
 
It's worth noting that the processors used in the MBA are the same as those used in the VAST majority of PC laptops of every size.
 
My current macbook is just too outdated to edit go pro footage. It lags way too much even with a SSD and 8gb ram. I am curious if an 11" air would be a good enough replacement
Yes, I have a new 11" air and edit GoPro video without any problems at all. I haven't tried to edit 4k video yet, as I almost always stick with 1080p.
 
A friend of mine with a GoPro has used my 2011 11" Air (1.6, 2GB, 256GB) to do some quick edits to GoPro video, and he said it worked well enough, so a new one should be just fine :)
 
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