Is the MacBook Air enough?

[Windows&Apple]

Hello,

I'm looking at the 2013 MacBook Air 13" with the 256GB SSD and upgraded 8GB RAM.

I'd need to do the following:

• Casual gaming (not expected great battery life).
• Moderate Dreamwaver, Fireworks, Flash and Photoshop work.
• The usual email, youtube, word processing, excel sheets.
• I also need to run windows, virtualized or through bootcamp.
• Get at least 10 hours with the machine unplugged.

Is the MacBook Air good or should I opt for the mid-13 inch Retina? My budget is $1500 and I'd like something with good battery life, light weight, and powerful enough for my needs.

I've been looking at the following laptops

• Yoga Pro 2 - (High end)
• MacBook Pro 13" (Mid-Range)
• MacBook Air 13" (High-end with 8GB RAM)
• Sony Vaio Flip 13 (Mid-range)

 

[FieldingMellish]

Yes. Except for 10 hours unplugged. Depends upon what you're doing for those ten hours.

 

[Windows&Apple]

Yes. Except for 10 hours unplugged. Depends upon what you're doing for those ten hours.

I'd expect it to last for 10 hours when doing some browsing, some youtube, facebook, etc.

 

[yosemit]

As for CPU performance, MBA is almost the same as rMBP 13". The i7 MBA is faster than 2.4GHz and 2.6GHz rMBP 13".

MBA 15" uses quad-core Haswell and is significantly faster than MBA for multi-threaded programs.

Hello,

Is the MacBook Air good or should I opt for the mid-13 inch Retina? My budget is $1500 and I'd like something with good battery life, light weight, and powerful enough for my needs.

I've been looking at the following laptops

• Yoga Pro 2 - (High end)
• MacBook Pro 13" (Mid-Range)
• MacBook Air 13" (High-end with 8GB RAM)
• Sony Vaio Flip 13 (Mid-range)

 

[lagisibuk]

Yes, it's enough...

 

[ItHurtsWhenIP]

yes, it's enough...

+1

Do you think the other 3 you listed would last 10 hours? The Pro gets less battery life than the Air. Even if just an hour or two it probably wouldn't meet your criteria. Is 10 hours even possible on Windows?

Flip 13"
From: http://www.mobiletechreview.com/notebooks/Sony-Vaio-Flip-13.htm

We average 6 hours of mixed use with automatic brightness disabled and display brightness set to 50% with WiFi and Bluetooth turned on. If you use a more power frugal plan setting (we used Balanced) or enable silent mode and drop the brightness a bit, you could get 7 hours.

Looks like maybe the IdeaPad Yoga 2 could get you 10 hours..CNET said 7 hours of continuous video playback..but that's a Win8 half-tablet convertible thing..if you want one of those, I don't know if it and an Air are comparable on anything other than battery life?

 

[lagisibuk]

+1

Do you think the other 3 you listed would last 10 hours? The Pro gets less battery life than the Air. Even if just an hour or two it probably wouldn't meet your criteria. Is 10 hours even possible on Windows?

Yupp.
actually he only said "I also need to run windows, virtualized or through bootcamp", I dont know, it mean : always or sometimes ( mean in one day just for 1 hours using bootcamp).

so, I think MBA will be possible to 10 hours right? CMIIW

 

[Mrbobb]

I'd expect it to last for 10 hours when doing some browsing, some youtube, facebook, etc.

Nobody beats the Air when it comes to battery, so if is not enough, ur next option is a battery pack.