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MacBook Air Mid 2012 to MacBook 2016: worth it?

giazzon

giazzon

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 3, 2016
10
37
Hi folks,

I currently own an 11'' MBA Mid 2012 Core i7 with 8GB RAM and 128GB SSD. Performance wise, I'm still fully satisfied. My motivation in upgrading to a 2016 MacBook is mainly because of the 12'' Retina Display.

So, based on your experiences, is this upgrade worth it?

Thanks!
Giazzon
 
Yeah, I read that thread. Decided to create a new one because my MBA has higher specs and my motivation is solely about the 12'' Retina Display.

Thanks!
 
Yes I think it would be worth it, as a former 2012 MacBook Air owner. The display is much better than the MacBook Air and even the m3 would be faster than your MacBook Air because the memory and SSD are faster. Except in extreme scenarios so is the CPU.
 
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Depends on your priorities. Performance wise I don't think you'll notice a difference, especially since you already have 8 GB of RAM. Main advantages to upgrading will be a much better screen and better battery life.
 
giazzon said:
Hi folks,

I currently own an 11'' MBA Mid 2012 Core i7 with 8GB RAM and 128GB SSD. Performance wise, I'm still fully satisfied. My motivation in upgrading to a 2016 MacBook is mainly because of the 12'' Retina Display.

So, based on your experiences, is this upgrade worth it?

Thanks!
Giazzon
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I also have the same old MBA lying around except it has a larger SSD and rMB 2015 models

The rMB is just snapper more due to the faster SDD/Mem and the 2016 will be a little better.

I fired up the MBA last week 1st time since xmas and was surprised how dated it seemed compared to the rMB and SP4 and how noisy it was. The screen is why I stopped buying the MBA 4 years back and my son had used it for the last 3 years at Uni, he also noticed how much warmer and sluggish it had become over the years. He left the MBA with me and swiped one of our rMB as kids do.

Even comparied to our MBA 11" the rMB is just so compact, get one you will enjoy :)

20151230_054528_resized.jpg
 
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I find the performance on the rMB to be abysmal - I had both the 2015 and the 2016 M5s. That said - considering that your MBA is 4 years old, it might be comparable. If you'd said you had a 13 MBA, I would have answered: keep the MBA. But with the 11" version, the screen update probably makes it worth switching to the rMB. Just beware that anything beyond MS office will push the rMB to its limits.
 
kis said:
I find the performance on the rMB to be abysmal - I had both the 2015 and the 2016 M5s. That said - considering that your MBA is 4 years old, it might be comparable. If you'd said you had a 13 MBA, I would have answered: keep the MBA. But with the 11" version, the screen update probably makes it worth switching to the rMB. Just beware that anything beyond MS office will push the rMB to its limits.
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What are you trying to do on the computer? I haven't found anything where it bogs down so far and I been pushing it quite hard and have not really gotten to the limit. I haven't done any long calculations on it of course but not even the 13" rMBP is a good choice for that, need a top specced 15" rMBP for that if we are talking Mac laptop.
 
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Davidkoh said:
What are you trying to do on the computer? I haven't found anything where it bogs down so far and I been pushing it quite hard and have not really gotten to the limit. I haven't done any long calculations on it of course but not even the 13" rMBP is a good choice for that, need a top specced 15" rMBP for that if we are talking Mac laptop.
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I mainly work with MS Office + Lightroom for image processing. Office works ok - it's not very fast, either. I think it depends on what computer you came from. I use a 2015 maxed out 15" rMBP for the brunt of my work, and the MacBook on the go. Unfortunately, the latter just feels slow and laggy compared the the MBP. If you've come from an older machine, you might not get that perception.
 
kis said:
I mainly work with MS Office + Lightroom for image processing. Office works ok - it's not very fast, either. I think it depends on what computer you came from. I use a 2015 maxed out 15" rMBP for the brunt of my work, and the MacBook on the go. Unfortunately, the latter just feels slow and laggy compared the the MBP. If you've come from an older machine, you might not get that perception.
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MS Office is not something you'd want to use on OS X either way, slow and buggy.

Thing is just because Lightroom doesn't work well with big libraries it does not mean you can't do anything taxing. For most usage the rMB is going to be fine, it is only for more heavy loads it will struggle. Of course it will be slower than a 15" rMBP but for most tasks the difference will not be that noticeable.

I been running Photoshop, xCode (including the simulator) + a lot of other things at the same time without any noticeable slowdown. Sure building takes me a second or two longer but that is nothing you really notice while doing things. I am impressed at how well it holds up for this to be honest.
 
kis said:
I mainly work with MS Office + Lightroom for image processing. Office works ok - it's not very fast, either. I think it depends on what computer you came from. I use a 2015 maxed out 15" rMBP for the brunt of my work, and the MacBook on the go. Unfortunately, the latter just feels slow and laggy compared the the MBP. If you've come from an older machine, you might not get that perception.
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You'd probably find even a 13" rMBP slow compared to a maxed-out 15" rMBP. The latter has a quad core 28W processor.
 
KPOM said:
You'd probably find even a 13" rMBP slow compared to a maxed-out 15" rMBP.
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Both the 13" rMBP and the MacBook Air feel decidedly snappier in everyday use. The latter has a low-res screen, which makes a big difference in graphics performance, of course, but the rMBP rarely slows down at all, while the rMB has been a mixed bag for me ever since I got the first one last year. Not that much change in the 2016 model, to be honest. I still have it because of its low weight. But ill exchange it for something more powerful the instant a new 13 MacBook Air with a better screen becomes available, or a MacBook with a larger screen and a regular laptop processor
 
I think part of the reason you are not seeing more impressive results in MS Office and in particular Excel is the MAC version can only use one core where Windows can use all cores so given typically MAC single core geek benchmark scores are around 2800 and go up to 3400 for the 15" MBP and even a bit higher with latest IMac ~3800, something 4 years old will be down 400 or so on these scores.

Your not going to get even close to a windows laptop/PC multicore in Excel

In addition if your using Excel 32bit you may hit a 2GB ram limit so your 8/16GB is just wasted unless you use the 64bit version and depending how you write your formulas will also have a big impact

If you use large data sets with many cross referred calculations it may be worth considering running Excel in bootcamp or setting up a database and access it from Excel and use pivot tables till MS address this.
 
SteveJUAE said:
I think part of the reason you are not seeing more impressive results in MS Office and in particular Excel is the MAC version can only use one core where Windows can use all cores so given typically MAC single core geek benchmark scores are around 2800 and go up to 3400 for the 15" MBP and even a bit higher with latest IMac ~3800, something 4 years old will be down 400 or so on these scores.

In addition if your using Excel 32bit you may hit a 2GB ram limit so your 8/16GB is just wasted unless you use the 64bit version and depending how you write your formulas will also have a big impact.
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How is this even still possible given that Grand Central Dispatch came out in Snow Leopard (8 years ago) specifically to help developers use multiple cores? Is the Office for Mac team that under-resourced that they can't add multi-core support?

Also, I don't think the 64-bit Office is available for Mac (just 32-bit). That said, Microsoft still recommends the 32-bit Office for most users even on the Windows side (it's puzzling that they haven't found a way to make the 64-bit version work with 32-bit add-ons, etc.).
 
KPOM said:
How is this even still possible given that Grand Central Dispatch came out in Snow Leopard (8 years ago) specifically to help developers use multiple cores? Is the Office for Mac team that under-resourced that they can't add multi-core support?

Also, I don't think the 64-bit Office is available for Mac (just 32-bit). That said, Microsoft still recommends the 32-bit Office for most users even on the Windows side (it's puzzling that they haven't found a way to make the 64-bit version work with 32-bit add-ons, etc.).
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I have no idea I do not really know a great deal about this it was just something I came across by chance whilst researching another issue as I run bootcamp exclusively on all my MAC's or use Windows laptops so I have never encountered any problems, sorry.
 
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I ditched Windows(8 was horrible), MS Office(money grab subscription), and Adobe products(money grab subscription) a while ago. Haven't looked back. OS X, Pages & Numbers, and Affinity have all impressed me with their simplicity & smoothness.
 
izzyfanto said:
I ditched Windows(8 was horrible), MS Office(money grab subscription), and Adobe products(money grab subscription) a while ago. Haven't looked back. OS X, Pages & Numbers, and Affinity have all impressed me with their simplicity & smoothness.
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That may be fine for your use but not in my workplace, further more most good companies subscriptions now extend to employees and I am entitled to up to 10 free MS Office personal installations MAC or Windows :)
 
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SteveJUAE said:
That may be fine for your use but not in my workplace, further more most good companies subscriptions now extend to employees and I am entitled to up to 10 free MS Office personal installations MAC or Windows :)
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I understand workplaces only using that, but for personal use I just refuse to pay them money...every...single...year. Despise subscription software.
 
izzyfanto said:
I understand workplaces only using that, but for personal use I just refuse to pay them money...every...single...year. Despise subscription software.
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I understand :) I guess it was an alternative to forking out $2-300 previously for the full package every few years and no different to how many especially in the US buy (lease, rent) their phones
 
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Thank you all for the time and precious comments. After your thoughts and some more research, I decided to go with the new MacBook driving my decision solely on the Retina Display. I'll probably buy it mid July so I hope any new version to be announced at the 2016 WWDC will be available until then.
 
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