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MacBook Air vs iPad - Processing Power

PlanetarySoup

PlanetarySoup

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 20, 2010
47
0
Canada
Hey, does anyone know which device is more powerful in terms of processing power? I have an iPad, and I'm debating whether or not to sell it and get a MBA, or to keep the iPad and not get the MBA OR to have both, since they both are good for different tasks.......

:apple:
 
PlanetarySoup said:
Hey, does anyone know which device is more powerful in terms of processing power? I have an iPad, and I'm debating whether or not to sell it and get a MBA, or to keep the iPad and not get the MBA OR to have both, since they both are good for different tasks.......

:apple:
Click to expand...

How would processing power make any difference? :confused:Are you going to encode a video on your iPad, no.

Whats tasks on either device could even be compared 1:1?

What exactly is it that you mean by "processing power".
 
PlanetarySoup said:
Hey, does anyone know which device is more powerful in terms of processing power? I have an iPad, and I'm debating whether or not to sell it and get a MBA, or to keep the iPad and not get the MBA OR to have both, since they both are good for different tasks.......

:apple:
Click to expand...

Erm, are you serious?
 
PlanetarySoup said:
which would be faster over wifi for downloading stuff? iPad or MBA???

:apple:
Click to expand...

You have an iMac and an iPad (I gathered that from your signature). Since the MacBook Air runs the same OS as your iMac (not the iPad)... take a second and ask yourself which one you download stuff from more...

If you're looking for a portable version of your iMac but want the weight and size similarities of an iPad, go for the MacBook Air... if you're comfortable with your iPad and use your iMac desktop... keep what you have.

If you can't make up your mind, visit your nearest Apple Store and bring your iPad with you for a side-by-side comparison. Often times, it might help if you had both products in front of you.
 
Buying an iPad or 11 inch laptop based on processing power is.. mind boggling.

These are portables built for lightweight tasks. Be thankful you didn't get an Atom in your 11 inch Air.

A 1.6 Ghz Air with 4GB Ram and 128GB Flash will be over-the-top fast for a machine of it's size and the needs of it's target market.

The base 11.6 Air is more than enough for what it needs to be doing.
 
Processing power and download speeds are not the same thing, and even if they were it would still be like comparing a f1 car to a monster truck. They are different classes of device. If you're sure you don't just want one because its shiney and brand new get yourself to an Apple Store and try one out, it might suit your needs better, but it might not.
 
My macbook air struggles to play videos from the comedy central website. I too wonder if the iPad can handle such a seemingly simple task? My ISP is pretty decent, but the MBA really struggles, even when all other programs are shut down...even after a restart, the video begins to lag! Guess the instore comparison is a good idea!
 
stwebb said:
My macbook air struggles to play videos from the comedy central website. I too wonder if the iPad can handle such a seemingly simple task? My ISP is pretty decent, but the MBA really struggles, even when all other programs are shut down...even after a restart, the video begins to lag! Guess the instore comparison is a good idea!
Click to expand...

To be fair, my desktop at home and my brother's desktop, both decent machines, struggle to play videos on the comedy central site. I think the iPad would do a better job of this, only because of how many apps there are that specifically handle Comedy Central shows...

To the OP, my only thoughts on this issue is that the processing power doesn't matter that much when comparing these two devices. Honestly, even if the MBA has less processing power, I'd wager you could still do more with it because of the OS. Although, with the way iOS is evolving, that may not be entirely true in a couple of months or so... I'd personally not recommend a spec comparison between these devices to determine how useful they are. There's a lot more than just the bare bones specs that come into play here, mainly functionality and usability.
 
Just to be clear, Atom is A LOT faster than iPad CPU... And that is singe core Atom on 1.6Ghz. This thread isn't mind boggling... It's just plain stupid.
 
Can't we all just answer the OP's question?

PlanetarySoup said:
Hey, does anyone know which device is more powerful in terms of processing power? I have an iPad, and I'm debating whether or not to sell it and get a MBA, or to keep the iPad and not get the MBA OR to have both, since they both are good for different tasks.......

:apple:
Click to expand...

The Macbook Air has a significantly more powerful processor.
 
endhalf said:
Just to be clear, Atom is A LOT faster than iPad CPU... And that is singe core Atom on 1.6Ghz. This thread isn't mind boggling... It's just plain stupid.
Click to expand...

I think the original question the OP is trying to ask is that he wants to know which is generally faster which isnt stupid at all, its a perfectly valid question. Your response doesn't actually answer that at all and i can't see it helping the OP with his inital query.

I'm not sure why you mentioned an Atom chip (as Apple devices have never used them) but for sake of arguement we'll go with it. You forget that both CPUs are running different OS's with different system requirements etc so whilst the Atom may look better on paper (in terms of Mhz) You're probobly not going to see any performance improvement (as OSX is more resource hungry than IOS) Theres also the issue of heat to consider

speaking from experience I actually owned a dell hackintosh netbook running.10.6 with the single core Atom CPU you mentioned AND a Runcore SSD, overall the iPad was much more responsive and handles CPU intensive tasks much more easily (such as playing high quality video)
 
Paulywauly said:
I'm not sure why you mentioned an Atom chip (as Apple devices have never used them) but for sake of arguement we'll go with it. You forget that both CPUs are running different OS's with different system requirements etc so whilst the Atom may look better on paper (in terms of Mhz) You're probobly not going to see any performance improvement (as OSX is more resource hungry than IOS) Theres also the issue of heat to consider
Click to expand...

I mentioned Atom just to show how stronger C2D is since current C2Ds are so ahead of original Atom chips that it is just riddiculous. I didn't forget about systems, OP asked "what is better in terms of processing power" and I answered it as accurate as I could. C2D is far more faster and has a lot more horsepower than any ARM chip. OP didn't ask anything about being faster for example at reading or something like that. He also didn't ask anything about heat. He did ask however about horsepower and I gave him answer. By the way, even considering OSX being more power hungry, C2D is still far far ahead of ARM chip used in iPad... Now with iPad you may get better user experience in terms od browsing internet, but C2D will still be more powerfull :).
 
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Have you read macrumors lately? They tried an A4/5 chip on a MBA and they said it was better than expected.
Inferring from better than expected means that they thought it wouldve sucked. Cmon dude, your comparing Mobile processor to an actual high powered processor.
 
PlanetarySoup said:
which would be faster over wifi for downloading stuff? iPad or MBA???

:apple:
Click to expand...

You really need to be more specific. Depending on what's being downloaded, you might not be able to do anything with it on the iPad.You also need a little more context. Lets say, for example, that the Air was only 5% more powerful than the Pad. In use it would feel slower due to OSX requiring more resources to run than iOS.

endhalf said:
I mentioned Atom just to show how stronger C2D is since current C2Ds are so ahead of original Atom chips that it is just riddiculous...
Click to expand...

I remember reading a Hackintoshing article two years ago and they said a Dell Mini running OSX was around the same speed as an iBook with 1.5GHZ G4 chip inside. Now compare the Air to that G4 to get an idea of how much faster the C2D is.

Regardless, the Air is the more powerful computer.
 
Last edited:
PlanetarySoup said:
Hey, does anyone know which device is more powerful in terms of processing power? I have an iPad, and I'm debating whether or not to sell it and get a MBA, or to keep the iPad and not get the MBA OR to have both, since they both are good for different tasks.......

:apple:
Click to expand...


EDIT: I just realized this thread is from October, and the OP has already been banned. I'm not sure why anyone would've revived this thread today...
 
darngooddesign said:
I remember reading a Hackintoshing article two years ago and they said a Dell Mini running OSX was around the same speed as an iBook with 1.5GHZ G4 chip inside. Now compare the Air to that G4 to get an idea of how much faster the C2D is.

Regardless, the Air is the more powerful computer.
Click to expand...

Hackintosh can't be compared to normal Mac OSX system, it is a lot slower than if Apple would take Atom and Mac OS would run on Atom natively. By the way, if G4 is A LOT stronger than ARM chipset, doesn't that give an idea of how much faster current C2D must be in comparison with iPad ARM chip? Lol...


By the way, OP is banned and thread is really old :D Great :D
 
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