MBA 2013 or wait for rMBP 2013

[NickPhamUK]

My apologies if this topic was brought up before, I'm attending university soon so I'll need a notebook. This will be my primary and only laptop, and hopefully it could be staying with me in 3 years of university.

The MBA has an excellent battery life and is very portable, thus easy to carry around in campus, but I don't know if 1440x900 will suffice in the long term. I do some gaming in my pastime, so I expect my notebook to be able to deliver 30-40 fps running on med settings (Dota 2, Skyrim, Diablo 3, Starcraft 2 etc.) I've read that the rMBP will come with Iris Pro 5200 on top of the obviously superior screen, but I'll have to put an extra $400 for that.

Also, which upgrades will I need?
256 SSD?
core i7?
8GB RAM?

I don't run virtualisation; all I do will be typing for assignments, watching videos, storing music & photos and do some gaming.

 

[AXs]

If you don't feel the need to game, the Air is a perfect machine.

If you enjoy gaming, wait for the rMBP. Don't but the Air with gaming in mind.

 

[jadAce]

If you don't feel the need to game, the Air is a perfect machine.

If you enjoy gaming, wait for the rMBP. Don't but the Air with gaming in mind.

+1.

For schoolwork (word processing, internet, etc.), the Air is really sufficient. I have seen some threads on here, though, saying that the Air can do light gaming as well, so if that is as far as you will take it, shouldn't have any issues.

As far as the MBA configuration goes, it's really up what you thing you need. I've heard the most cost effective is i5 /8 GB RAM / 256 GB SSD, but if you have a large budget, the i7 could also be a consideration.