MBA vs MBP- Noticeable Differences?

[bassx]

So just yesterday most of the keys on my 13" mid 2010 MB Pro (2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB Ram) all of a sudden stopped working. Instead of getting it fixed (which I'm guessing will cost a considerable amount of money for uppercase replacement) I'm thinking of getting a 2013 Macbook Air 11" baseline mostly cause I don't feel like spending much money right now. Just like my MBP, I'll be mainly using it for heavy browsing, Youtube, listening to music/watching movies, word processing and Photoshop (making gifs).

Will the baseline spec model be adequate for the usage that I listed? Is the screen size comfortable enough? Also, how much difference in performance should I expect between my MBP and the 2013 MBA?

 

[Alphabetize]

So just yesterday most of the keys on my 13" mid 2010 MB Pro (2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB Ram) all of a sudden stopped working. Instead of getting it fixed (which I'm guessing will cost a considerable amount of money for uppercase replacement) I'm thinking of getting a 2013 Macbook Air 11" baseline mostly cause I don't feel like spending much money right now. Just like my MBP, I'll be mainly using it for heavy browsing, Youtube, listening to music/watching movies, word processing and Photoshop (making gifs).

Will the baseline spec model be adequate for the usage that I listed? Is the screen size comfortable enough? Also, how much difference in performance should I expect between my MBP and the 2013 MBA?

Surprisingly enough, I've owned both the 2010 MBP and the 2013 MBA! (although I have the 13-inch) The MacBook Air is a fantastic machine and will be more than enough to handle what you are wanting to do with it.

There is a noticeable difference in performance between these two machines in certain tasks, the MacBook Air does stuff much faster (e.g. video encoding, exporting photos). The MacBook Air also has flash storage, so starting the machine up is very fast, also apps, like Photoshop open very quickly as well (I clocked in at 4 seconds for Photoshop CS6).

The 2013 MacBook Air has been my favorite MacBook so far, and I am quite pleased with how it functions.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

And you didnt just press the Num lock button?

 

[Boyd01]

I went from a 2008 15" MBP with the same CPU as yours (2.4ghz c2d) to a 2011 MBA and the speed difference was considerable. Almost twice as fast for CPU and way, way, way faster for anything that uses the disk. Now I have a 2013 11" MBA and it is probably another 30% faster.

The MBA will be a big upgrade from your MBP, and you will also get an all-day battery in the deal.

 

[Dave245]

I currently own a MacBook Pro 2011, it is a great machine that works well. I've been thinking about getting a MacBook Air when I return to univeristy after the summer holidays, mainly because of the long battery life, but I also think the Flash storage would be faster than the 2011 MBP I already own, not to mention the fact that it will probably be lighter. However I've never used a MacBook Air so I don't know.

 

[Cubytus]

Well you have to be careful when selecting a MBA as the disk is not a standard format and changing it may prove impossible. Insufficient disk space, despite being flash-fast, is a major concern for anyone looking at an air.

 

[Louis Wu]

Well you have to be careful when selecting a MBA as the disk is not a standard format and changing it may prove impossible. Insufficient disk space, despite being flash-fast, is a major concern for anyone looking at an air.

well, changing the flash disk is expensive, but possible. (check OWC) upgrading memory, however, is impossible so order that at the time of purchase if you need it.

 

[Cubytus]

well, changing the flash disk is expensive, but possible. (check OWC) upgrading memory, however, is impossible so order that at the time of purchase if you need it.

Oh, I thought most recent MBA had soldered SSDs. But soldered RAM is surely an inconvenience.

Depending on what kind of work the OP expects to do on the Mac, the built-in RAM amount may be insufficient, even if he upgraded it at time of purchase.

 

[Boyd01]

well, changing the flash disk is expensive, but possible. (check OWC)

OWC does not have any SSD upgrades for 2013 MBA. See this: http://blog.macsales.com/19008-performance-testing-not-all-2013-macbook-air-ssds-are-the-same

OWC Larry
January 9, 2014 at 1:50 am

It is under development – but no specific time can be provided yet. We are hoping for late Spring – but please buy what you need as much was changed with the 2013 models and until we have a firm release, nothing is guaranteed for these machines. Thank you for the support!

I have the i7/8gb/512gb 11" MBA and it's truly the best Mac I've ever owned - and that goes all the way back to my 1985 512k "Fat Mac"

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Depending on what kind of work the OP expects to do on the Mac, the built-in RAM amount may be insufficient, even if he upgraded it at time of purchase.

The OP said

I'll be mainly using it for heavy browsing, Youtube, listening to music/watching movies, word processing and Photoshop (making gifs)

I don't see any reason why 4gb wouldn't be plenty for that. My 2011 MBA was 4gb (that was the largest available in 2011) and I was happy with it for more intense use than that (Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, VectorWorks, Photoshop). As mentioned above, I was coming from a 2.4ghz core 2 duo MBP with 4gb, just like the OP, and the MBA just ran circles around it.

My 2013 MBA has 8gb, and I really don't see much speed difference unless I'm rendering video or looking at latency stats in Logic.

 

[ZombiePete]

My 2013 MBA has 4GB of RAM and it's never been an issue for me. I use it mostly for school/writing and a lot web browsing/media consumption. I do some light gaming on it too; World of Warcraft primarily. I've never regretted not opting for the 8GBs for my needs.

 

[Cubytus]

OWC does not have any SSD upgrades for 2013 MBA. See this: http://blog.macsales.com/19008-performance-testing-not-all-2013-macbook-air-ssds-are-the-same

I don't see any reason why 4gb wouldn't be plenty for that. My 2011 MBA was 4gb (that was the largest available in 2011) and I was happy with it for more intense use than that (Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, VectorWorks, Photoshop). As mentioned above, I was coming from a 2.4ghz core 2 duo MBP with 4gb, just like the OP, and the MBA just ran circles around it.

My 2013 MBA has 8gb, and I really don't see much speed difference unless I'm rendering video or looking at latency stats in Logic.

So is the SSD soldered or not?

Heavy browsing ? This is one task where 4GB clearly isn't enough. Unless "heavy" means at most 10 open tabs.

 

[randombite]

Heavy browsing ? This is one task where 4GB clearly isn't enough. Unless "heavy" means at most 10 open tabs.

4GB allows me to have 50+ tabs open, which many people would consider "heavy".

The Air will just swap out to the SSD, which is many times faster than a HDD so it'll feel like the MBA has a lot more memory than it does.

 

[michaelsviews]

Heavy browsing ? This is one task where 4GB clearly isn't enough. Unless "heavy" means at most 10 open tabs.

I think you maybe mistaken, reason why I say this is I used a friends MBA w/4GB Ram, 256, I5 ran Vmware and Xcode at the same time with NO problem's at all, along with Safari, iTunes, and chat open. No fan's kicked on at all.

 

[bwat47]

So is the SSD soldered or not?

Heavy browsing ? This is one task where 4GB clearly isn't enough. Unless "heavy" means at most 10 open tabs.

I can easily browse with significantly more than 10 tabs open with my 4gb mba... you are being hyperbolic.

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4GB allows me to have 50+ tabs open, which many people would consider "heavy".

The Air will just swap out to the SSD, which is many times faster than a HDD so it'll feel like the MBA has a lot more memory than it does.

And with mavericks it will usually compress memory before it has to swap out.

 

[Cubytus]

The Air will just swap out to the SSD, which is many times faster than a HDD so it'll feel like the MBA has a lot more memory than it does.

That surely reduces the performance hit taken. I never had a daily driver with SSD included. Still, the SSD is much slower than the RAM.

I think you maybe mistaken, reason why I say this is I used a friends MBA w/4GB Ram, 256, I5 ran Vmware and Xcode at the same time with NO problem's at all, along with Safari, iTunes, and chat open. No fan's kicked on at all.

Care to share how you can achieve this kind of magic? Currently have 30 tabs open in Safari (a notorious memory hog, admittedly), iTunes, Transmission, Calibre, SpiderOak, and my 16GB are used almost completely. You underestimate the average web page RAM requirement, it seems. Currently kernel_task uses 1.1GiB, Safari 6.5GiB, and a few hundreds for the others. Fan is running fast, I keep it to a decent level with Macs Fan Control. SpiderOak takes its toll.

I can easily browse with significantly more than 10 tabs open with my 4gb mba... you are being hyperbolic.

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And with mavericks it will usually compress memory before it has to swap out.

That's one trick only available to Mavericks.

 

[michaelsviews]

That surely reduces the performance hit taken. I never had a daily driver with SSD included. Still, the SSD is much slower than the RAM.

Care to share how you can achieve this kind of magic? Currently have 30 tabs open in Safari (a notorious memory hog, admittedly), iTunes, Transmission, Calibre, SpiderOak, and my 16GB are used almost completely. You underestimate the average web page RAM requirement, it seems. Currently kernel_task uses 1.1GiB, Safari 6.5GiB, and a few hundreds for the others. Fan is running fast, I keep it to a decent level with Macs Fan Control. SpiderOak takes its toll.

That's one trick only available to Mavericks.

What's too share it works is all, how many programs are you running to tweak your system? And 30 tabs ? Really ? I've never had any problems with Safari being memory hog at all. Maybe its your configuration not sure. All I know is it works.

 

[Cubytus]

What's too share it works is all, how many programs are you running to tweak your system? And 30 tabs ? Really ? I've never had any problems with Safari being memory hog at all. Maybe its your configuration not sure. All I know is it works.

No system-level tweakers. I like to keep my machine as stock as possible (though not possible with versions post-10.6 since they removed so much in the way of power user needs). Safari got this reputation as a memory hog a long time ago, as can be seen on Apple's official forums.

Sure my configuration isn't stock, with RAM and HDD upgraded, but that's pretty much it. Of course I'd like to know why it uses so much resources, but no application or person seems to be able to do just that.