I will purchasing a new MBA next week and my intent was to get the MBA 13" with 8 GB RAM, 2.0 GHZ, and 512GB SSD. This will be my work & traveling laptop for SAP Project Management work, MS Project, Word, Powerpoint Excel etc.. and the reqular generic day to day activities i.e. music, watching movies on the plane etc. I guess my initial questions are will the above configuration be overkill? Does the price point for the top of the line MBA justified? including apple care etc... Thanks for your expertise and help
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Need help with MBA purchase Options or MBP
- Thread starter torinp7
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The biggest question is do you REALLY need the 512GB SSD? If you can make due with the 256GB SSD you can save yourself ~$500. I bought the i7/8GB/256GB and it was ~$1675.
I don't believe the 512GB SSD is a better performer than the smaller ones, just has more storage.
IMO, 256GB should be more than enough unless you have every scrap of music, every pic, and like to store endless hours of video.
I also think you would be fine with 4GB Ram with your planned usage, but 8 will help you future proof the machine. I was in an Apple store recently and questioned if 4GB would be enough, and one of the Apple Employee's opened all the Apps on a 4GB MBA at the same time, and they all opened in about 17 seconds. Pretty neat demo.
Unless you have heavily-threaded workflows, which it doesn't seem like from your description, the i7 is overkill for your purposes. It does have tangible performance increases over the base i5, but not in areas where you'll be working. The 512GB SSD is also overkill if the sole purpose you're getting it is to get the "better" SSD. As far as I know, Samsung is no longer the sole supplier of the higher capacity SSDs and it's possible you can still get the short-draw with the Toshiba. That said, the Toshiba's main flaw is when dealing with already compressed data. With uncompressed data, performance is on par with the Samsung. Otherwise, handling compressed data yields data rates half that of the Samsung. Still, we're speaking data rates of around 200MB/s, which is still SATA3 speeds and eight times as fast as standard hard drives.
Personally, I think the base i5, 8GB RAM, and 256GB model will fit your needs. Obviously, if you need the extra permanent storage on your Air, you can upgrade upfront accordingly, but the $500 premium isn't worth it in my opinion.
Also, check out Anandtech's review of the 2012 Airs for a better and more informative description.
That's exactly what I have
2012 13" MBAir, 2 GHZ i7, 8 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD.
Love it and it was worth every penny. It will be good for years to come, I hope.
2012 13" MBAir, 2 GHZ i7, 8 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD.
Love it and it was worth every penny. It will be good for years to come, I hope.
I don't really see a need for the 512GB SSD or the 2.0Ghz processor option from your listed uses.
Since you want to have at least some music and a couple of movies with you on the road the 256GB might be better.
If you end up wanting to carry more stuff than will fit on the 256GB drive, you can always get a USB 3.0 external hard drive (I believe 1 terrabyte runs about $100 these days).
Since you want to have at least some music and a couple of movies with you on the road the 256GB might be better.
If you end up wanting to carry more stuff than will fit on the 256GB drive, you can always get a USB 3.0 external hard drive (I believe 1 terrabyte runs about $100 these days).
Exactly - thanks for that!!!!
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Thanks for the feedback! MBA here I come!
your feedback
Hi, I am eagerly awaiting to hear from you. I too want to buy the air for SAP app, never heard about the air specs meeting the need of SAP and the performance... If possible please write to me at swamy035@gmail.com
thans.
Hi, I am eagerly awaiting to hear from you. I too want to buy the air for SAP app, never heard about the air specs meeting the need of SAP and the performance... If possible please write to me at swamy035@gmail.com
thans.