Question regarding MBA performance

[DougCZ]

Hi all, first time posting on this forum,

I have an old 2013 MBA that just recently started malfunctioning and stopped working altogether (my fault I let my daughter use it and she accidentally spilled soda over it). That said, I'm in the market for a brand new laptop and I'm considering the 2018 256gb SSD MBA, and the recently updated 2019 MBP with also a 256gb SSD.

What is stopping me from buying the new MBA is that I've heard different opinions regarding it's performance.

I mainly use my laptop for work related stuff like text editing (Word and Excel), e-mails, watching online courses and basic media consumption. I will never use it for gaming or heavier tasks since I got a desktop just for that.

My old MBA really struggled with the Office package and that really bugged me. A friend of mine said the new MBA is considerably more powerful than my old one and that it will be more than enough for that specific need, but my brother (who is quite an enthusiast with computers) said it will operate the office package quite slowly, since I always have a couple of word documents and excel spreadsheets opened at the same time and because the MBA uses a dual core processor, while the MBP uses a quad core one.

Will the new MBA have any issues with multiple office and media (spotify, safari/firefox) applications opened at the same time or should I go for the $400 more expensive 13' MBP with touch bar?

Thanks in advance!

 

[shenfrey]

What have you heard about it's performance? You have me a little concerned as I have just ordered one myself.

 

[DougCZ]

What have you heard about it's performance? You have me a little concerned as I have just ordered one myself.

Mainly that it is not that fast when using Microsoft Office applications but that it is fast and snappy with Apple default apps. I don't know if that is true, that's why I'm asking

 

[AustinIllini]

Mainly that it is not that fast when using Microsoft Office applications but that it is fast and snappy with Apple default apps. I don't know if that is true, that's why I'm asking

I leave Word and Outlook open all the time. No problems here. I love the MBA

 

[Cehape]

I am using Office 365 on my 2018 MBA and the performance is as good as on my desktop with a much stronger CPU (i7-8700). Even in PowerPoint with really large images in it (before compressing the final version) I cannot tell that there is a noticeable difference.

„should I go for the $400 more expensive 13' MBP with touch bar?“:
this is all up to you.

 

[lambertjohn]

My base model, 2018 Air runs everything I can throw at it, including Office. For what I paid for it ($999), it's a nice little computer and I'm very happy with it. I think you will be too.

 

[AustinIllini]

My base model, 2018 Air runs everything I can throw at it, including Office. For what I paid for it ($999), it's a nice little computer and I'm very happy with it. I think you will be too.

It's such a brilliant little computer. Some people don't like the keyboard but really it's good all-around to me.

 

[Isamilis]

I think for your usage, MBA 2018 should be no problem. One reason stopping me to get 2018 version is the butterfly keyboard, which is still error prone. If I were you, I will wait for next few iterations until the tech become matured. I personally got 2017 MBA which still fulfill my needs.

Hi all, first time posting on this forum,

I have an old 2013 MBA that just recently started malfunctioning and stopped working altogether (my fault I let my daughter use it and she accidentally spilled soda over it). That said, I'm in the market for a brand new laptop and I'm considering the 2018 256gb SSD MBA, and the recently updated 2019 MBP with also a 256gb SSD.

What is stopping me from buying the new MBA is that I've heard different opinions regarding it's performance.

I mainly use my laptop for work related stuff like text editing (Word and Excel), e-mails, watching online courses and basic media consumption. I will never use it for gaming or heavier tasks since I got a desktop just for that.

My old MBA really struggled with the Office package and that really bugged me. A friend of mine said the new MBA is considerably more powerful than my old one and that it will be more than enough for that specific need, but my brother (who is quite an enthusiast with computers) said it will operate the office package quite slowly, since I always have a couple of word documents and excel spreadsheets opened at the same time and because the MBA uses a dual core processor, while the MBP uses a quad core one.

Will the new MBA have any issues with multiple office and media (spotify, safari/firefox) applications opened at the same time or should I go for the $400 more expensive 13' MBP with touch bar?

Thanks in advance!

 

[meltedwhiskey]

i purchased MBA (16gb ram) to replace 2015 MBP (16gb ram). my employer uses windows based accounting software for pretty much all time entries, invoice approvals, contracts, etc, so for me, virtual windows machine is a must. i too was fearful that the MBA may not handle virtual machine and architectural software simultaneously, along with basic office software. i was also a bit apprehensive with the various complaints/problems reported with the new butterfly keyboard.

i took the plunge about a month ago. i had used VMware (running windows 7) with my MBP with decent success. it always fired up, but was sometimes pretty laggy. i decided to give parallels a whirl with their trial offer and upgrade to windows 10. couldn’t be happier with my setup with the new MBA and parallels. i can have windows running our company accounting software, outlook, word, excel, bluebeam, and occasionally spotify, with no noticeable difference in speeds/loading. flawless performance. i also think parallels outshines VMware, a
hands down.

the butterfly keyboard takes getting used to, but after the month of use, i much prefer the new MBA keyboard to old MBP. they keys seem much more pleasant to type on, and less noisy. to date i’ve had no issues that many have reported. it is s pleasurable typing experience. i know that i am still susceptible to the keyboard problems, but so far so good. not to mention, apple has already said that this MBA would be eligible for their keyboard service program, so if a problem does occur i can get it fixed.

i am extremely happy with my decision in going from MBP to MBA. the machine can handle everything the old one could with no noticeable difference in speed or performance. typing is a delight.

 

[Boyd01]

My old MBA really struggled with the Office package and that really bugged me.

FWIW, I still use my 2013 11" i7/8gb/512gb MBA as my all-purpose computer and it runs Office 365 fine. So, just curious what problems you were having with office on your 2013 MBA? I was running Office 2008 for a number of years and that would struggle with big documents that had a lot of images. However Office 365 fixed those problems for me. But maybe you work with more complex documents? How much RAM did your 2013 MBA have?

 

[MultiFinder17]

FWIW, I still use my 2013 11" i7/8gb/512gb MBA as my all-purpose computer and it runs Office 365 fine. So, just curious what problems you were having with office on your 2013 MBA? I was running Office 2008 for a number of years and that would struggle with big documents that had a lot of images. However Office 365 fixed those problems for me. But maybe you work with more complex documents? How much RAM did your 2013 MBA have?

I'm mildly curious about this as well. I've used Office 365 on a 2011 11" Air with 2GB of RAM and, while it certainly wasn't the quickest experience in the world, it wasn't awful.

 

[CPL593H]

It's such a brilliant little computer. Some people don't like the keyboard but really it's good all-around to me.

Yep, love mine overall. I’m a very light user, Office and Safari, so 8GB is all I need. Haven’t had any issues where I wished for more power. Despite what others may say, I have no issues with screen or keyboard.

 

[AlexJoda]

I bought the 2017 MBA and the end of last year for about $400 less than the comparable 2018 MBA. The newer MBA is only about 10-20% quicker in CPU benchmarks and about the same or even slower in GPU benchmarks. For a 3 Gen newer CPU this is a joke! The lack of interfaces like the SD card reader, USB-A and clever solutions like MagSafe combined with the problematic butterfly keyboard brought me to that decision.

I wait until Apple brings a real new MBA with ARM CPU....

 

[AustinIllini]

I bought the 2017 MBA and the end of last year for about $400 less than the comparable 2018 MBA. The newer MBA is only about 10-20% quicker in CPU benchmarks and about the same or even slower in GPU benchmarks. For a 3 Gen newer CPU this is a joke! The lack of interfaces like the SD card reader, USB-A and clever solutions like MagSafe combined with the problematic butterfly keyboard brought me to that decision.

I wait until Apple brings a real new MBA with ARM CPU....

Be ready to potentially wait a very long time