Replacing MacBook Air 2013 to 2017

[bearinthetown]

I own a 13″ MacBook Air mid 2013 with an i7 and 8GB RAM upgrade. Is it worth it to buy a model from 2017? I'm a web developer and MacBook Air, while not a performance beast, is enough for most of my work. I dislike MacBook Pro, I don't like the design and the problems with it.

As far as I have seen, CPU is virtually the same after these 4 years. If I trust the benchmarks, there is almost no difference.

SSD seems to be much faster in new models. My SSD is about 700 MB/s at read and 600 MB/s at write.

I'm not aware of any other improvements. I will either replace just the battery, buy a new Air or maybe try to like the Pro. I will of course wait until WWDC to see if there are 2018 models on the way.

 

[throAU]

I own a 13″ MacBook Air mid 2013 with an i7 and 8GB RAM upgrade. Is it worth it to buy a model from 2017? I'm a web developer and MacBook Air, while not a performance beast, is enough for most of my work. I dislike MacBook Pro, I don't like the design and the problems with it.

As far as I have seen, CPU is virtually the same after these 5 years. If I trust the benchmarks, there is almost no difference.

SSD seems to be much faster in new models. My SSD is about 700 MB/s at read and 600 MB/s at write.

I'm not aware of any other improvements. I will either replace just the battery, buy a new Air or maybe try to like the Pro. I will of course wait until WWDC to see if there are 2018 models on the way.

I'd hold off. The difference in regular use will be minimal.

Wait until your current MBA breaks (keep backups) and then evaluate your options at that time. A battery replacement would be a good idea.

Intel has been dragging their feet for a long time with CPU upgrades relevant to the Macbook Air form factor. You're exactly right in assuming the difference between the 2013 spec CPU and the 2017/2018 spec currently available is minimal.

Yes, the SSD is faster, but you're unlike to notice a big difference in day to day use - as your SSD in the 2013 is already "fast" (much faster than a hard drive, faster than most SATA SSDs).

I'm in a similar boat with my 2015 pro. Looking to get a battery replacement and keep using it until apple put out something worthwhile.

 

[pika2000]

I would just replace the battery and continue using it.

 

[redheeler]

As far as I have seen, CPU is virtually the same after these 4 years. If I trust the benchmarks, there is almost no difference.

The 2013 has the Haswell architecture, while the 2017 has Broadwell. That's a different of two years, and only a single generation. Meaning Apple is essentially still selling 2015 hardware, but labeled as 2017. And the 2017 models still have the same non-Retina LCD display straight out of 2010, so you won't see any improvement there either.

I would hold off on the upgrade.

 

[throAU]

The 2013 has the Haswell architecture, while the 2017 has Broadwell. That's a different of two years, and only a single generation. Meaning Apple is essentially still selling 2015 hardware, but labeled as 2017. And the 2017 models still have the same non-Retina LCD display straight out of 2010, so you won't see any improvement there either.

I would hold off on the upgrade.

There's not that much difference between Broadwell and Skylake on the mobile side really either. The big jump is Coffee-lake (more cores in same TDP), but i doubt the macbook air will be refreshed to get that.