Should I get the i5 or i7 Air?

[badlydrawnboy]

There are also tons of other factors to consider when trying to calculate battery life. What kind of WiFi are you connecting to and how far away? Bluetooth? What programs are you using and what files are you viewing? What is the ambient temperature. Individually, none of these factors will probably impact battery life significantly, but together, they add up. And like you say, on a device with a 12 hour battery, is it really that big of a deal?




Why? It's not like Apple will support only the i7 model and drop the i5. They'll either support the entire 2013 generation or not. What could you do on an i7 in 6 years that you couldn't do on an i5?

I have a new Airport Extreme with 802.11c. Bluetooth will probably not be on that often. How does WiFi type affect battery life? Just curious.

I'm going to wait until Tuesday to see what Apple announces for the Macbook Pro line. I don't really need a Pro, and will in all likelihood go with a MBA, but since it's so close it doesn't hurt to wait.

If the new MBP is thinner, has a retina display, and gets 10+ hours of battery life, and isn't too much more than the higher end MBA I'm considering, might have to consider it.

 

[cxc273]

I'd wait until Mavericks comes out to see if the new OS assists with battery life. I'm sure there will be benchmarks run on the current gen Airs versus the anticipated Haswell-refreshed MacBook Pros.

I personally can't attest to the i5-i7 debate. I've got an i7 with maxed out RAM and storage as my main home machine and have been very happy with both performance and battery life. The most intensive tasks that I tend to do on it are creating MKV files from Blu-rays and minor editing in Photoshop, both of which it does quite well.

I will say how impressed I am on how quickly InDesign and Photoshop start on this machine compared to the late-2012 MacBook Pro I use at work, but that's more a function of the speed of flash storage being vastly superior to conventional hard disk drives.

 

[badlydrawnboy]

I'd wait until Mavericks comes out to see if the new OS assists with battery life. I'm sure there will be benchmarks run on the current gen Airs versus the anticipated Haswell-refreshed MacBook Pros.

I personally can't attest to the i5-i7 debate. I've got an i7 with maxed out RAM and storage as my main home machine and have been very happy with both performance and battery life. The most intensive tasks that I tend to do on it are creating MKV files from Blu-rays and minor editing in Photoshop, both of which it does quite well.

I will say how impressed I am on how quickly InDesign and Photoshop start on this machine compared to the late-2012 MacBook Pro I use at work, but that's more a function of the speed of flash storage being vastly superior to conventional hard disk drives.

Yes, I've always seen the biggest increases in speed/performance with storage speed upgrades, i.e. moving from HDD to SSD. I've yet to use a machine with flash storage so I'm looking forward to that.

How long do you get on a single charge?

 

[jdechko]

I have a new Airport Extreme with 802.11c. Bluetooth will probably not be on that often. How does WiFi type affect battery life? Just curious.

I'm not 100% certain, but I think WiFi functions similar to CPU as far as power states. When the radio is actively transmitting or receiving, it uses more power. By completing the tasks quicker, the WiFi radio can power down into a lower power state.

Also, distance to the router and any obstructions. If you are closer to the router, you'll usually have better speeds and the machine doesn't have to work as hard holding on to the signal.

But like I said, I'm not 100% sure this is all accurate.

 

[Flowiee]

Why? It's not like Apple will support only the i7 model and drop the i5. They'll either support the entire 2013 generation or not. What could you do on an i7 in 6 years that you couldn't do on an i5?

Hi,

This is my question! Id like the performance upgrade, but it isn't really needed. But maybe I will regret 3 years later..

 

[Windowsrefugee]

Originally Posted by cxc273
"I'd wait until Mavericks comes out to see if the new OS assists with battery life. I'm sure there will be benchmarks run on the current gen Airs versus the anticipated Haswell-refreshed MacBook Pros.

I personally can't attest to the i5-i7 debate. I've got an i7 with maxed out RAM and storage as my main home machine and have been very happy with both performance and battery life. The most intensive tasks that I tend to do on it are creating MKV files from Blu-rays and minor editing in Photoshop, both of which it does quite well...."

So how long does your i7 run on mavericks?

Anyone else have real world experience with i7 MBA running Mavericks?

 

[Jcknows0]

I'm about to buy a Macbook Air. This will be used mostly during travel and when working outside of the home, or on my standing desk in my home office. I have a Mac Pro in my home office at a seated desk that I use for photography and more CPU/GPU intensive work. The MBA is strictly for email, web browsing, iWork, some audio recording (Garage Band) and other basic stuff. I won't do photography work, video editing, or play games with it.

I'm trying to decide whether to get the i7 or i5. Money isn't the issue; battery life is. I've read conflicting reports on whether there's a difference between the two; some article suggest the i7 actually gets better battery life, others suggest worse. There are several threads about this over on Apple's forum, and there's one particular guy that insists that the i7 gets 3 hours less battery life than the i5. (He does seem like kind of a crackpot, though.)

Does anyone have firsthand experience with this? What's the consensus at this point? Battery life is my #1 criteria for this machine. If the i5 gets better battery life, I'd be inclined to go with it—especially since I won't be doing any CPU-intensive tasks.

I will be maxing the storage (512 GB) and RAM for what it's worth.

i5 is a little weak from personal experience on my wife's air. If you are paying that much for RAM and storage its only an extra 150 and is definitely worth it.
http://anandtech.com/show/7085/the-2013-macbook-air-review-13inch/2

 

[jdechko]

Hi,

This is my question! Id like the performance upgrade, but it isn't really needed. But maybe I will regret 3 years later..

Hate to say it, but if you're looking for a lot of performance, might want to look at a MacBook Pro.

The Air is great at a lot of things and the performance is adequate, but a lot of demanding software is just going to be better served by a Pro. Especially if you are wondering if the computer will be fast enough in 3-4 years.