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The 2012 Air Buyers Dilemma: Rebuy next year or feel humbled!

N

nexsta

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 21, 2007
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Tech sites are claiming that the new Intel's Haswell architecture brings up to 24H of battery life with a single charge. When this will be real next year, you can then be sure that your 2012 Macbook Air will feel so immensely outdated.

People who bought an Air this year can already prepare to sell it next year and get a pretty bad resale value or they stick with it and feel so humbled like never before, I think it's a kind of dilemma...

If I would need a new Macbook Air now, I would only buy an used/refurbished 2011 one and sell it next year for the update.
 
nexsta said:
Tech sites are claiming that the new Intel's Haswell architecture brings up to 24H of battery life with a single charge. When this will be real next year, you can then be sure that your 2012 Macbook Air will feel so immensely outdated.

People who bought an Air this year can already prepare to sell it next year and get a pretty bad resell value or they stick with it and feel so humbled like never before, I think it's a kind of dilemma...

If I would need a new Macbook Air now, I would only buy an used 2011 one and sell it next year for the update.
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Precisely why I got an '11 MBA instead of a '12 MBA. :)
 
All I've read seem to be indicating a great new idle mode. Remains to be seen how much power that gets saved when actually using the cpu, even light workloads which hinder the CPU from going into its deepest power state.
 
MultiFinder17 said:
Or we can continue to use our 2012 Airs, which will work just as well as they do today even when the new ones come out.
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Exactly...plus, at already 6-7 hours of battery time is more than enough for my usage pattern. I can't remember the last time I went looking for my AC adapter in the 2 years I've owned an Air (11" and 13"). 24 hours would be pointless for me.
 
I'll believe it when I see it. Excuse me for being highly skeptical. A less power hungry processor is not going to increase battery life by more than 3x. What about the screen and other components?

That said, my 2010 MBA is still working just fine for what I need it to do and I'll probably splurge on another one next year.
 
The tech game is a never ending game. It's like looking into two facing mirrors... There's always something better around the corner. So Haswell is coming... and then what, "Haswell+1".
Perhaps people should wait until next year before deciding that they should wait until the following year to buy :D

Simply put: buy what you need when you need it.
 
If Haswell is a little better CPU, quite a lot faster graphics, and drastically improved battery life, I won't need to upgrade. 2012 suits me fine :) The current (and 2011) Air has more than enough battery for me. For the tasks I need it for, current model with 8GB RAM is perfect.
 
for some it's always about having the latest and greatest so they can point out to everyone "hey look what i got!, you need one too!"
and by the release date they will come out with something else that will bog down the system or drain the battery

sorry if others feelings of inadequacy don't bother me, i'll keep my mid-year 2012 until i need to upgrade (probably around 2014)
 
i doubt anyone would ever get through 24H battery life on one cycle, unless your macbook is nowhere near a mains for like a month...

all i care about here with every iteration of a mac, especially the macbook air, is power. i would rather get better FPS on a game like minecraft or just get speedier rendering with video editing apps....
 
24hr battery life is completely crazy. Sure, you could manage that on Haswell on idle with the screen turned off, but at that point you might as well leave it on standby - 1 month battery life.
 
nexsta said:
Tech sites are claiming that the new Intel's Haswell architecture brings up to 24H of battery life with a single charge. When this will be real next year, you can then be sure that your 2012 Macbook Air will feel so immensely outdated.
Click to expand...
And the processor after that will be the "refinement" of Haswell. That's the buying cycle I'm on. I'm loving my 2012, and will be more than content to wait til 2014 for my next one.
 
My 2008 iMac works just fine. I'm confident that I'll be able to say the same thing about my 2012 MBA in 2016. But I wouldn't make the same bet about a handheld device such as the iPhone or iPad.
 
If you are a "measure-bator" it may bother you to not have the latest, greatest, fastest, etc. But for practical purposes, I don't think 1 or 2 years of Apple evolutionary improvements will cause me to wail and gnash my teeth...
 
How is this different from previous years? Buy in '11 regret in '12, buy in '12 regret in '13?

Don't see the big difference here.. A new version comes out every year. As others have stated; it's a never ending game.. I'll hold out till' october though, just to see a possible rmbp 13"..
 
jacob.schmidt said:
How is this different from previous years? Buy in '11 regret in '12, buy in '12 regret in '13?

Don't see the big difference here.. A new version comes out every year. As others have stated; it's a never ending game.. I'll hold out till' october though, just to see a possible rmbp 13"..
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A battery life from 5 hours to 14+ hours and still a better cpu and graphic perfomance is a dramatic difference from past updates (The 11" Air still has the same 5H battery life since it was released 3 years ago). It will be the biggest step upwards in the history of macbooks if the claims are real.
 
Expect 1-2 hour bump in battery life, nothing more. Haswell is not revolutionary, just another tick in the Intel x86 architecture. Graphics will be the huge improvement, and may be worth upgrading from Ivy Bridge.
 
It is a release with a lot of changes. That also means that the chance of problems is a lot higher than with a minor release like Ivy Bridge. The problem with the powersaving in Haswell is that it relies heavily on an idle cpu. They are trying desperately to keep the cpu idle. It may mean that we'll see some problems with performance like when changing states. We see them now with the MBP Retina regarding switching between IGP and dedicated GPU. Not very sure if Haswell is going to be something you'd want. Whatever follows Haswell is (basically a fixed Haswell if you will).
 
nexsta said:
A battery life from 5 hours to 14+ hours and still a better cpu and graphic perfomance is a dramatic difference from past updates (The 11" Air still has the same 5H battery life since it was released 3 years ago). It will be the biggest step upwards in the history of macbooks if the claims are real.
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No way you'll get 14+ hours of out Haswell.. Those battery hours rely on several components, and you'll get the time if, say the screen resolution is lowered, but if ips is used it'll be around the same..
 
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