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Upgrading from MBP Late 2011 to Air 2013

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bjs2010uk

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 23, 2010
11
0
Hi I currently have a 13 inch Macbook Pro Late 2011 but for some reason I am getting urges to purchase a 2013, 13 inch Macbook Air, as I am in the last year of uni and will no longer get higher education discount after this year.

I have rarely used the optical drive on my pro so this is not a massive concern for me. However I am curious to know if I will really notice any difference in terms of performance - will the overall speed of the air be much improved on my pro? Also in relation to the performance I have noticed that firstly the 2013 Air seems to have a lower clock speed than the 2012 model, does this mean that the model has taken a slight step back or does the clock speed not truly reflect the performance? Secondly my current macbook has a processor of 2.4ghz, whereas the air has a 1.3ghz, therefore am I really taking a step back rather than upgrading?

Another concern is the wi-fi issue that has been reported on with the 2013 air model, has this now been fixed by Apple?

Sorry I'm not very technical, I only have a basic understanding of computers!


Thanks in advance
 
I have a 2011 15" MBP 2.8 with 8gig ram and got a 13" MBA with the 1.7 cpu, 8 gig ram, & 500 gb HD this MBA is much faster than my old MBP. I use Adobe graphics suite, ms office, auto cad, and also run parallels with windows 7 for some windows only graphics programs. When at work I have a 27 cinema display. I don't see any reason to go back to the 15" MBP as the 13" Air does it all as good or better.
 
Hi thanks for the speedy response!

I too have MS office applications installed on my MBP and I find that when I am doing uni work, which will often require me to have MS Word, Firefox and Adobe Reader open there is a significant slow down in performance!

I was just worried that the figures don't look as good on paper, but I do understand that flash is supposed to bring about a lot of the performance improvements.
 
My girlfriend's 1.3 Ghz Air is around the same speed as my 2011 Core i5 MBP with an SSD.
 
Look at the 64 bit Geekbench benchmarks here: http://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks

Your 13" 2011 MBP scores 7611 and the 2013 13" i7 MBA scores 8188. Assuming that your MBP has a spinning hard drive however, I think you will notice a huge difference in the SSD based MBA.

Don't look at clock speeds, they are not really relevant when comparing different chip generations. I have a 2013 11" MBA, and it's a very speedy little machine. :)
 
Hmmmm interesting reply's!

Does anyone know anything about the wi-fi issue?
 
Oh dear, I'm not sure if its such a good idea, or is it? I understand that not everyone might be affected by the issue but it's something to potentially go wrong before I have even purchased it!
 
bjs2010uk said:
Oh dear, I'm not sure if its such a good idea, or is it? I understand that not everyone might be affected by the issue but it's something to potentially go wrong before I have even purchased it!
Click to expand...

I know one thing.

The number of people that don't have problems with their wi-fi outnumber those that do probably something like 1,000:1, at least. Probably closer to 5,000:1 depending on how many have actually been sold...of course people get online to mention a problem, think about the amount of people that had no problems and didn't get online just to say "hey, my stuff works like it's supposed to." 3 posts involving maybe 10 people that have problems shouldn't keep you from enjoying these awesome computers.

Apple has warranties and customer service ready to go for that miniscule chance your computer does have problems. You won't get stuck with anything and more than likely won't end up with a computer with any problems to begin with.
 
Got mine on August 2 and haven't seen any wifi problems. I wouldn't let this issue influence my decision at all - if you're unfortunate enough to have a problem, the warranty will cover it.
 
Also an August 2nd MBA with no wifi issues. The PCIe SSD alone will be a HUGE speed increase with disk dependent tasks to any portable you've ever used before. I've never owned, used or seen a disk drive this fast. It is truly jaw-dropping. :eek:
 
bjs2010uk said:
Oh dear, I'm not sure if its such a good idea, or is it? I understand that not everyone might be affected by the issue but it's something to potentially go wrong before I have even purchased it!
Click to expand...

You do realize that this is a computer built by humans, right? As such it is prone to have defects. Humans are not perfect. Apple has very high quality standards and a very strong customer service operation. In the very unlikely event you end up with a machine that has some sort of defect, Apple stands behind their products 100%.

I mean, there simply is no computer manufacturer that can guarantee 100% of their products will be defect free. It is not humanly possible. You can, however, choose the products that have a proven track record of quality and a company that keeps its promises of servicing the defective ones.

So relax, buy an MBA, and enjoy. Odds are yours will be fine.
 
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