Used 11" Air, stay with Mavericks or move up to Yosemite?

[AroundTheFur922]

Just received a used 11" Macbook Air from Amazon (Mid 2014, 1.4 i5, 4GB, 256 SSD for $650) and it has Mavericks installed on it. Every other device I have is up to date with Yosemite and the newest version of iOS and they all interact well with one another. My question being, should I upgrade the Air to Yosemite or should I just do a fresh install of Mavericks on it? Seeing as it only has the 4GB of RAM I wasn't sure if Yosemite would severely slow it down. I would be using it mostly for web browsing, note taking, watching videos etc. as I have a very capable 15" rMBP already that I use for FCPX, After Effects, Photoshop, Lightroom etc. Also, if I were to attempt to use any of the previously mentioned heavier apps, would those see a difference in performance between Mavericks and Yosemite? Thanks.

 

[motrek]

Just received a used 11" Macbook Air from Amazon (Mid 2014, 1.4 i5, 4GB, 256 SSD for $650) and it has Mavericks installed on it. Every other device I have is up to date with Yosemite and the newest version of iOS and they all interact well with one another. My question being, should I upgrade the Air to Yosemite or should I just do a fresh install of Mavericks on it? Seeing as it only has the 4GB of RAM I wasn't sure if Yosemite would severely slow it down. I would be using it mostly for web browsing, note taking, watching videos etc. as I have a very capable 15" rMBP already that I use for FCPX, After Effects, Photoshop, Lightroom etc. Also, if I were to attempt to use any of the previously mentioned heavier apps, would those see a difference in performance between Mavericks and Yosemite? Thanks.

Both of my Macs are 4GB and I didn't notice any slowdown going from Mavericks to Yosemite.

 

[newellj]

Before I upgraded the RAM on this Mini, which came with 4 GB and Mavs, I updated to Yo and it ran great doing more than you're doing (but see note below). I think you would be fine.

Note: the first upgrade attempt was not good. The machine acted like it had a bad HD. I did a bare-disk internet recovery installation of Yosemite and it has been absolutely great, both on 4GB and then on 8GB. So, if you do update to Yo, based on my experience, I would make a good backup of all of your data, make sure you have any license keys for programs that won't install from the App Store, then TEST your backup, and then go ahead and try a completely virgin installation.

 

[pasadena]

Both of my Macs are 4GB and I didn't notice any slowdown going from Mavericks to Yosemite.

Same here, and on an older MBA (2012, also 4Gb). Absolutely no difference in performance between Mavericks and Yosemite (upgrade). My usage of the MBA is basically the same as OP's.

 

[ponytrekker]

My Macbook air has 4gb of ram and it is noticeably quicker on Yosemite.

Wasn't happy with Yosemite on my desktop but it seems to make more sense on a notebook.

 

[theSeb]

There were noticeable slow downs in the UI animations on all my Macs when I upgraded from Mavericks to Yosemite. 99% of these issues have been fixed. Life goes on. Yosemite works fine.

 

[Ulenspiegel]

Stay with Mavericks.