Where do people purchase the i7 model?

[santoki]

Hi everyone,
I'm heavily considering purchasing a MBA, but I have a few questions before pushing the confirm button.

I noticed that there are some people on the forum who have purchased an i7 model - where are they finding these models? // I don't see them available at the apple store, only the i5.

Do I need the i7?
FYI my computer needs: I plan to mainly use the MBA for normal programming: JAVA, C, etc. I will not be playing any games. Will be doing some video editing. Likes to have ~10-25 tabs open.


Thanks,
santoki

 

[KPOM]

Some Apple stores, particularly in larger cities, have higher-end i7 configurations (e.g. 11" with 256GB SSD, or 13" with 512GB SSD). For the tasks you describe, my guess is that you won't notice much difference. The biggest would be in video editing, but the bigger difference would be if you stepped up to the 15" MacBook Pro with a quad-core processor. The jump from a 1.7/1.8GHz i5 to a 2.0GHz i7 isn't going to be significant, though you may notice it if you had two machines side by side.

 

[santoki]

Thanks for the tip.
If I'd like to see the i7 models in person, is there an online map that I can view to see the stores that have them? I live in LA.

 

[oneMadRssn]

Thanks for the tip.
If I'd like to see the i7 models in person, is there an online map that I can view to see the stores that have them? I live in LA.

http://www.apple.com/retail/

There are only 5 stores in LA. Just call them, and they'll be happy to tell you which models they carry in stock.

 

[SoIsays]

At one point I had both so I can tell you that during normal use, you won't notice a difference. When I used Lightroom 4, there was only a slight increase in processing a 10mb raw photo. Like a quarter of a second faster, if even. The biggest difference was that my i7 had 8gb of ram vs 4gb on the i5.

 

[santoki]

Thanks for the heads up guys
I think I'll make the i5 mba purchase.