Which Laptop would be best for my needs? :)

[waffletank]

Hi I'm currently looking to purchase my first mac and at the moment I'm looking at two models (with higher education discount they are a similar price give or take £40),

2013 13 retina 2.4 i5, 256GB SSD 8GB ram, Iris graphics

Or

2014 13 MacBook Air 256GB SSD 1.7 I7 8GB ram, Intel hd 5000

My only minimum requirements are that I have at least 250+ storage space and 8gb ram (I want my machine to last 3-4 years)

I'm typically going to use it for college work, so nothing particularly heavy but I would like to occasionally use it to play WoW. I'm not bothered about graphic setting being set to high. low to medium is fine with me as long as it's playing at native resolution and has a decent + stable FPS.

Also, with the air configured to the 1.7 i7, will this match the performance of the 2.4ghz in the retina?

Thanks

 

[mstgkillr]

I trying to decide between almost the exact same laptops for basically the same uses...

I have narrowed in down to the following questions:

1. What is more important, the retina screen of RMBP or the 3 hours of additional battery life of the Air?

2. Do I prefer the smaller footprint of the RMBP or the 0.5 lb lighter Air.

Everything else, at least for my uses, will be irrelevant. Now I am just trying to figure out which one is a better bang for the buck?