Worth waiting for Ivy bridge?

[eggersj]

The main reason I personally would wait forthe new MBA is the retina display. If it has that, all bets are off.

 

[za9ra22]

Amusing. If the new model - whenever it comes - has all the features being suggested for it, it's likely to be a very expensive piece of kit!

 

[GordonGekko]

Amusing. If the new model - whenever it comes - has all the features being suggested for it, it's likely to be a very expensive piece of kit!

That's what I was thinking. I will be happy with 8gb of ram. I will then feel better about running parallels comfortably and new operating systems as they come along. Though I would be happy with a 15in with a higher resolution, 8gb of ram, and larger SSD.

 

[No-Me]

Waiting for a computer is only a question when you don't need it at the moment. If you do, don't doubt and just get it, the Air is a super machine as it is now.

 

[xStreame]

Since no-one has much of a clue what the next MBA models will contain and which upgrades it'll get, the idea that you should wait until an unknown date for an unknown product is not necessarily the best advice. And given that whenever the next MBA comes out, it'll only be a year until the next one after that, why stop at waiting until Spring/Summer/Autumn for a new one when you could wait until next year?

I would jump now, and enjoy it. Then when a new model comes out, find a Apple dealer and try the new one out. If it is noticeably better, sell your MBA on ebay where you'll take a relatively small loss, and buy a new one.

Chances are that as in the past with the incremental revisions in Apple products, the next MBAs will look notably better on paper, but offer relatively minor improvements in real-life performance, so unless you're an ardent believer in must-have-the-newest-thing, the MBA you can buy now will remain more than adequate for your needs well beyond the next model and the one after that. If you needed something that much better, you'd be better off with a MBP anyway.

This guy got the facts straight.
I got a friend using a 2005 macbook and Its not even slow. Nobody would honestly notice the difference between ivy and sandy until they put them next to each other.

 

[ChrisA]

I was planning on buying an Macbook Air for school soon, my 3 years old Vaio is falling apart and only works as a desktop attached to an external screen....

If you need a notebook computer now, buy one now. If you can do fine without one, don't buy one.

You should not care if the new one runs benchmarks faster. Faster is not better unless the current machine causes you to wait

 

[thekev]

This guy got the facts straight.
I got a friend using a 2005 macbook and Its not even slow. Nobody would honestly notice the difference between ivy and sandy until they put them next to each other.

Some of these guys are using somewhat of leveraged solutions where the laptop replaced tasks that would have previously been covered by the use of a desktop. It can make sense for people who have to take the computer with them that wished to consolidate two computers to one.

As a correction, there was no 2005 macbook. Did you mean a powerbook G4? Laptop drives of that era and the lack of ram were the things that irritated me. Lacking ram meant you often had to wait as it paged to a very slow disk. Ivy and Sandy will probably be very close. The big improvements came in nehalem. It's just that some of the higher clock speeds and stuff started to trickle down with Sandy. Ivy seems like more of a boost on the low end graphics than anything. If they wanted to play games on it, it might be worth waiting.

 

[xStreame]

Some of these guys are using somewhat of leveraged solutions where the laptop replaced tasks that would have previously been covered by the use of a desktop. It can make sense for people who have to take the computer with them that wished to consolidate two computers to one.

As a correction, there was no 2005 macbook. Did you mean a powerbook G4? Laptop drives of that era and the lack of ram were the things that irritated me. Lacking ram meant you often had to wait as it paged to a very slow disk. Ivy and Sandy will probably be very close. The big improvements came in nehalem. It's just that some of the higher clock speeds and stuff started to trickle down with Sandy. Ivy seems like more of a boost on the low end graphics than anything. If they wanted to play games on it, it might be worth waiting.

My mistake, was the 2006 model he had, my point was the very first version of the macbook

Anyways as i said it's mainly for school use where mobility and stability counts the most for me since I have to move around with it from class to class.
About the graphics i do agree with you I've looked up some stuff and saw that mainly the HD2500 will become the more used graphic chip than the HD 4000.
And honetsly I'll be happy enough with the current one until the next 'revolution of laptop'.

 

[orfeas0]

Not to mention the gen after next gen! And don't even get me started on the following one...

Hehe yeah every next gen will be better obviously, but the question is how soon will the next gen come.
And even if new MBAs don't come out in april like it's rumored, new MBPs will. And they will be thinner and lighter, so you can get an MBP instead of an MBA without losing a lot of portability.

 

[100wattwarlock]

I'm having a similar dilemma.

In my case I'm finishing an 18-month MA program and my education discount will end on the 31st of March. Can't decide whether to update now (from a 07 black macbook) or wait for the new one to come out April-July.

2011 air: education discount and get a laptop far superior to my current one

vs.

2012 air: seeing as I've already waited 4 1/2 years and now have the cash for a full price one, wait for the upgrade

Any thoughts?