MBA 11.6'' or 13.3''

I'm planning to get a Macbook Air as a secondary laptop for school but I'm not sure if it is fast enough for my needs. I use my current macbook pro (non-unibody) for microsoft office applications, IM, itunes as well as dual booting into windows for some of my other academic applications that i have to use. I'm wondering if the MBA 11.6'' is sufficient for my needs and do I have to spec it up to 1.6ghz and 4gb of ram for it to run smoothly? And also, between the 2 versions (11.6'' and 13.3''), which is better value for money? Thanks for your replies.

 

Looking at the 11.6" and 13.3" MBA side-by-side seriously turns me off to the 11.6". The base 13" has a 1.86GHz processor as opposed to the 1.4GHz in the smaller MBA, and if you're interested in running Windows that extra horsepower affords you a potentially better experience running Windows as a VM through Parallels or VMWare Fusion (which is really the best combo since Apple does not care to optimize the boot camp experience thus the notebook runs hotter and with a much worse battery life). You also might find 4GB to be useful. Then on top of it the 13.3" has a really nice resolution for that size notebook (1440x900!).

To me the 13.3" MBA is superior in every aspect.

 

+1 on the 13.

 

The 13.3 has more features and performance but 11.6 has the wow factor as it's so compact. Both are capable performance wise for most applications especially with the new Nvidia 320m.

But yeah, whatever you choose definitely go for 4gb ram. If you're spending lots of money, might as well spend extra $100 for significant performance improvement. 2gb ram limitation is why I didn't fork the cash for previous generation MBA's.

 

The 13.3-inch model is also much larger than the 11.6-inch. What your "other academic applications" you have to use? Because the small model can handle everything else with aplomb. It's not magic or anything but it is definitely a surprisingly-capable little notebook.

 

Personally I'm drawn more to the 11" model, as the 13" model is just too close to the 13" Macbook Pro...to me, it's like why not just add 0.3" to the thickness and a pound and a half for the better hardware?

 

for the new MBA's ALWAYS go for the 4GB of RAM as it CAN NOT be upgraded later.

 

Yup, I think unless you're absolutely sure you'll be using it for a real limited function, go for 4GB...and probably the CPU upgrade. They're not actually horribly priced IMO.

 

I went to an Apple store yesterday and I put both the 11" and 13" side by side and spent about 20 minutes "testing" it.

I opened up Safari with about 4 tabs going to GameSpot, YouTube, CNN and this site. I played Flash videos on 2 of the tabs. I opened Pages, iMovie and 3-4 more other apps. Then I tried to open up Mail and pretending I am writing an email. So far the 11" still feel snappy. The 13" seems snappier of course, but what surprises me is the 11" still fast.

So I am going with the 11" because I need my laptop to be portable. I travel a lot and sometimes I have to do some heavy task (i.e. running VMWare Fusion at the same time) on a plane (try to do that on an 13" in an Economy class!), so it seems 11" works well for me.

If you Google for "Macbook Air 11" Starcraft 2", some people seems to get decent gameplay on low settings.

 

I plan to use it for chemistry related software such as chemsketch. I'm wondering if the MacBook air can match my current MacBook pro (2008, non-unibody, 2.4Ghz 4GB ram)

 

I don't seem to remember ChemSketch taking too much oomph.

The maxed out 13-inch Air can probably do essentially the same stuff as that one, and it'll be a good bit more portable.

I just <3 the 11-inch quite a bit, haha.

 

Just checked out the 11 and 13 MBAs in person. Wow the 11 is so cool, I can definetely imagine easily taking that around The impression I had of the 13 is that it is has a brighter screen but feels like a monster holding it at my side (relatively speaking).

A big concern prior for me was the quality of the 11"s hinge. It wasn't too sensitive at all. Felt stable enough. The 13"s hinge was tighter.

 

The 11's hinge concerns were potentially blown out of proportion, but it still remains that the hinge wasn't as sturdy as the 13"er or the MBP.

I'm with JR as a fan of the 11er, but here's the thing. If you're looking to drop half the weight, I'd get the 11er. If you want a bit more power, you'd probably be better off with the MBP13 over the Air 13, at which point, if you're going between an MBP13 and the current MBP15 you have, you might as well stick to the one you've got. So it's really up to you.

 

I got the 11" and it's great!

The 11" MBA is just like the Netbook when it first came out. Remember the original Eee PC, costing only $199 but very underpowered? That's the start of the Netbook popularity, where people actually WANTS a truly portable laptop, no matter that it was very underpowered. I.e. YouTube was even choking on some of those.

The 11" MBA for me is like a NetBook that is on steroid. Coupled with the smooth OSX operation and trackpad that is a dream to use, this small laptop is powerful enough for me but yet very portable.

So far I have run VMWare Fusion (Windows 7), XCode, Mail, Word 2011, Firefox with about 5 tabs open and iTunes, and it's still chugging along just fine.

One advise: If you decide to get the MBA 11", get the 1.6 Ghz, 4GB RAM and 128 GB SSD. You'll need it...

 

Can the 11' 1.6ghz play 1080p video? I tested the 1.4Ghz in store, and it had heavy stuttering and lag. The 13' handled 1080p youtube video fine though.

 

Yeah. It's not buttery smooth, but it's not stuttering and lagging, either. Though I'll go ahead and make the point that unless you're watching it on an external display, 720p will basically look the same.