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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Mac Notebooks > Older MBP vs. newer MBA

Older MBP vs. newer MBA
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sdilley14
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Apr 6, 2011, 05:14 PM
 
How does this stack up against this performance wise?

I have the 2.16 GHz MBP right now, upgraded the RAM to 2 GB back in the day. I'm thinking about getting the 13" MBP I have linked here. I would likely upgrade the RAM from 2 GB to 4 GB (by the way, can that be easily done with the MBA, or is it better to spend the extra money and get the additional 2 GB RAM right out of the box?). Really all I will be using it for is surfing the web, Facebooking, emailing, listening to music and podcasts/watching videos on iTunes, occasional YouTubing, some light web design stuff, the occasional video file converting (I convert files from different formats to make them compatible with my PS3 sometimes), a little bit of light audio work (chopping up songs and making them into ringtones), things of that nature. No gaming, no heavy A/V editing, nothing like that. The number of ports and things like that don't really matter. As long as it has a couple USB ports so I can plug in my iPod/external HD when I need to and an audio jack so I can plug in headphones, I'll be ok.

So how does the MBA stack up against my current MBP? The Geekbench scores tell me that I would take a performance hit, but I don't know if those numbers are to be taken as gospel or if thats just measured on how well a machine is expected to run a graphics intensive game or heavy A/V file.
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SierraDragon
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Apr 6, 2011, 08:16 PM
 
Refresh of the MBA line is fairly imminent. IMO folks who can should wait to see what it looks like, and how prices of existing boxes are affected. After new MBAs are out IMO you need to
actually look at and visually compare the choices at a store because displays, keyboards, etc. vary a lot.

Geekbench measures CPU not graphics.

HTH

-Allen
     
sdilley14  (op)
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Apr 6, 2011, 09:16 PM
 
Well, whichever way I decide to go, it'll certainly be a refurb purchase. I'm also considering a 13" MBP, but I really love the size and portability of the MBA. My MBP that I have now really is adequate for what I do on a daily basis, but it is starting to feel a little sluggish and dated, the fan kicks on quite often it seems, its a little slow on a few different processes, and most importantly it feels like a bit of a chore to move around, take to work, etc.
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Waragainstsleep
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Apr 7, 2011, 04:25 AM
 
I'm not sure an MBA refresh is all that imminent. They don't get updated terribly often as it is and Apple will certainly wait for the new ULV i5 or i7 chips to become available before an update. iMacs need an update first.
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P
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Apr 7, 2011, 05:29 AM
 
The low-voltage Sandy Bridge chips are due by the end of May according to the latest rumors. A new MBA in June makes a lot of sense, and I would expect to see some news regarding the base MB at that time as well.

iMac updates can happen any day now.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
Waragainstsleep
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Apr 7, 2011, 06:21 AM
 
Whenever it comes I suspect the next MBA will replace the MacBook. June is possible if there is no iPhone 5 as rumoured, or they might push it a couple of weeks one way or another to avoid stealing any limelight. June is still 3 months away which is 50% of its current lifetime. Not exactly imminent.

iMac updates really should happen any day now. Got a couple of customers waiting on those.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
OreoCookie
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Apr 7, 2011, 07:29 AM
 
The SSDs in the new AirBooks are very fast, they are considerably faster in many operations than my Core i5 MacBook Pro. Launch times of apps, anything that requires non-sequential access to the harddrive is very speedy. For things like browsing the web, writing mails and other every-day stuff, I reckon they are (and feel) significantly faster.

Reading on what you want to do with it, I recommend you get an AirBook. But I would also encourage you to wait for Sandy Bridge-based AirBooks.
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ajprice
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Apr 7, 2011, 07:35 AM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
iMac updates can happen any day now.
Any day, but probably a Tuesday

It'll be much easier if you just comply.
     
SierraDragon
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Apr 7, 2011, 11:49 AM
 
Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep View Post
June is still 3 months away which is 50% of its current lifetime. Not exactly imminent.
Agreed, not exactly imminent. What I said was "fairly imminent." By that I meant fairly likely in the next few months but do your own homework, I am just speculating based on Intel's road map and decades of Apple-watching.

IMO the fact that MBAs were new in October makes it even more likely that Sandy Bridge MBAs will come out within the next three months (May-June-July). It means for October they could put most things together for the new MBAs (like SSDs) while still planning the engineering for Sandy Bridge and (hopefully) Thunderbolt once the low-voltage Sandy Bridge chips were available. Well, low-voltage Sandy Bridge chips will be available by June, so barring delays due to the catastrophes in Japan I expect MBAs in the May-June-July timeline, which also happens to be at the beginning of the back-to-school season.

Also, Apple likes to dominate the supply chain by preordering components. Once ordered, JIT manufacturing means product coming out the other end of the manufacturing snake unless some key component is delayed (e.g. Japan).

P.S. June is less than two months away, not 3.

P.P.S. I agree that the iMac refresh is more imperative than the MBA, but materiel availabilities will likely dictate what we see first.

P.P.P.S. I too think the new MBAs are likely to supplant the low end Macbook.

-Allen
( Last edited by SierraDragon; Apr 7, 2011 at 12:14 PM. )
     
sdilley14  (op)
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Apr 7, 2011, 02:01 PM
 
Soooo the overall recommendation is to wait until the new MBA come out, then wait a few more months until they hit the refurb store?
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SierraDragon
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Apr 7, 2011, 02:40 PM
 
Originally Posted by sdilley14 View Post
Soooo the overall recommendation is to wait until the new MBA come out?
Yup.

...then wait a few more months until they hit the refurb store?
The refurb store part is not something I would wait for if I intended a new box not yet released. I have purchased refurbs and think they can be a good idea when what you want is available refurbished from a vendor like Smalldog.com. However buying refurbs from Apple means you pay tax, reducing the value.

With a new box I would just buy it or buy last generation, not wait for refurbs. The other problem with refurbs is that there are seldom CTO refurbs, so you must buy stock. And be especially thorough looking for fit/finish issues and dead pixels with refurbs. Apple commonly puts warped or otherwise not-cosmetically-right boxes into the refurb channel.

-Allen
( Last edited by SierraDragon; Apr 7, 2011 at 02:47 PM. )
     
crazeinc
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Apr 22, 2011, 02:06 AM
 
Just replaced my late-2009 13" 2.5ghz/8G MBPro with a 2.13ghz/4G 13" MBA last week and I don't regret downgrading at all. The Air is an awesome machine and has essentially none of the drawbacks of the earlier models.
     
   
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