New Macbook Air with i5 & i7

Couldnt find a thread..so thought ill post it...Apple just launched the new Macbook air...with a i5 & i7 variant..and prices starting at 999$

Apple - MacBook Air - The ultimate everyday notebook.

Here is the review of the new model with a i5 Processor Apple MacBook Air (11-inch, 2011)

 

Thanks for posting - think I'm buying a 13" tomorrow. Was really hoping you could get i7 on the base model as I can't afford the 256gb upgrade. Just going to get an external harddrive for like $50.

 

This is unacceptable. A 64GB SSD for the entry level MBA? Who in their right mind would settle for such a small storage volume? Even at 128GB, its barely enough. There is no point in having a stronger video card, or even faster processor, if you cannot even spare the room to install programs that require more demanding specs. You cannot even buy an ipod touch, and fill it up completely with music and apps, because your LAPTOP cannot even store it all.

This is a horrible successor to the macbook (with respect to entry level price points).

 

yeah... 128gb should have been bare minimum...

 

so is there going to be noticeable difference between the two cpus? im leaning towards the cheaper i5 13 inch...the only games i will play is starcraft 2 and some racing games like dirt 2, will the cpu make a big difference in playing those games?

 

Backlit KB is back thankfully. That was a deal breaker for me on the last model.

 

SB ULV CPU is fine but if the gpu is only intel hd 3000 then yuck. A full mobile SB cpu paired with Intel Hd 3000 clocked at 650mhz/1200-1300mhz is on par with a geforce 310m, but now that it is only a ULV SB cpu then the Intel HD 3000 is much more slower.

 

Intel HD3000 is perfectly acceptable for an ultralight like the MB Air. People play 3D games on consoles and facebook games on their ultraportables for the most part.

 

True, basic non demanding games and mostly java and flash games. This intel hd 3000 is not the real hd 3000 that is comparable to a 310m/320m since it is paired with a ULV Sandybridge CPU.

Basically this is a downgrade from the integrated Geforce 320m. CPU however is a good bump from the ulv core2duo so if you don't care about games then this new mb air refresh is for you.

 

According to notebookcheck, the intel HD3000 paired with the 2310M i3 processor (2.10GHz) produces a 3Dmark06 score of about 3000. This is similar to the scores produced by the 310M paired with the i5 450m (first generation i5 clocked at 2.4GHz). However, the HD3000 at this present score was able to run starcraft on low settings at 30FPS.

From this, I suspect that the performance may actually be significantly weaker than the 310M paired with any first generation i series cores, considering the ULV processor. Given the data provided, the air can likely play starcraft 2 on low with less than 40FPS, although it'll probably be lower than 30FPS, making it unplayable.

 

I believe the solution is in the cloud.

 

You can get a i7 on all models except the base 999 model

 

Maybe in the U.S.... Canadians get screwed over, only available on the top end 13" model.

 

Then move.

 

Only if we had gone through with our war plans in 1934, then "canada" wouldn't have to face such problems...

 

Thanks for the easy solution

 

You'd of course be giving up a lot of good stuff we don't get down here like free health care, but for a very slightly better CPU, it might be worth it.

 

Haha

I don't imagine there's a huge difference between the i5 and i7 anyway, right?

 

Then it's probably not much of a screwing.

 

I doubt most people buying the Air care about games or they'd have bought a different laptop. In fact they wouldn't have bought OSX at all when Windows is so much better at gaming.

 

Hopefully not. I don't know a lot, no idea if there will be big diff between i5 and i7. Just hopeful thinking.

 

i'm trying to find which ULV Core i7 SB proc is the 1.8 GHz one -- intel's ark site doesn't list a 1.8 GHz model. the standard 1.6 GHz is clearly the i5-2467M. i'd also LOVE to know if the i7 option is a quad-core, since the i5 is a dual-core -- or if this is some upclocked dual-core SB that arbitrarily got the i7 badge, like a few of the arrandale models from the last gen.

at this point, i'm guessing it's a slightly upclocked i7-2657M (1.6) or i7-2677M (1.7), since neither of those are quad-core (no QM designation). :-(

 

i7-2677M is 1.8 Ghz.
http://ark.intel.com/products/54617

Specs say 1.8 Ghz base 2.9 Turbo although the title says 1.7 Ghz.

 

You have an option of quad-cores in i7, but i7 comes in dual-cores as well. i3 and i5 are purely dual-core processors.

 

The processor being offered is a dual core processor for the i7 as far i know

 

So I have 2010 MBP with i5 and gt330m but realized it was soo heavy to carry for my college use. It was powerful, And fast but cost of weight.
I'm looking forward of getting a new MacBook air instead but now I am debating if I should get 13 inch i5 or i7. I was looking for benchmark tests but no avail.
Anyone know how big of difference it makes?? Technically?
I don't do any gaming so don't mind that. Thanks

 

they call it the Sony Vaio Z2....

 

it wont make a world of a difference...but would certainly make a 20-30% difference in my opinion..cant back this up with statistics..but given that i have monitored the alienware m11x which also has the i5 and the i7 ulv processors...that is about the maximum the difference that would be thr..but i would still recommend you go for the i7

 

Did anyone else notice that the 11" has a 16:9 aspect ratio and the 13" has a 16:10 ratio. Not that it matters much, but just seems a little inconsistent for a laptop with 2 variants, why not make them both the same ratio and either go with 1600x900 for the 13" or go to 1280x800 for the 11 inch?

 

Why would you ever want to play real games on the MBA?!? It's good for casual flash games or Sims 2, but anything more and it'll be like trying to play Call of Duty on your calculator.

I agree that the HD 3000 is perfect for the MBA.

 

My guess would be they went 16:9 on the 11.6" to accomodate a larger keyboard. On a 13" 1440x900 has a much lower pixel density(125) than 1600x900(138), making it more usable.

 

Thank you!
It's only 100 bucks, mind as well I will go all the way.

Does anyone know what kind of screen does MacBook air 13inch uses?
I mean by Anti glare? Glossy? High res? Or just plain led backlight screen?

 

It the same as the old I think, glossy. And still 1440x900. But it's not so bad as the bigger ones with the extra glass because of the weight it adds.

 

Yeah, same here, I'm glad I waited it out. Going for the 11" i7 with 256GBSSD.

 

Am I the only one who's not that exited about this?
As I never look at the keyboard it's just some fancy light whitch adds weight, price and power consumtion (when used).

 

Between the 13" Air and MBP, is the missing wired LAN port a major consideration for you guys?

Also, how often can you expect the i7-2677m in the Air to run at turbo? I'm worried it would heat up and revert back to the stock 1.8GHz after say, a couple of minutes of photoshopping. If it does that it would make the Pro's i7-2620m significantly faster.

 

Wired LAN and optical drive are two things that I've noticed I rarely use these days. Earlier this year, I took out my optical drive of my T410 and put in another storage drive. As for wired LAN, I'm currently using that right now because of the poor wireless at the place I'm living right now but during the school year, I'm using wireless 99.9% of the time. I could live without a wired LAN port and just buy Apple's USB to ethernet converter although that does take up 1 of the USBs although the only reason you'd use a USB port is to hook up any of Apple's other hardware devices (which isn't too often) and any external HDDs, so it shouldn't be too bad.

 

So I guess the deciding factor between 13" Pro and Air (for me at least) boils down to:
* 2620m vs 2677m
* 4GB (upgradable to 8) vs. 4GB RAM
Any one with prior experience with SB ULV procs?

 

You're in a small minority. That's the way you see it, that's not the way it is. I can touch type just fine, the function keys and punctuation keys are most difficult to memorize for even the most astute typists. The keyboard backlighting adds almost no change in weight. R U serious about the price? The MBA's are the same price today as they were yesterday when they didn't have backlit keyboard and the power consumption is extremely small and can be adjusted to minimal backlighting to completely off so your power consumption argument is moot. Ever heard of a power adaptor?

 

ah, shoulda clicked through. thanks! i thought it was funny they had two 1.7 procs with the same release date on the listview...

 

I just realized that i7 option just comes with 256 SSD HD.
With that, I have to pay $300 + $100 to get i7 and 256 SSD Hd maxed out 13 inch macbook air.
The thing is I don't need 256 gb of space, 128GB is enough for me.
I will mainly be doing web browsing and word processing, ( college student stuff)
Does i7 really necessary with the premium of $400 dollars?
and even if I do get i7 with 256 SSD hd, would my battery life get reduced due to higher power CPU and more hard drive space?
Someone please advise.
Thank you

 

Off topic here but would you be able to "upload" all your music to iCloud (once it comes out) from an external drive then leave the external drive disconnected and just listen to the music you have straight from your computer?

That would solve everything wrong about the MacBook Air for me.

 

these new models just make the previous models look awesome for me.

i suspect i will find the previous versions with the nvidia chips for $650-850 dollars now depending on the size (11" - 13")

I think I'll get one of those, then maybe upgrade in a year or two to an air with a better gpu.

Sure, it's not as fast. But it's $850 instead of $1300. That's huge. $450 discount. Rock socks.

 

So against my better judgement I pulled the trigger on the i7 13". Arriving on 28/7 =D

 

I'm still not sure whether to get the standard config 13 (with 256GB and an i5) or get the BTO i7 for $100 more. I'm leaning towards the i5 myself.

 

Hi, I am also concerned about the same, for my usage 4GB RAM upgrade makes more sense then 128GB extra space for running virtual machines and will also be used for Apps development

I was thinking of going with i5 128GB base config with bumped up RAM

Are there any comparison sheets between i5 and i7 ?

Thanks

 

I'm in same scenario. I would get 128gb with i7 but since they only have i7 with 256 model, it makes me hard to decide.
I'm leaning toward the base model. 13 inch i5 128gb with 4g ram.
I'm disappointed that Apple didn't do i7 model with 128gb base model.

 

From what I've been reading it's not that big of a difference. I'm biting the bullet and getting the 13" i5 today, not worth an extra $300 to get the i7 when I'll need an external hard drive regardless of whether I have 128gb or 256gb.

 

Not bragging here but I'm a very fast touch typist. I did data entry while in high school. Everyone who'd seen me in action was in awe - I touch type using top number keys to perform all entries, I can do the entire top row from ~ to + and not slow down one bit. Within a week I learned to tab through all the fields without looking and I was literally doing 2 people's work. This was in the late 80's with the clickety IBM keyboard, so my boss only needed to listen to tell if I was goofing off

And I still want the backlit keyboard And I can still do 80-90wpm if I want to

I went to my Apple store last night, although they received the new models they didn't put them up on display yet. Will stop by again today to check it out. I felt so bad a lady bought her daughter the old 11" MBA while I was there - I almost told her she should've asked for the new one, but I didn't want to get ejected from the store Then the Apple rep brought up the Lion thing - oh the new OS just came out today but you're better off doing it when you get home than for me to do it here which might take hours. The daughter was so excited and wanted to leave anyway, but I thought being Apple the rep should have offered to do the Lion upgrade for them.

 

The old IBM M series keyboards, thank goodness you can still get equivelants. Brings up many years of memories.