Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
11" 1.6 worth it over 1.4?
- Thread starter ozreth
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I'd go for it. That's the one I have on order. I wish my local store had one. I called and they said nope.
I would def. get it if you don't mind paying the few extra dollars and if you would like it now. Think about it, you are getting a maxed out MBA 11". What better could you want? I got the 1.4ghz, 4GB and had to wait 5 days including the weekend. It would've been awesome to just get it right away. I would've easily paid $100 to get it right away AND get the upgrade.
I don;t think Processor speed is really the issue nowadays, access to your data is, and the SSD sorts that out quite admirably, it seems. I went with the 11.6, 4GB, 1.4... A few days still till it arrives. I think it is going via the Bay of Tranquility.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)
I'd never get a low end one unless it came down to affordability (for any Mac).
Chances are the high end Mac becomes the low end Mac in the next speed bump. This means that you'll still own the latest Mac for 12-16 months. You won't be thinking or wondering if your processing is too weak or if it's obsolete.
Obviously cost is a factor and you should live within your means!
I'd never get a low end one unless it came down to affordability (for any Mac).
Chances are the high end Mac becomes the low end Mac in the next speed bump. This means that you'll still own the latest Mac for 12-16 months. You won't be thinking or wondering if your processing is too weak or if it's obsolete.
Obviously cost is a factor and you should live within your means!
It sounds like you could afford the 1.6GHz model + 4GB. If you can, and you don't mind the price difference, go for it.
Myself? I could only afford the 1.6GHz OR the 4GB. In that case, go for the 4GB. It'll provide much more noticeable capacity and future-proofing than an extra .2GHz.
This.
Myself? I could only afford the 1.6GHz OR the 4GB. In that case, go for the 4GB. It'll provide much more noticeable capacity and future-proofing than an extra .2GHz.
This.
The CPU is not the bottleneck, 4gigs will net your more performance than the small bump in CPU speed. With the solid state storage, the MBA feels very, very fast. I have used the 11" 1.4/2/128ss and it's crazy how fast that little machine is. I ended up swapping to the 13" 1.8/2/256 as I decided to get all the storage I could onboard vs carrying additional storage as I travel.
CPU's have been basically waiting on traditional storage speeds to catch up for a long time, this type of solid state storage brings things into perspective of how much overkill the CPU speeds have been for the avg user. Power users (if you have to ask if you are, your not) will always need the quad core and have programs that take advantage of them, the rest of us will see huge speed increases by simply using solid state storage with current CPU's.
CPU's have been basically waiting on traditional storage speeds to catch up for a long time, this type of solid state storage brings things into perspective of how much overkill the CPU speeds have been for the avg user. Power users (if you have to ask if you are, your not) will always need the quad core and have programs that take advantage of them, the rest of us will see huge speed increases by simply using solid state storage with current CPU's.
Yup... using a super fast i7 Quad imac vs my old 2.16 MBP you don't really feel a difference until you start doing rendering/video editing.
Otherwise both run at pretty much the same speed... seriously how much processor power do you really need to open and work with Safari/word/photoshop/indesign/maya...
not much.
Sure filters will take longer in photoshop (rendering) but most of that has been offloaded to the GPU in CS5 anyway.. uhum.. 320m to the rescue!
This is a totally subjective decision. But from my perspective the difference is only $100 (or $90 with educational discount), for which you will get a very marginal increase in performance. Since I will be running Win 7 under Fusion VM, I ordered my MBA with the 1.6 GHz CPU.
If you were gonna go for 128GB SSD model anyway for whatever reasons, then maybe. It's only $100 extra.
But if you were otherwise totally OK with $999 version, then is 0.2GHz worth $300+tax? My answer was NO. I just paid $100 for 4GB RAM and am totally happy with my low-end 11". If you need a lot more speed, you need a lot faster machine.
But if you were otherwise totally OK with $999 version, then is 0.2GHz worth $300+tax? My answer was NO. I just paid $100 for 4GB RAM and am totally happy with my low-end 11". If you need a lot more speed, you need a lot faster machine.
I figured, it's only $100 extra, that is one day of pay for me, so I was willing to work an extra day just to get the upgrade. Same with the RAM. I am getting the 1.6GHz/4GB RAM/128GB Flash 11.6" model, it's on order now. Ordered Saturday afternoon and says "Not yet shipped" still. Hopefully by tomorrow evening my new MBA will be on the way!!
200MHz in processor speed may not seem like that much, but every little bit of extra "oomph" I could add to the little machine to get the best performance possible, I would do it. I would be willing to pay even more for a 1.86GHz or 2.13GHz if that was an option on the 11.6" I would also put 8GB of RAM on there if it was an option, but 4GB is the max allowed. Also, 256GB of Flash would have been nice too.
200MHz in processor speed may not seem like that much, but every little bit of extra "oomph" I could add to the little machine to get the best performance possible, I would do it. I would be willing to pay even more for a 1.86GHz or 2.13GHz if that was an option on the 11.6" I would also put 8GB of RAM on there if it was an option, but 4GB is the max allowed. Also, 256GB of Flash would have been nice too.
Honestly, you're not going to see much difference with that extra 200MHz.
You'd see more with that $100 going towards a RAM bump than a CPU bump.
You'd see more with that $100 going towards a RAM bump than a CPU bump.
I went back and forth on this as well and finally decided on the 1.6 - in fact, I'm typing this post on it now! For me, I decided that $100 wasn't that big a deal when I was already spending $1300.
Also, I occasionally do play World of Warcraft on my laptop when I travel and I figured the extra CPU power might be a benefit then. Every little bit helps and even a few extra frames per second in a game can make a world of difference (no pun intended) when it is relatively low to begin with.
But, as others have said, if the extra $100 expense would be a burden to you financially, then don't do it. If it really isn't a big deal to spend the extra $100, then why not do it since it cannot be upgraded later on?
Good luck!
Also, I occasionally do play World of Warcraft on my laptop when I travel and I figured the extra CPU power might be a benefit then. Every little bit helps and even a few extra frames per second in a game can make a world of difference (no pun intended) when it is relatively low to begin with.
But, as others have said, if the extra $100 expense would be a burden to you financially, then don't do it. If it really isn't a big deal to spend the extra $100, then why not do it since it cannot be upgraded later on?
Good luck!
MBA 1.4Ghz can play Crysis
If you carry your MacBook around a lot, a compulsive blogger, a light gamer, watch lotsa 720p tv shows, the MBA 11.6 with 1.4Ghz is the right gear for you. This is what surprised me, PC Mag just did a 3D test: MBA 1.4GHz can play Crysis at 25fps !!!
http://www.pcmag.com/image_popup/0,1740,iid=273094,00.asp
If you carry your MacBook around a lot, a compulsive blogger, a light gamer, watch lotsa 720p tv shows, the MBA 11.6 with 1.4Ghz is the right gear for you. This is what surprised me, PC Mag just did a 3D test: MBA 1.4GHz can play Crysis at 25fps !!!
http://www.pcmag.com/image_popup/0,1740,iid=273094,00.asp