Catalina or Monterey for MacBook Air 2017? Advise needed.

[eastworm]

MacBook Air (13-inch, 2017)​

1.8GHz dual-core Intel Core i5
128GB SSD
8GB RAM

My stock MBA2017 is still on macOS Catalina and as we all know Monterey will be the last macOS that will work on it. So would love to see feedbacks from forummers here whether it's better to upgrade or i should just stick with Catalina. Or maybe Big Sur is better than both? Thanks!

 

[jdw13]

For me, on a mid-2014 MacBook Pro, I found that Big Sur was running better and more stable. The Catalina seemed less stable as I was experiencing Catalina Crash panic and perhaps other flakiness that I do not recall at the moment. My experience may be related more to my particular setup with USB bridge and external disks, but FYI.

see Catalina or Big Sur for MacBook Pro Late 2013?

 

[StevenGeorge]

Hello! I have a 2015 MacBook Pro 13” 2.7GHZ i5 with 512GB SSD and 8GB RAM. I bought it used with Catalina already installed on it. I ran with that for a couple of years and just last week upgraded directly to Monterey. I can’t help you with Big Sur but I liked Catalina a lot and had no issues with it. At first I was very skeptical to upgrade to Monterey but now I like it even more! BTW, One thing to consider is that Monterey is 12.5 GB and your SSD is 128GB. HTH

 

[Bazza1]

I'm on a 2017 MBA Air. Currently on Monterey. And frankly, for what I use it for (docs and pdf creation, some minor video and pic editing, listening to music, email, internet - including streaming, iCloud communication between it and my iPhone), I've not seen significant differences / improvements between the original Catalina and now.

That said - as you noted - Monterey will be the last OS to work on the it, and I'd be inclined to believe Apple would be more likely to maintain some security and OS apps updates on it than they would with Catalina. So maybe if the plan is to hold onto the device for awhile yet, that might be a consideration?

Interesting consideration as noted by StevenGeorge, as far as size of the OS is concerned. Not sure of the size difference between Catalina and Monterey, but an installation does overwrite the other, too - so not using up the space of Catalina plus Monterey. Still, if your SSD is already borderline full, that might be a thought.

 

[eastworm]

I'm on a 2017 MBA Air. Currently on Monterey. And frankly, for what I use it for (docs and pdf creation, some minor video and pic editing, listening to music, email, internet - including streaming, iCloud communication between it and my iPhone), I've not seen significant differences / improvements between the original Catalina and now.

That said - as you noted - Monterey will be the last OS to work on the it, and I'd be inclined to believe Apple would be more likely to maintain some security and OS apps updates on it than they would with Catalina. So maybe if the plan is to hold onto the device for awhile yet, that might be a consideration?

Interesting consideration as noted by StevenGeorge, as far as size of the OS is concerned. Not sure of the size difference between Catalina and Monterey, but an installation does overwrite the other, too - so not using up the space of Catalina plus Monterey. Still, if your SSD is already borderline full, that might be a thought.

May i know what's the spec of your MBA2017?

 

[Bazza1]

May i know what's the spec of your MBA2017?

2017 MBA, 13", 1.8 dual i5, 256 / 8.

I'm showing 133 GB free, with MacOS taking up 15.24 GB of the used space / System taking up 32.32 GB.

I've got 7500 docs / pdfs, 5000 tunes, 4500 pics and 67 movies on it and, needless to say, I don't access all of that daily. For stuff I use even less often (and a manual backup over and above Time Machine), I have all that on a 500GB SSD, and that's nowhere near full, either.

Prior to this MBA, I had a 2011 one, 11" with the 128 GB drive. With pretty much the same stuff on it, I seem to recall I had somewhere around 35 GB (?) free, right up until I traded it in for the 2017. So that would have included how many ever OS updates, too.

 

[sgtaylor5]

I've got a 2017 MBA i7 2.2/8/128 and Monterey runs a bit hotter than Catalina did. I have Macs Fan Control Pro set so that the minimum temperature of the fan turns on is 50C and the hottest temperature it can reach is 80C and it's tied to the CPU PECI temperature sensor. The actual temperature can be higher than 80 C, but the fan will just run full blast until it gets cooler. Monterey doesn't make the computer very much slower.

 

[Jack Neill]

I'm not a big fan of 10.15, I would run 11 if I had that machine. My 2012 is running it great even with 4GB of ram. I would wait on 12 I think it needs a few more dots in the oven.