Few questions before I shell out for an MBA

[sayhitokyle]

I have a few questions regarding my recent decision to finally upgrade my 3 year old MacBook to a new 13" MBA

There's not much wrong with this MacBook, she's been looked after (bought a new hard drive from 80gb to 160gb, upgraded RAM, recently brought a new battery) but I think it's time for a change, and over time I've noticed apps are running a lot slower (I recently tried to play the free Doctor Who games, which barely ran at all, compared to a friends newer model that ran like a dream) also I do a lot of travelling so it'd be nice to have less weight to carry round.

So my questions are:

I notice that MBAs have a 1.8ghz processer, my MB has 2ghz, would I notice much of a difference? (I don't do any heavy work, just iLife and Photoshop)

I also plan to store my music, photos and videos on a 1tb external hard drive, possibly hooked up to a wireless router (I'm not too worried about having my music on the go, that's what ipods are for) is this a smart idea? Are there any other options?

Where's the best place to then sell my old MacBook?

And is there anything else I've missed?

Sorry to ask a load of questions, but I'll be forever grateful for any advice you can give!

(I posted something similar to this in another thread, but there were no replies, so apologies if you've seen this twice today)

 

[KPOM]

I doubt you'll notice the processor speed difference. IIRC, your old MacBook has 3MB of L2 cache while the 1.86GHz version has 6MB of cache so that makes up some of the difference. The MBA also has a 1066MHz front side bus, so that helps. The SSD makes startup and app loading much quicker. If you really want it, the 2.13GHz model is a $100 upgrade, but it's available only for the 256GB model. I would suggest going for the 4GB RAM option if you plan to keep the MacBook Air for a while, though.

A hard drive hooked up to a router should work just fine. I use a Time Capsule, but an Airport Extreme would work, too.

 

[sayhitokyle]

Ah brilliant, thanks!

 

[pfjellman]

storing your media on an external networked drive will work fine. i do it and have had no problems.

you will not see much of a performance drop from your older macbook, because as kpom said you'll have a faster bus and more L2 cache. also the ssd really does a lot to improve performance across the board in everything you do.

the newer 320m gpu will be great if you want to play any games or do anything with advanced graphics. definitely get the 4GB ram upgrade, but the proc upgrade is probably not worth it, especially since you can get away with the 128GB model if you store all your media externally.

when you're ready to sell your macbook, let people know here in the proper location (if you're willing to ship), and definitely throw it on craigslist, especially if you live in a decent sized city.

 

[pjfan]

I doubt you'll notice the processor speed difference. IIRC, your old MacBook has 3MB of L2 cache while the 1.86GHz version has 6MB of cache so that makes up some of the difference. The MBA also has a 1066MHz front side bus, so that helps. The SSD makes startup and app loading much quicker. If you really want it, the 2.13GHz model is a $100 upgrade, but it's available only for the 256GB model. I would suggest going for the 4GB RAM option if you plan to keep the MacBook Air for a while, though.

A hard drive hooked up to a router should work just fine. I use a Time Capsule, but an Airport Extreme would work, too.

KPOM is dead on. I will add that the MBA has a much better Graphics Processor as well, so general tasks should behave better than the MB anyhow.

MBA is a great step up for you... sounds like it's a perfect match!

Good luck!

 

[sayhitokyle]

Thanks guys, I'll be sure to let you know how it goes!

 

[jayo123456]

if you don't do CPU intensive work, believe it or not, the air will be miles faster.