I'm looking at either getting the Macbook Air core i7 (2011) or Macbook Air core i5 (2012). Can someone help explain what the major differences are between the two? I know the chips are different but I'm curious to know what other differences I should know.
Thank you!
MacBook Air
A couple of other differences between those machines are what swayed me to upgrade my 2011 model to the 2012. I would not have upgraded for just a speed bump of processor, chipset and memory.
The 2012 has a better FaceTime camera. It's HD 720 versus VGA on the 2012. With the additonal pixels though, the camera only has very modest quality increase. But the other salient factor was the USB 3.0. I have a number of USB 3.0 devices that I was just sick and tired of dealing with pokey 2.0 connection on the 2011 MBA.
Check out this website for performance data on the 2011 MBAs
http://www.barefeats.com/mba11_02.html
Check out this website for performance of all Macbooks for the past two years
http://www.primatelabs.com/blog/2012/06/13-inch-macbook-pro-benchmarks/
Besides an update of the processors, I believe the RAM memory was updated. No body change and or screen change. So base your decision off of performance if you have the money.
I have last year's model of the 13" MBA and I have had use of the 2012 MBA core i5 13" and the differences are huge in my opinion. The bus speed has been increased and the processer is now Ivy Bridge as compared to Sandy Bridge. The performance is much faster even though the Core i5 is not equal to the new Core i7. IMO, the new MBA is the one to get.
Aside from what others have already mentioned.
Another difference is the system bus speed.
The 2011 MB Air is at 1333MHz and the newer on is at 1600MHz.
In turn will give you higher speed across the board.
Also note that the newer Macbook Air is running on 6G with the new Toshiba Flash Drive.
MBA core i7 (2011) or MBA core i5 (2012)?
