MacBook Pro Late 2011 vs MacBook Air 2013
Hey guys!
I currently own the basic, 13" late 2011 MacBook Pro (intel core i5 2.4 GHz; 4GB ram; 500 GB SATA Drive) and as I'm going to college, I'm planning to buy a light but still durable computer, capable of lasting, say, 4 to 5 years while still being able to run recent softwares (and hopefully games...). Since money is kind of an issue for me, I don't think I can afford the rMBP, still, I could afford the 11" MBA with 8GB of ram and the core i7. As for the hard drive, the 256 GB upgrade is just to costly, so I'm planning to use an USB 3 external hard drive to store my music and the apps I don't use too often.
My questions are:
Is the MBA faster or more powerful than my current MBP?
Will it last for that long without too much showing its age, or would an rMBP be better (I'm good in computer science but not in hardware, I would be unable to replace the ram or hard drive on a MBP...)?
I'm currently using parallels desktop 8 really often (sometimes playing an MMO called Star Wars the Old Republic), would it work better with the MBA?
And lastly, should I replace my current MBP? IMO, the specs are just horrible and it's kinda slow, but it's just me...
Any thoughts on those questions or other suggestions are welcome!
MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.4)