MacBook Air 11 or 13 inch

By Tarja, 14 November, 2016

Forum
Apple Hardware and Compatible Accessories

Hello
I'm planning to buy MacBook Air. I will use it in school. I like 11 inch more than 13 inch. /But 11 inch memory is 4GB and 13 inch is 8GB. Will 11 inch enough fast?
Thanks

Options

Comments

By Jake on Tuesday, November 22, 2016 - 20:36

Hi, go for the 13. You can get the 11 with 8 gb of ram if you custom order, but I recommend the 13 for two main reasons:
1. The battery life is better. And I don't mean a little better. There's a larger battery, and you can easily get three more hours at a minimum of battery life.
2. Just in case you ever need it, the 13 has an SD card reader/writer on it.
No matter which one you go with, make sure you do have 8 gb of RAM. That, more than anything else on a Macbook Air, will determine the speed of your system.

By Tarja on Tuesday, November 22, 2016 - 20:36

Thank you so much. But if you suggest 13 inch then what you will say about MacBook Pro. Will it more better choice?

By Jake on Tuesday, November 22, 2016 - 20:36

With the Macbook Pro it really depends. If you're studying something intensive like computer science, engineering, or audio/video media production then yes the Pro might just be a better choice. You'll get less battery life though and, if it's one of the new Pros you're talking about, you'll have to deal with the lack of standard USB ports and such. Unless you know you need the Pro, I'd get the air and not spend the extra money for a Pro at present.

By techluver on Tuesday, November 22, 2016 - 20:36

My view is that you should just get the latest. So get the MacBook pro, because it has the fastest processor and you'll get your 8gb of ram.

By Tarja on Tuesday, November 22, 2016 - 20:36

Then I think that Air would be better for me because I'm just ordinary school student.

By Jake on Tuesday, November 22, 2016 - 20:36

In reply to by techluver

I'd not go with the new Macbook Pro unless you are a tech enthusiast. Personally, I am a tech type and I may do it, but for someone who wants a hassle-free machine as it stands currently? Absolutely not. Give it a while to let the problems, and issues caused by the lack of typical ports etc, either straighten out or have solutions developed and ready. School students often need USB flash drives at the least, therefore they will want a machine that still has those "old-fashioned" USB ports.

By Chris on Tuesday, November 22, 2016 - 20:36

If I were you, I would go ahead and snag the $1000 13 inch MacBook Air directly from Apple. I have the 2013 13 inch Air and I am really happy with mine. You'll get 8 GB of ram, a 128 GB SSD, and a fairly good 1.6 GHZ duel core Intel I5 Processor. This is as cheap as you're going to get if you're looking at Apple's laptops. FOr what you're getting, I think you'll be happy. I've successfully used mine for school with no issues. I do wish that the default 128 GB was raised to 256, but that's why I have an external hard drive. Then again, I don't really use that much space. At the moment, I have about 90 GB of available drive space, so that should tell you that my storage needs aren't too demanding. There is one other thing to keep in mind about this machine. The 3.5 MM audio jack is a combo input/output jack. If you have the special Apple headphone cables with the extra wire, you'll be able to use microphones. If you're thinking about plugging standard patch cords into the socket, you're out of luck. The computer will send your audio out instead of recording audio from the cable. If you want to do line in recordings, you'll need to use a USB soundcard. If you don't rely on that, you should be just fine.

By Tarja on Tuesday, November 22, 2016 - 20:36

Thank you all so much. I'm now sure I will take Macbook Air 13 inch. :)