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Comment by benatkin | Hacker News Reader

The battery life is missing from the table, probably because it contradicts the author's linkbait title.

At this point in the game, I'm expecting battery life to become the primary point of the Air, rather than weight and size alone.

Many people don't need all the high-end specs of the Pro, but they definitely want battery life.

I'm anticipating that the future of the MBA line either includes a shift to Intel Atom processors or a line of Apple ARM chips.

If they go with ARM, my gut tells me that they will either run iOS on these new MBAs or a version of OS X that only runs apps sold via the App Store. That's why I'm guessing they'll go with Atom (or whatever Intel is offering at the power-sipping end).

The future for the Air is Apple getting serious about keyboard support in iOS.

The MBA is a product that exists largely because tablets didn't (at the time). If you had a light workload and wanted an "all day" battery, that was your choice. Today, people buy it because keyboard support on tablets is dodgy and maybe you need one or two apps that don't have a mobile or web alternative.

But in the time it would take for Apple to roll out an Atom or ARM switch, they could have much more easily and cleanly expanded the iPad up into the MBA's niche.

I think the iPad Air name is foreshadowing.

See, my theory is that the Air is going to further be cannibalized by the iPad Air. I agree, it'll go the way of ARM and run some sort of iOS/OSX hybrid. Think Surface 2. I can't foresee the Macbook Air surviving as a laptop.

The battery life estimate on Apple's site is 9 hours for the 13" Retina MBP and 12 hours for the 13" Air. The Air will run longer, but they probably both run long enough.

Eric Griffin seems to have different needs than I do. The relevant comparison for me is 13" Air with 256GB flash, 8GB RAM, 1.7GHz i7, and 12 hours estimated battery life for $1,549.00 or the 13" RMBP 256GB flash, 16GB RAM, 2.4GHz i5, and 9 hours of estimated battery life for $1,699.00. (Haswell i5s have hyperthreading, so the upgrade to the i7 does very little). This is $150 for twice the RAM, a great display, and 3/4 the battery life. It really does make the 13" Air seem silly.

Because the author is critical of Apple, it's link-bait? The title is hardly sensational.

What made you think the author is critical of Apple? Apple cannibalizes themselves all the time. It's one of the great things about them, that they're not afraid to do it.

Because "cannibal" has a negative connotation.

Is the battery life that big of a deal? It's something like 9 hours to 12 hours (or something close) for MBP vs MBA. I just don't see that as a major difference - it's not like a 1.7g vs 2.8g CPU.

The rated CPU speed is nearly meaningless for machine responsiveness or even bursts of heavy usage (Photoshop edits; compiling changed files) given the dynamic voltage and frequency scaling ("Turbo"). Both the "1.7 GHz" 4650U in the Air and the "2.8 GHz" turbo to the same peak of 3.3 GHz, have the same sized cache, same memory interface, same base GPU clock, nearly the same peak turbo GPU clock, and cost the exact same number of dollars. They are the "same" CPU, with different tuning for sustained thermal allowances.

Battery life is a way bigger deal than a 1.7g versus 2.8g CPU. My 2010 MBA with its circa-2008 CPU (Apple hung on to the Core 2 Duo for a long time) is plenty fast for me, even for development work. At this point, I'd much rather have a machine that I only had to charge once a week.

I think you sort of missed what I'm saying - we're talking about a MBP that has better battery life already than your 2010 MBA. The 2013 MBP has a 9-hour battery life compared to the 12-hour 2013 MBA battery life. That's a "difference" but is that extra three hours of battery life worth trading for a 60% faster processor? I don't see that as a good trade off.

Sorry, I read out the word "the". I thought you were saying "battery life is good enough."

I would rather have the 3 extra hours than the 60% faster processor (though I would rather have the retina display than the 3 extra hours). My aging MBA compiles LLVM, the biggest thing I ever build these days, in 10-12 minutes. Do I care if that number is 7-8 instead? Not really.

On the other hand, three extra hours can mean leaving the charger at home.

9 to 12 hours in year one, vs 6.5 to 9.5 in year 3

He also treats weight as a non issue.

A half pound is barely something to care about when you're talking about non-handheld devices.

A half pound sounds like nothing, but the air is about 15% lighter than the 13" which is pretty significant.

Not really. The difference between 3.5lbs and 3lbs isn't even really something worth discussing when the device will always be resting on something when you're using it. If we were talking about the iPad or a similar tablet then yeah, of course that would be a big deal.

Well, yeah, if your laptop is always sitting on a table and you walk up and type on it without ever moving it, then you really have a desktop and weight is irrelevant.

But laptops get carried, they get held in odd positions while you're moving around. If they're light enough you can hold them above you in bed without your arms falling off. You can sit sideways on the couch and prop them on your knees. At that point, ever 18% lighter is very important.

That something it's resting on is my chest half the time, so yeah, it makes a difference.

Is weight really an issue? We're talking less than a half pound difference between two laptops. I don't think that's an "issue".

He is doing his compare against the 13", the 11" Air is 2.38 pounds. It matters for me. I had an Air and now have a Pro and it is a bit of a pain. Also, the whole bag is more weight since it is bigger than the 11" version.

If you travel a lot, every half-pound matters.

I've travelled a lot and I'd trade a half pound for (15% or so?) for a 60% faster processor!

There is also a concept of 'fast enough'. My 2013 MBA is fast enough for anything I want to do on it. Actually, my 2011 MBA was fast enough as well - I only upgraded because of awesome battery life in the 2013 model.

Further to that, I specifically chose the slower processor option (i5 vs i7) because i7 would reduce battery life (even if by 30 minutes).

Well, I would not.

The weight and size difference is negligible.

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