Apple MacBook Air 11 inch, 13 inch, or Dell XPS 14 with i7 and nvidia graphics card?

Question

I am a college student looking for either a MacBook Air 11 inch or a MacBook Air 13 inch. I was looking at the Dell XPS 14 with i7 processor and nvidia graphics card. It is similar in price to an Apple MacBook Air 11 inch. I will mainly use the laptop for browsing, a bit of Minecraft, watching videos (netflix/downloading movies), presentations, and documents. I would also need it to be lightweight because I will be carrying it around campus. I cannot choose between these three.....any ideas? I have an iPhone 5 and iPad with retina display (that is what I use currently and it is not working out). I just saw the WWDC14 and I saw how all my devices could connect to the Mac flawlessly.
Please let me know,
Thanks

Answer 1

I recommend the macbook 13" retina. Yes, it is expensive, but if you pair it with 8GB of memory, you should be futureproof for the next 5 years minimum. Why not the air.
Currently the air sports thunderbolt 1, This is super outdated. Macbook pro has thunderbolt 2 which allows you to daisy chain monitors via display port 1.2. Macbook Air sports display port 1.1a which only allows daisy chaining amoungst thunderbolt monitors which are expensive. $1000 minimum per a monitor where as you could pickup a daisy chainable displayport 1.2 dell monitor for $200. The only reason I am severely regretting my 13" Air.
The screen, yes, in a few years all screens will sport retina resolutions. It makes a big difference when reading and typing for long periods of time. Text is more clear. Also, 11" is way too small. If you want something that small, get an Ipad Air.
Battery life, 9 hours should still be enough to get you through the day. I go to school and I could only top out at 7 hours usage at most.
Gaming, Although I dont recommend gaming on any laptop because laptops aren't meant so much for gaming. Mostly because the heat generated from it kills the life of your laptop. It is up to 20% faster than the air.
Weight, half a pound off the 13" AIR is not a big deal. Actually the retina is smaller in height and width, so better center of balance when using it on your lap and the black bezel is less distracting.
Processor, its 10% faster in overall processing speeds generally.
Dont forget to purchase 2 year extended warranty. Buy that from bhphoto for 180 bucks. No tax and its way cheaper than apple.
If you still want the air after that, consider getting the 13". It comes with sd card slot, it is handy when you run out of space. And its 10% faster than the 11" even though they have the same processor. The processor's performance is based on the thermal threshold of the computer. The hotter it gets, the slower the computer gets to cool the processor down.
If you choose the Macbook Pro 13" RETINA(Not the $999 version with the DVD Drive), if you can, wait till late october when they update the computer with better hardware. Well... if you can.