How powerful/fast is the MacBook Air 13inch pls?

Question

Hello everyone, I have had a 17inch MacBook Pro for about 6 years, its a great machine but it's too big and bulky to be very portable. I go away a lot for long weekend or train journyes to see friends and wanted a lightweight portable 'sketch book' to start idea in logic/ableton/photoshop etc while I was travelling and would then bring them back to finish/carry on on an iMac which I will get next year after saving for a bit.
So I bought a 13 inch MacbookPro, which is a great little machine but after only a week I am wondering if it's still a bit too heavy/thick for my needs. I am away now and it took up quite a lot in my ruckack and then I had to walk a couple a miles to the hostel and it go pretty heavy with all my other stuff. So I am wondering if I might return it and get an Air, but worry that it may not be the greatest at running these programs. Does anyone use it for such things or had any experience please? As I say I wont be tracking a whole orhcestra or choir just bacically for getting up ideas running/watching films/net etc
Thanks very much for all help.
PS My old MacBook Pro was 2.6 core 2 duo 4GB ram and seemed to run everything fine. Is the new i5 much better?

Answer 1

Hi Ian.id,
A couple of tips to maximize your shopping research.
1.) Apple Support Communities is an awesome resource for getting quick tech tips and help from a community of individuals who either work in the business, are enthusiasts or generally like to share their knowledge and experiences with others. While we all like to provide correct and accurate information that doesn't always happen (we're all human, after all) but the good news is that often times there's enough relevant data in these forums to where you can get pointed in the right direction or find your answer in another topic discussion.
2.) I'd rank these hardware communities as "ok" (at best) to get a thorough response to specific use cases. For example, with a Logic question you'd be better to ask this in the forums designed for Logic discussions. That forum is here -
https://discussions.apple.com/community/professional_applications
While I realize your question(s) are about the MacBook Air, ultimately the majority of topics in the machine-specific forums are about hardware/software troubleshooting. That's not to say you can't ask here and there (a lot of people will triple or even quad post) to increase visibility. It's no secret that each sub-community has their regulars.
3.) As Ableton is not an Apple product you're not going to get the visibility you're probably after here. What are the odds that someone who uses Ableton on a MacBook Air will see your thread and then actually response in a helpful manner? I'd say it's low. I'd recommend going through Ableton's support community channel which appears to be here -
https://www.ableton.com/answers
4.) Lastly, do you have any music software forums or community sites you frequent? I find those profession-specific forums are usually MUCH better for hardware discussion versus profession-specific discussions in a hardware forum.
Good Luck!