05-17-2011, 02:26 PM

I am planning on buying a macbook air, 11 inch 64GB, this summer which should be enough for my needs as I only use ever use my laptop to surf the internet, stream music and write essays. But I'll use it for quite a long time (around 5 years, my current low-end macbook is 6 years old and still isn't too bad shape) and it will inevitably get slower over time anyway so I want to make sure it won't run any slower with Lion that it does with Snow Leopard?

Thanks

05-17-2011, 02:35 PM

Welcome to the forums.

Because Lion has not been released, there is no way to tell Lion will run slower or not.
Having said that, I can not believe Apple would make an OS that would run slower than its predecessor.

My 2 cents.

Cheers ... McBie

05-17-2011, 02:38 PM

Why on Earth would it run slower?
When SL was released, it freed up more HDD space and made everything "snappier" and more responsive. It was an improvement.
Also, note that today's notebooks are way better than ones from 6 years ago. Better/faster processors, more RAM, and as I already mentioned, Lion will be a superior OS. Things only get better with Apple. Not worse.

06-15-2011, 07:08 PM

Originally Posted by MYmacROX

Why on Earth would it run slower?

My guess would be because it's a piece of software that does more things than the software that's currently running on the hardware.

I'm very happy with Snow Leopard on my MBA 11" so I'm going to be looking at benchmarks when I decide if I'm going to upgrade. My gut feeling is that it's going to be absolutely fine but I think it's worth just verifying that first. The MBA has a very long way to go before it starts feeling slow.

06-15-2011, 08:55 PM

Your MBA 11" meets the minimum system requirements for RAM and CPU. It also has a flash based storage medium. I'm sure you have nothing to worry about.

06-15-2011, 09:00 PM

I honestly can't see why there'd be a problem myself but it never hurts to check something really is better before paying for it.

06-15-2011, 09:26 PM

Originally Posted by steviesteveo

My guess would be because it's a piece of software that does more things than the software that's currently running on the hardware.

I'm very happy with Snow Leopard on my MBA 11" so I'm going to be looking at benchmarks when I decide if I'm going to upgrade. My gut feeling is that it's going to be absolutely fine but I think it's worth just verifying that first. The MBA has a very long way to go before it starts feeling slow.

A newer OS means more efficient way of doing things, thus less-tasking on the hardware. Just as with SL, we gained HDD space and the system got "snappier". Not slower.

06-15-2011, 09:43 PM

Snow Leopard got snappier and smaller because that was the idea behind the update: Apple sat down and said "let's choose to make this update more efficient, we'll take out the legacy stuff that's built up through versions of OS X over the years and optimise what's left".

It's not a rule that the newer software is the faster it goes. We only got a smaller and snappier update in Snow Leopard because they deliberately made it smaller and snappier. In computers if you make the same hardware do more things (eg. by adding features) sometimes it gets slower. Word 2011 doesn't run as fast as Word 5.0.

06-16-2011, 06:12 AM

Originally Posted by steviesteveo

My guess would be because it's a piece of software that does more things than the software that's currently running on the hardware.

You are making an error in logic. Just because a piece of software may now do things in a DIFFERENT way than it did before, does not mean it's doing anything more than it did before. In fact, quite the opposite: Apple is always looking for ways to make the OS more efficient.

A good example of this is the way Lion combines Dashboard, Expose and Spaces into one idea called Mission Control. I can't verify it because I don't yet have Lion, but I'd make a strong wager that Mission Control is significantly more efficient (in file size, in RAM requirements, in all aspects of operation) than the three programs it replaces were.

But there is no law that says that because Lion is out, you have to upgrade, either.

06-16-2011, 07:36 AM

You know, I'm in two minds on this: 1) I don't think Lion runs slower than Snow Leopard on a late 2010 Macbook Air (it's so fast now, it's so new, the spec is high etc) but 2) I disagree with how automatic and undeniable it's being presented as. The particular thing that got to me was "Why on Earth would it run slower?" as if it's unreasonable to ask if the new version of the OS is bigger than the previous one. Fundamentally I think "Will Macbook air 64gb run slower with Lion?" is a sensible and fair question to ask.

06-17-2011, 06:22 AM

Originally Posted by steviesteveo

The particular thing that got to me was "Why on Earth would it run slower?" as if it's unreasonable to ask if the new version of the OS is bigger than the previous one.

There is ZERO relationship to the size of an OS and how well ("fast") it performs. You are conflating two different things.

06-17-2011, 12:35 PM

Doesn't this mean you never need to upgrade your computer?

I mean, if software gets more efficient with each version and how fast it runs doesn't depend on how big the software is, we seem to have gone from just asking if Lion runs slower than Snow Leopard on the MBA 11 to invalidating buying more than one computer in your life.

06-17-2011, 12:47 PM

10.2 Jaguar was way faster on the same hardware than 10.1 Puma.

10.3 Panther was way faster one the same hardware than 10.2 Jaguar.

10.4 Tiger was WAY faster on the same hardware than 10.3 Panther.

06-17-2011, 12:50 PM

Originally Posted by dtravis7

10.2 Jaguar was way faster on the same hardware than 10.1 Puma.

10.3 Panther was way faster one the same hardware than 10.2 Jaguar.

10.4 Tiger was WAY faster on the same hardware than 10.3 Panther.

And Tiger is way, way, WAY faster than Puma on the same hardware?

06-17-2011, 12:51 PM

In fact, yes.

And trust me, I have the hardware to test it on also. Everything from Blue and White G3 and old iMacs to modern Intel Macs.

The only version of OSX that seemed slower in some ways was 10.5 but that was mostly boot time. SL took care of that.