The part you've omitted in the comparison is the year of your machine. I say this largely because measuring a processor by it's gigahertz isn't the most definit

The part you've omitted in the comparison is the year of your machine. I say this largely because measuring a processor by it's gigahertz isn't the most definitive measure of a "better" or "faster" processor. If your MBA is a few years old, I might expect that Core i5 you have to be Haswell microarchitecture based, whereas the new Macbook is most definitely Broadwell. The key differentiators between the two, according to Intel: "[Broadwell is] 30% more efficient than Haswell's ones, using 30% less power while providing slightly better performance at the same clock speed." Having said that, the new Macbook is the most expensive netbook I've ever seen. Gorgeous, but expensive, which makes it tough to justify the price for the specs you're receiving.