Macbook Air Thoughts

rctneil · 1 Jan 2013 at 15:35

Hey guys,

I'm thinking of getting a Macbook Air 11" to take away with me on holiday. Main uses would be for browsing the web and keeping up to date with things. Keeping in touch with family and friends. Storing my photos from my camera.

Due to the Macbook Air having quite small drives, I was thinking about getting the 128Gb model and a external portable drive connecting via USB3. Any recommendations on drives here? Also anyone know of any very portable USB3 SD readers?

Also, With a stock install of OSX Mountain Lion, how much space does this take up on the drive?

Raymond Lin · 1 Jan 2013 at 15:49

I wouldn't suggest a MBA for this.

If it is JUST for this then get a secondhand netbook, £200, job done. Not £800.

rctneil · 1 Jan 2013 at 15:55

DELETE THIS

rctneil · 1 Jan 2013 at 15:57

I did think about doing that but then thinking a bit longer term, I would then have a personal laptop to use and not have to rely on my work one. but I do see where you are coming from.

Also, the Air would run Adobe Lightroom soo much better than a cheap netbook. and allow me to do my own web development on it at home like I do on my own and work systems

Raymond Lin · 1 Jan 2013 at 16:16

if you are going to run Lightroom, especially LR4, I would get something with a LOT of RAM, at least 16G. So MBP is where my money would go. This is coming from an iMac with 8G ram which crawls to one with 32G.

The screen estate on either the MBA or Netbook are too small. After the side panels you end up a tiny middle working area.

rctneil · 1 Jan 2013 at 17:03

I would take a MacBook Pro/A bigger machine but for this trip away, I need to keep things light, I was looking at the Air due to how light it is and it's tiny dimensions. I have worked with Lightroom on a screen small than the Air's screen in the past and it was fine. I will not be using LR on the air for altering develop settings, more for photo organisation which is fine.

As I do a lot of web development (not really what I will be doing whilst being away) but the Air would be very useful for that back at home as I can make my dev environment identical to my home iMac.

I understand the price issue but considering I have an iMac at home, iPhone then surely it would make sense to get an Apple netbook equivalent. I also run Lightroom perfectly on my iMac with less than 16Gb of RAM.

Raymond Lin · 1 Jan 2013 at 17:08

Fair enough but it is up to you and I stand by my Ram argument.

This is a screenshot of a 3 days old iMac. 10G of Ram used between Active and Wired. 8G is simply not enough. Page Out is 0 and which is important.

uniQ · 1 Jan 2013 at 20:01

RAM usage is not linear. The more RAM you have the more RAM software will use. 8GB should be more than enough for Photoshop/Lightroom and an IvyBridge Air will run them more than adequately.

Hades · 1 Jan 2013 at 20:05

If it's just for browsing and "keeping up to date" then I suggest a cheap secondhand netbook or tablet and then sell it again on your return.

Raymond Lin · 1 Jan 2013 at 20:10

uniQ said:
RAM usage is not linear. The more RAM you have the more RAM software will use. 8GB should be more than enough for Photoshop/Lightroom and an IvyBridge Air will run them more than adequately.

When it need above 8G, where does that get it from? Or does it simply not load part of the software to keep it under?

Nymins · 1 Jan 2013 at 20:14

It'll use the pagefile then. Performance will be slightly reduced but that's all.

shine · 1 Jan 2013 at 20:15

Raymond Lin said:
When it need above 8G, where does that get it from? Or does it simply not load part of the software to keep it under?

That's when it starts to page to disk i.e. anything in memory not currently used is copied to disk. When it is needed it is copied back into memory and something else is moved to disk. This is why disk usage goes up when there is low memory.

Raymond Lin · 1 Jan 2013 at 20:26

Nymins said:
It'll use the pagefile then. Performance will be slightly reduced but that's all.

shine said:
That's when it starts to page to disk i.e. anything in memory not currently used is copied to disk. When it is needed it is copied back into memory and something else is moved to disk. This is why disk usage goes up when there is low memory.

Precisely, try moving 7G of the stuff....

I am not talking about theory and paper numbers, I am talking about real world experience with Lightroom 4 and thousands of photos library and files.

shine · 1 Jan 2013 at 20:29

Raymond Lin said:
Exactly, try moving 7G of the stuff....

Mine wasn't that bad but it's the reason why I went from 8 to 16GB in my MBP. Now I can run my VM's without performance suffering. However, I think the others are saying if the OP only has light usage then it is unlikely they will need more the 8GB. I can see both sides of the argument but only the OP knows what is needed.

Raymond Lin · 1 Jan 2013 at 20:41

shine said:
Mine wasn't that bad but it's the reason why I went from 8 to 16GB in my MBP. Now I can run my VM's without performance suffering. However, I think the others are saying if the OP only has light usage then it is unlikely they will need more the 8GB. I can see both sides of the argument but only the OP knows what is needed.

Yeah, it is up to the OP where he think best his money should go.

If its just for this holiday and store some photos then MBA is overkill.

If he wants to work on LR then I don't think the screen size and memory count is enough for that kind of work in my experience.

Since he already have an iMac then I think a netbook is probably a better way to spend the money.

uniQ · 1 Jan 2013 at 20:48

8GB is plenty for Lightroom.

shine · 1 Jan 2013 at 20:51

Raymond Lin said:
If its just for this holiday and store some photos then MBA is overkill.

If he wants to work on LR then I don't think the screen size and memory count is enough for that kind of work in my experience.

Since he already have an iMac then I think a netbook is probably a better way to spend the money.

I agree the MBA seems to be overkill but the OP could always hook it up to an external screen to increase the resolution.

Raymond Lin · 1 Jan 2013 at 21:03

shine said:
I agree the MBA seems to be overkill but the OP could always hook it up to an external screen to increase the resolution.

He has an iMac for that.

uniQ said:
8GB is plenty for Lightroom.

Exhibit A.

uniQ · 1 Jan 2013 at 21:30

Wow a whole 90mb of page outs and you only had to recreate an unrealistic scenario that you wouldn't even find yourself in to achieve it :rolleyes:

You can beat around the bush as much as you wan't, but for what the Op want's to use it for it will handle it absolutely fine.

Raymond Lin · 1 Jan 2013 at 21:35

Sorry, that was just loaded up.

This is more a typical example of what it is after a bit of work done. I have seen it higher than this.