MacBook Air - Talk to me!

Invertigo

Invertigo

Invertigo

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Hi all

I'm very seriously considering getting myself the 11" Air at some point soon, but a couple of questions.

First and foremost, I'm only looking at the 64gb one right now, as I have an external 2.5" drive for storing files and I have a PC for all heavy duty tasks.

It's main use will be browsing, movies, music, note taking etc...as would be expected for a portable machine. Possibly very rare photo/video work, but that will generally be left for my desktop PC.

I'm looking at the Air over the pro for the portability factor. I don't want a bulky laptop, and the price difference between PC Ultrabooks vs the Air (with HE discount) is pretty negligible.

Another quick one...worth spending the £70 to upgrade from 2gb to 4gb ram? While this may or may not be right, I've heard osx tends to use less ram as a whole than Windows? I never felt my PC was limited with 4gb ram, and I only upgraded it due to lots of photo editing taking a toll on it.

So, opinions? :)
 
I think 4GB is now the minimum RAM you'd want - I've found Lion to be far more RAM-hungry than Snow Leopard was. I only have 2GB in my MBP and on occasion struggle just browsing. I think it might be partly down to the amount of sandboxing Safari does - Chrome isn't quite so resource-heavy.
 
13" is only a hundred quid more is it not and includes a better processor and 4GB as standard?

Have I got it wrong? I always remember the low end 13" being wayyy better than the top end 11"
 
Photo editing on an 11" would be difficult, too much scrolling around. I would prefer the 13"
 
I have the 11.6" with the 1.8GHz i7, 4GB RAM and 256GB SSD. It is the best bit of computer hardware I have ever purchased. Better than y 30" Dell, Better than my Watercooled 680s! It needs 4GB Ram, SSD obviously isn't an issue if you have external storage and the CPU at 1.6GHz (i5) isnt exactly what you would call slow giving more than enough power for day to day needs.

+ Its good for some light gaming like TRINE etc which is always a bonus :)
 
Sash said:
Photo editing on an 11" would be difficult, too much scrolling around. I would prefer the 13"
Click to expand...

The resolution is the same or more than the 13" MBP IIRC so its not really an issue. The 13" MBA does have a higher resolution though.
 
Buchanan0204 said:
13" is only a hundred quid more is it not and includes a better processor and 4GB as standard?

Have I got it wrong? I always remember the low end 13" being wayyy better than the top end 11"
Click to expand...

The 13" is £150 more than the spec mentioned for the 11" (including AppleCare and HE discount), which would be pushing my budget a bit too far.

Sash said:
Photo editing on an 11" would be difficult, too much scrolling around. I would prefer the 13"
Click to expand...

Photo editing will be a bare minimum, if at all. The media studios have a full set of iMacs and I have a 24" PC in my flat too.

Andrew Moore said:
I have the 11.6" with the 1.8GHz i7, 4GB RAM and 256GB SSD. It is the best bit of computer hardware I have ever purchased. Better than y 30" Dell, Better than my Watercooled 680s! It needs 4GB Ram, SSD obviously isn't an issue if you have external storage and the CPU at 1.6GHz (i5) isnt exactly what you would call slow giving more than enough power for day to day needs.

+ Its good for some light gaming like TRINE etc which is always a bonus :)
Click to expand...

Cheers Andrew. I assume its only fairly light tasks you use it for? I'd expect it handles typical laptop jobs very well.
 
Go for 4gb for sure, I'm running older 10.6 as opposed to Lion and even so 4gb really helps with things like Ableton.

Also, I'd take one over a pro. I rarely use optical drives, and it's nice to have something that weighs as little as a netbook, but in a more powerful package.

It may be worthing seeing if they bring out an Ivy Bridge update however.
 
Invertigo said:
Cheers Andrew. I assume its only fairly light tasks you use it for? I'd expect it handles typical laptop jobs very well.
Click to expand...

Its THIS cpu here and as a result is actually faster than the i5 Macbook Pros given the CPU boosts beyond them, the RAM is the same and the SSD is masses faster than the 500GB on the Pro.

Couple this with the thunderbolt port to 30" and I have a more than caperble machine that out performs a hell of a lot of supposedly more powerful "desktop replacements".
 
Well, just ordered an 11" with 4GB ram and 3 years AppleCare for £847...£130 more than the Samsung I was looking at, but they seem to have countless little niggles and issues that the Air seems to lack.

Happy days!
 
Andrew Moore said:
Its THIS cpu here and as a result is actually faster than the i5 Macbook Pros given the CPU boosts beyond them, the RAM is the same and the SSD is masses faster than the 500GB on the Pro.

Couple this with the thunderbolt port to 30" and I have a more than caperble machine that out performs a hell of a lot of supposedly more powerful "desktop replacements".
Click to expand...

So basically forget custom built OC machines and get a MBA paired with a monitor is what you're saying? :p
 
Andrew Moore said:
Its THIS cpu here and as a result is actually faster than the i5 Macbook Pros given the CPU boosts beyond them, the RAM is the same and the SSD is masses faster than the 500GB on the Pro.

Couple this with the thunderbolt port to 30" and I have a more than caperble machine that out performs a hell of a lot of supposedly more powerful "desktop replacements".
Click to expand...

That is basically saying that the clock speed is higher, so it must be faster. It doesn't work like that.

The MacBook Pro i5 is still a quicker machine than the i7 Air. Not by a huge amount (in fact it's a negligible difference most of the time), but it is still quicker. Not talking about Geekbench here either, proper, actual real-life performance.

The SSD in the Air is relatively poor. An aftermarket SSD, both for the Air as well as a standard SSD in a MacBook Pro, is way, way faster.

Overall, the Pro is still the better value for money choice - anybody can make that observation. The difference between the two machines in performance isn't worth thinking about IMO, but it doesn't make the MBA a quicker machine.

That said, OP, you made the right decision :)
 
Invertigo said:
Well, just ordered an 11" with 4GB ram and 3 years AppleCare for £847...£130 more than the Samsung I was looking at, but they seem to have countless little niggles and issues that the Air seems to lack.

Happy days!
Click to expand...

4GB of RAM? I wouldn't look at any laptop with under 6GB of RAM nowadays.

Guess it depends on what you use it for but..
 
Ben Cole said:
Aftermarket SSD for MacBook Air? I didn't think that was an option ?
Click to expand...

I think OWC make one, based on the SATA3 Sandforce controller. It is a vast improvement over the standard SSD, but both are a vast improvement over any HDD - it depends what you're coming from...
 
Yeah Apple use the mSata connector but not the standard format of mSata iirc. The MBA SSD is much longer than typical mSata SSDs. I think :)
 
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