***Official MacBook Air Thread***

Does anyone know which will give a better battery life? SSD or HDD, or are they much the same?

Personally id expect the SSD to give much longer battery life due to having no moving parts, but ive not seen any figures showing either way. Has anyone a good source of info about these SSDs... from my limited understanding read time is better than HDD and write time is worse.. for my needs thats not an issue.
 
Darryn said:
Does anyone know which will give a better battery life? SSD or HDD, or are they much the same?

Personally id expect the SSD to give much longer battery life due to having no moving parts, but ive not seen any figures showing either way. Has anyone a good source of info about these SSDs... from my limited understanding read time is better than HDD and write time is worse.. for my needs thats not an issue.
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Check out this ZDnet comparison here.

The Results
The surprise is that you can’t just turn features on and off to judge power use. For example, performing I/O is a CPU involving business whether to disk or over Wi-Fi. In my defrag workload the CPU utilization ran from 80-95% on both cores, for an 8 watt hit - almost 3x of a busy disk.

What this means is that the busier you keep your system, the shorter your battery life. Therefore the less benefit you get from a flash drive’s lower power consumption.

Here’s a chart of the results. These measurements were taken with the battery and disk removed, except for the disk value.
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I'd say the issue you should be concerned about is the disk-life.

Latest rumors say the 64GB drive is meant to last for 50+ years, but as you know with flash.. it's all down to the amount of times you write to a certain block.
 
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EVH said:
Latest rumors say the 64GB drive is meant to last for 50+ years, but as you know with flash.. it's all down to the amount of times you write to a certain block.
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All current flash drives have controller firmware that ensure the flash cells are evenly used, as it's memory it's random access so there is no need to have data on contiguous sectors/blocks, ie defragging wouldn't make any difference to performance.
 
bam0 said:
All current flash drives have controller firmware that ensure the flash cells are evenly used, as it's memory it's random access so there is no need to have data on contiguous sectors/blocks, ie defragging wouldn't make any difference to performance.
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OSX writes files in contiguous blocks to the hard drive, and always has done.
i wonder if they've taken this into account with regards to the SSD.
 
Cheers for the info bam0, I guess it would last a while then! :)

Most people's problem with the price comes because of the whole "but for the same money, look what I get", rather than think of this machine for what it is.. an ultraportable.

..still hard to budget for one and not want to get a MacBook Pro instead though :p
 
Aod said:
OSX writes files in contiguous blocks to the hard drive, and always has done.
i wonder if they've taken this into account with regards to the SSD.
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The OS writes to the disk in what look like contiguous blocks and the data that the drive presents back to the OS is always consistent, but the firmware in drive itself will manage which exact flash cells are written to and keeps track internally of which cells relate to which logical blocks.
 
If its rated for 50years... even if i get a 1/10th of that id be happy, as in 5years time im fairly sure i would have upgraded to new model/broken/lost down back of sofa.... anyway.

Fairly set on getting the 1.8ghz/64gbSSD Macbook air now, just got to see it in the flesh first and then i can order. :)
 
Im an Engineer... not a very well paid one (working at Rolls Royce) but i do have more money than sense... even when overdrawn... :P
 
Caged said:
Apple have never aimed at the business market, this is no exception. This is aimed at the iPhone-buying market.
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Spot on, its a fad, a way of making money from a stupid idea, jesus are people really that weak that they cant carry a MacBook? Oh my arms are gunna break this MacBook is really heavy....oh dear...its gunna kill me, oh no look at this laptop that fits in an envelope, who gives a toss that its less powerful and costs the earth, its thin!!
 
I thought it was odd that with the obesity epidemic people are worried about carrying an extra 2kgs when they're probably carrying 5 times that in excess bodyfat.
 
Certainly overpriced, and this is with buying a Sony Viao TR1MP when they first came out, I paid something close to £1600! :eek:

This was a small 10'6" - 900Mhz Centrino - 512mb - 30GB 'Go' HDD.........

Base model, in my opinion is the best option. Powerful enough for what the notebook is intended.

I'm certainly 'interested' but it hasnt jumped up my list of gadgets I'm saving for, and thats strange, again coming from a guy who bought an iMac straight away and even queued outside Regent Street for the iPhone (10'th person in w00t!) :p:o
 
I want one of these and a Mac Pro.

So tempted when I remortgage to get a couple of k extra and get them. I use my Mac currently to go on the net, do photo crap and watch movies. Also, my Macbook doesn't fit in my work laptop bag with the huge dell they have given me, this Mac would.
 
Anewbe4u said:
I want one of these and a Mac Pro.

So tempted when I remortgage to get a couple of k extra and get them. I use my Mac currently to go on the net, do photo crap and watch movies. Also, my Macbook doesn't fit in my work laptop bag with the huge dell they have given me, this Mac would.
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Do it!!
 
Well I ordered one. Unfortunately I'll be in the States when it arrives.... Would've been ideal if they didn't have the 2week delivery time as I could've fieled tested it on planes, hotels, cafes etc.
 
jdickerson said:
Well I ordered one. Unfortunately I'll be in the States when it arrives.... Would've been ideal if they didn't have the 2week delivery time as I could've fieled tested it on planes, hotels, cafes etc.
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Go to an Apple Store when you are in the states, pick one up in person and save £100!
 
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