11" Macbook Air experience

[Patriot24]

First off, just wanted to say that this thread has been extremely helpful for me as well, so I really appreciate folks stopping in to give their perspectives. I too have been considering the leap to MBA 11".

My current machine is a Lenovo T410 (14" screen) with quad core i7 @ 2.67 (non-SB), 4GB RAM, 128 GB SSD (corporate hardware). When I first got the machine, I was in heaven. Everything launches so quickly - definitely the fastest machine I've ever had. Since then, it is starting to be be plagued a bit by typical Windows issues and I'm thinking that I should finally make the switch to Mac.

I understand that the processor on any MBA is going to be significantly less than that of the T410, but to be honest, I'm not sure I need it or perhaps the Sandy Bridge will make up some of the gap. Generally speaking my daily usage includes the following:

-Chrome browser with 8-10 tabs open
-Outlook 2011
-iTunes
-IRC Client
-IM Client
-Occasional Word, Excel, or Powerpoint

Does anyone see any reason why I would have issues with a MBA for daily work given the above usage? I don't edit video or photos, and don't really have much to store on the SSD (I have 45GB free on my 128GB SSD now). I have looked pretty hard at the Macbook Pros, but I am of the mind to agree with the sentiment that the Airs "are the future of notebooks".

Lastly, I was a little concerned about going from 14" to 11", but so far haven't found it to be a problem. You guys will probably laugh at me, but I've placed some low-tac tape across the screen on the T410 to replicate the dimensions of the 11" Air and have been working within those constraints for a few days. So far I have to say that it doesn't bother me (once upon a time I had an HP netbook with a 10" screen - I can say without a doubt that the extra inch and a half makes a huge difference).

Thanks for any input you may have. Hopefully I don't hijack this thread, but I just thought it might add to the value.

 

[nizmoz]

-Chrome browser with 8-10 tabs open
-Outlook 2011
-iTunes
-IRC Client
-IM Client
-Occasional Word, Excel, or Powerpoint

Chrome browser is available and you should be able to have that many tabs open as long as you get the 4meg of ram or more.

Outlook is available and works with Exchange on the MAC. I used it on my MBP when I had it. Will do the same with my MBA once I get the new one.

IRC and IM clients are available.

Word/Excel/Powerpoint all work great on the MAC. Takes a little more getting use to where everything is, but it's there.

 

[jimboutilier]

There will be a huge difference in peak performance between your quad core i7 and any LV or ULV dual core processor you will see in a MBA but nothing you have mentioned should come close to peaking either CPU very often so you should be fine.

What I noticed on my MBP was that I seldom peaked above 70% CPU usage and spent the vast majority of my time under 30%. Maybe you can take a look at your windows system monitor to see how you fare.

My numbers with my 11" MBA follow a similar pattern but are somewhat higher. Most of my usage is under 40% CPU and my peaks are still infrequent and brief but are now 100%. I had a conventional HD on my MBP so overall the MBA feels faster most of the time, but when I do peg the CPU, it's clear the MBA is slower. Not painfully slower but definitely slower at peak.

Hope this helps

 

[Patriot24]

Chrome browser is available and you should be able to have that many tabs open as long as you get the 4meg of ram or more.

Outlook is available and works with Exchange on the MAC. I used it on my MBP when I had it. Will do the same with my MBA once I get the new one.

IRC and IM clients are available.

Word/Excel/Powerpoint all work great on the MAC. Takes a little more getting use to where everything is, but it's there.

Thanks for the run-down. I've definitely researched to make sure I'll have everything I need if I make the switch, so I'm fairly familiar at this point with the available options for applications and such. I guess more than anything I was just curious if I would run into any performance issues with that load running? I doubt it, but I thought I'd ask.

 

[Sounds Good]

Hey guys, what is all the stuff mentioned by Patriot24 was run virtually (with Windows software) using Parallels or VM Ware, rather than with the Mac versions? How much would that change the equation?

Thanks!

 

[jimboutilier]

With an XP VM under parallels and allocating 1.5 to 2gb to the VM you would be fine. I routinely run like this except i use firefox rather than chrome. That still leaves you enough OSX ram for routine use provided you got the 4gb ram version of the MBA. Would not want to try it with the 2gb version. A vm will run, but your machine would not be great for multitasking if you only have 2gb total.

If you use Vmware or virtual box, things run slower and use more resources but should still be usable. Not sure I would want to try it with a W7 VM under anything as W7 likes more ram.

 

[42streetsdown]

i don't own one, but when i tried one out the 11 inch screen seemed to small for me. Also, i don't care for the 16 by 9 aspect ratio it's too wide.

 

[rook02]

I have been debating whether to get 13" MBA or 11" MBA after the refresh. I will also be getting an iPad provided by my work. The MBA I buy will be my primary machine and will be used for internet browsing, streaming web videos, document viewing/creating, keynote. I like the 11" form factor but do not really know if I will be using its portability as much as others because I will have the iPad. The iPad will be with me pretty much at all times, in which I can view/minimally edit documents and presentations, as well as, browse the internet.

any advice?

 

[jimboutilier]

Just make sure the iPad can do what you want when you are mobile. For instance it's email capability is generally great but it's capability with attachments is more limited. You'll need third party apps for some attachment types and even then not all features will be supported so you may not be able to view or edit to the degree you need.

As one of many possible examples, say you get a zipped word document with change bars turned on. You will need a third party app to unzip it. You can view the unzipped doc natively but you won't see any change bars. When you buy a third party app that supposedly let's you view and edit word docs you still won't be able to find any that show change bars, and all will still place severe constraints on what you can edit and what saving it will do to the overall formatting of the document. Similar gotchas lurk in many other attachment types. Similar limitations with other functions the iPad does well overall with.

You can get around a lot by remotely accessing your laptop or desktop via iteleport or Logmein or similar app on iPad but be aware you may want to do this or just bring your laptop along with you for some tasks. This may have some impact on the size MBA you choose.

 

[Q2Air2Pro]

I had a base MBA 11" for 10 days (upgraded from 10-year old VAIO). I don't think "ultimating" the MBA will resolve the problems I encountered.

I returned it for 2 reasons:
- little vertical space, it squashes your powerpoint slides (with a lot of empty spaces on the left/right); also resolution is excellent, however if you maximize PDFs fit to page width, you have to scroll up/down a lot.
- little power when adding references (EndNote / Papers), everytime I would add a reference the MBA had to "think" for 1-2 seconds.

So if you have an external monitor and don't use CPU-chewing programs (basic word processing and browsing) the MBA 11" will certainly not disappoint you. But I don't know how HTML5 will be handled by the MBA in the (near) future.

 

[orfeas0]

The MacBook Air is able to be as thin as it is due to not having a socketed CPU or RAM. If you want the ability to upgrade the RAM yourself then it sounds like a MacBook Pro or plain ol' MacBook are for you. If you want a socketed CPU then buy a PC because Apple is not going to put that back into any MacBook line.

Do you really think Apple will make the computer thicker in order to accommodate user replaceable RAM? If you think yes, guess again.

Just because the parts are not upgradeable after purchase does not mean that Apple compromised on anything. I'd rather have it as thin and light as can be just how Apple designed it.

that's exactly the laptop i want. a plain ol' white MacBook.
but since the model they sell is 1,7 years old, i have to wait for a new one or get an air :/

 

[IscariotJ]

....it is also very underpowered and it can't handle video editing at all.....

What about running something like ServeToMe / AirVideo Server?