Big thumbs up for 11.6" MBA!

[bouncer1]

Quick update:
I installed Bootcamp with Windows 7 Pro x86 today.
Can't tell you how impressed I am: drivers installed all without problems, struggled to find a hidden mouse settting in the bootcamp menu to enable tapping and right clicks, but since it's running fine.
Gave 20GB to the Windows partition, and I still have 10GB left, 30GB still free on the Mac OS partition. I have yet to decide which OS I will run most, but I can tell you that Windows 7 is a super smooth experience.
And here's a personal opinion: I think that the antialiasing of screen fonts is far superior on Win 7. MacOS's looks very blurry to me in comparison.

Go to font smoothing in settings and turn it off if you don't want this.

Or see this, I don't know why they disabled the font smoothing settings in sl, stupid move.

ppearance System Preference Pane. The new pane only has the option, “Use LCD font smoothing when available.” Luckily, there is still a way to set font smoothing strength.

Anti-aliasing on the Mac has always been too strong for my tastes, and I tend to use what used to be the “Standard” setting for my 30″ displays and “Standard” or “Light” for my notebooks. In Snow Leopard, you can still set font smoothing by using the following terminal command:

defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing -int 1
I read on another website that the supported values are 1-4 for Standard, Light, Medium, and Strong, but I found that 0 was an acceptable value… and it seems to match “Standard”, which would seem to suggest that supported values are actually 0-3.

Don’t take my word for it. Here’s are actual screenshots:

It's a darn shame to run windows on these machines as your main os, it's a travesty if you ask me. Put the settings to light and use a while to get used to it, it's superior to windows it just takes some time getting used to. People are asking all the time for mac os x font smoothing in windows and you ll go back to windows for their anti aliasing? shhhh...

 

[bloodycape]

Part of the expense with the Vaio TT is the fact it is built mainly in Japan, and it was one of the earliest machines to use the top line SU9x000 cpu so prices where bound to be a bit high.

How does the screen compare to your TT? Do you miss the matte-ish feel of it? What about battery life so far, is 2-3 hour lower battery life much of an issue for you? I want to move to the 11.6in Air, but TT has so many things I am use and use to, like firewire mini, and noise canceling headphones that were included with it.

 

[bouncer1]

You ll stay with the sony for the headphones?

 

[Roba]

Interesting post, clearly having two laptops close in weight makes little sense. Both of those laptops though serve slightly different markets. The likes of the TT and x201 excel in battery life and connectivity. People have different priorities and yours seems to be gaming. When you're on the road often you appreciate excellent battery life.

With an SSD such as Intel and the BIOS splash disabled you should to get that instant on bootup out of a modern PC.

 

[bloodycape]

You ll stay with the sony for the headphones?

I like my audio quality to be good, and my Vaio TT came with a pair of noise canceling headphones and drives that work very good with it. But, what still really keeping me with my TT is the 6-bit matte screen, and mini-firewire port. The headphones are just a nice bonus.

 

[naujoks]

Go to font smoothing in settings and turn it off if you don't want this.

Or see this, I don't know why they disabled the font smoothing settings in sl, stupid move.



It's a darn shame to run windows on these machines as your main os, it's a travesty if you ask me. Put the settings to light and use a while to get used to it, it's superior to windows it just takes some time getting used to. People are asking all the time for mac os x font smoothing in windows and you ll go back to windows for their anti aliasing? shhhh...

I'll try the font smoothing later.
It's not just anti aliasing that I would prefer Win for, but I also like my games. Ok, Half Life 2 is available on Mac as well now, but I've just tried my two all time favourite games, GTA3 and GTA San Andreas, and both run with rock steady framerates. Particularly in the latter case that's really a bit of a miracle, so I'm in awe.
Anway, I gave 40GB to Mac OS and 20GB to Win 7, so that shows you where I put the priorities

 

[naujoks]

Part of the expense with the Vaio TT is the fact it is built mainly in Japan, and it was one of the earliest machines to use the top line SU9x000 cpu so prices where bound to be a bit high.

How does the screen compare to your TT? Do you miss the matte-ish feel of it? What about battery life so far, is 2-3 hour lower battery life much of an issue for you? I want to move to the 11.6in Air, but TT has so many things I am use and use to, like firewire mini, and noise canceling headphones that were included with it.

Matte screen would have been nice, but I hadn't even noticed the glossiness so far, which goes to show that it's not been an issue.
Battery life has also not worried me. I'm not a business user, I use my machines mainly for leisure, and therefore in the past I have never been away from a power socket for more than 5 hours (central London is quite well equipped with electricity). And the power brick(let) would be very light to carry around. So yeah, longer battery life would be nice, but in reality won't bother me either way, but that's just me.

 

[akm3]

I sort of got mad when people were mentioning the BL thing. I mean I guess it is diff for me since I have never had the BL because I only have the 13 MB that is like 3 years old now. I feel bad for getting upset because to the people who have used it before might have loved that feature and now its not there. So I guess in way for me to get mad about them whining about it I should have thought about that part a litter better than I did. I am happy and hoping my apple store will have them soon though!!

The backlit keyboard was a feature that before I switched to Mac I thought was a wasteful example of Apple tax charging for useless, shiny things. And I can type quite quickly.

I can't explain why it is so nice, but I absolutely love the feature and it makes the computer much easier to use in a dark room, despite the fact I touch type. I know that doesn't make sense. /shrug

I will greatly miss a backlit keyboard.

 

[naujoks]

The backlit keyboard was a feature that before I switched to Mac I thought was a wasteful example of Apple tax charging for useless, shiny things. And I can type quite quickly.

I can't explain why it is so nice, but I absolutely love the feature and it makes the computer much easier to use in a dark room, despite the fact I touch type. I know that doesn't make sense. /shrug

I will greatly miss a backlit keyboard.

I never owned an 11" laptop with a backlit keyboard (is there one?), so I can't miss anything I never had. Besides, Steve needed to leave something to look forward to next year, right?

 

[bloodycape]

I never owned an 11" laptop with a backlit keyboard (is there one?), so I can't miss anything I never had. Besides, Steve needed to leave something to look forward to next year, right?

Lenovo I think maybe have a lighting option(not back-lit but like a small led light) for their 11in Edge, X100, and/or U150 I think.

How is the speakers, and headphone port compared to the TT?

 

[naujoks]

Lenovo I think maybe have a lighting option(not back-lit but like a small led light) for their 11in Edge, X100, and/or U150 I think.

How is the speakers, and headphone port compared to the TT?

Speakers seem surprisingly loud! Ony my Vaio Z they're so damn quiet, so this comes as such a pleasant surprise. Probably sounds a bit tinny as well, but it's not too bad. It's also quite voluminous, in an in your face kind of way.
Haven't tried headphones, neither here nor there.

 

[J400uk]

What is the performance like in Windows 7, does it feel snappy like it does in OS X? Are the boot times still good?

 

[bolsen78]

The backlit keyboard was a feature that before I switched to Mac I thought was a wasteful example of Apple tax charging for useless, shiny things. And I can type quite quickly.

I can't explain why it is so nice, but I absolutely love the feature and it makes the computer much easier to use in a dark room, despite the fact I touch type. I know that doesn't make sense. /shrug

I will greatly miss a backlit keyboard.

Yes I realize that some people on here that actually need that feature will miss it. I am use to not having it but still no excuse for me to get upset like I did which is why I apologized. I guess if it were me and I would need the BL i just wouldnt get the new MBA until they came out with one that had the BL. I would have liked to experience the BL tho in pictures it looked nice.

 

[AppleGoddess]

So glad you love it so far!! does the 11.6 screen look big I mean like it doesnt look tiny does it? I have the 13 MB and a Dell mini I am wanting to replace the Dell cos I hate it A LOT!! I was going to replace both but decided to keep my MB for the harder stuff and go with the 11.6 instead and get rid of my Dell mini.

Its much bigger than i thought it would be and its flawless.

 

[naujoks]

What is the performance like in Windows 7, does it feel snappy like it does in OS X? Are the boot times still good?

Absolutely awesome! It makes a great Windows computer. WEI of 4.2 (CPU weakest point), but graphics well over 5, and hard disk performance on 6.9. Boots within 30 seconds, from loading screen to first browser window open.

 

[J400uk]

Thanks its really great to hear from someone who has one, it looks like my worries about it been too slow where unfounded. Super excited about getting mine now!

 

[1appleAday]

Thank you OP for sharing your experience. Very helpful - I'm pleasantly surprised that you have such a great user experience with the base model. I guess the SSD and GPU really makes up for the CPU.

 

[The X Factor]

Quick update:
I installed Bootcamp with Windows 7 Pro x86 today.
Can't tell you how impressed I am: drivers installed all without problems, struggled to find a hidden mouse settting in the bootcamp menu to enable tapping and right clicks, but since it's running fine.
Gave 20GB to the Windows partition, and I still have 10GB left, 30GB still free on the Mac OS partition. I have yet to decide which OS I will run most, but I can tell you that Windows 7 is a super smooth experience.
And here's a personal opinion: I think that the antialiasing of screen fonts is far superior on Win 7. MacOS's looks very blurry to me in comparison.

Hey buddy, I don't want to impose, but you're like the only person who seems interested in installing Windows 7 in the first 48 hours...lol.

I'm a windows user thru-and-thru and am REALLY wanting this laptop, but alas, can't stand OSX (just a personal preference)...do you mind answering a few questions?

1) When you installed Windows (using bootcamp)...can you "set" the latop so that when you turn it on and off, it boots right into Windows...in other words, once I install windows, do i ever have to deal with / use OSX again?...is there a "perminent" way to use Windows on this laptop? You know what I mean? (I'm new to Mac, and am not totally familiar with how bootcamp treats a windows installation)

2) When you close the lid, using Windows 7, does it go into extended sleep mode like Jobs described? Or does that only work in OSX? I couldn't tell if this was a software or hardware feature.

3) Could maybe provide an extended description of the user experience in windows? I'm currently running a 3-4 year old Dell XPS M1210 with a Core 2 T7600 2.33GHz processor, with 3.25 gigs of RAM. Would love to know how this will work compared to what I have now.

 

[J400uk]

One other question, does the brightness automatically adjust under Windows 7 like it should?

 

[bowlerman625]

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I'm very impressed. I went to see the 11" MBA and it blew me away! That's the one I want now! I was going to BTO if I do this but the guy in the store said they can add the additional memory here at the store. So no need to do the BTO thing online. And they do have them in stock too!

When I came here I was thinking the product I was about to see was going to be like my 11" netbook I'm giving away. Wow! Was I wrong. The 11" MBA is absolutely amazing

 

[naujoks]

Hey buddy, I don't want to impose, but you're like the only person who seems interested in installing Windows 7 in the first 48 hours...lol.

I'm a windows user thru-and-thru and am REALLY wanting this laptop, but alas, can't stand OSX (just a personal preference)...do you mind answering a few questions?

1) When you installed Windows (using bootcamp)...can you "set" the latop so that when you turn it on and off, it boots right into Windows...in other words, once I install windows, do i ever have to deal with / use OSX again?...is there a "perminent" way to use Windows on this laptop? You know what I mean? (I'm new to Mac, and am not totally familiar with how bootcamp treats a windows installation)

2) When you close the lid, using Windows 7, does it go into extended sleep mode like Jobs described? Or does that only work in OSX? I couldn't tell if this was a software or hardware feature.

3) Could maybe provide an extended description of the user experience in windows? I'm currently running a 3-4 year old Dell XPS M1210 with a Core 2 T7600 2.33GHz processor, with 3.25 gigs of RAM. Would love to know how this will work compared to what I have now.

1) Yes, you can set it so that it always boots into Windows. I don't think you can get rid of the Mac OS partition altogether though.
2) I dont know what kind of sleep it goes into. I suspect it's just the normal sleep, but I can't say for certain, neither do I know if there's any way of finding out.
3) The main thing in my experience that makes a computer really fast this day is a SSD (or flash). I've upgraded my desktop with the Intel one and haven't looked back. Platter based HDDs are the main factor that holds back a computer's speed. You'll be blown away by how fast this machine is. Just time how long it takes for your Dell to boot and have the first browser window open (let alone finished loading all the other stuff).
In snappiness the MacBook Air is as fast in Windows (and Mac OS) as my Vaio, which has a Raid SSD array. At least that what it feels like. And that's quite an achievement, I think.

 

[naujoks]

One other question, does the brightness automatically adjust under Windows 7 like it should?

The MBA doesn't have a brightness sensor. It only dims the screen after a couple of minutes (it does that under Win 7 as well). For everything else you will have to manualy adjust the brightness.

 

[bolsen78]

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I'm very impressed. I went to see the 11" MBA and it blew me away! That's the one I want now! I was going to BTO if I do this but the guy in the store said they can add the additional memory here at the store. So no need to do the BTO thing online. And they do have them in stock too!

When I came here I was thinking the product I was about to see was going to be like my 11" netbook I'm giving away. Wow! Was I wrong. The 11" MBA is absolutely amazing

I was thinking the same thing that the 11 would ne another netbook. But people on here have been saying that it isnt. I cannot wait to take a look at one myself but here in MN they have not arrived at the Apple Stores yet. I would order online but I want to see before I make a decision.

 

[bdeitemeyer]

I was thinking the same thing that the 11 would ne another netbook. But people on here have been saying that it isnt. I cannot wait to take a look at one myself but here in MN they have not arrived at the Apple Stores yet. I would order online but I want to see before I make a decision.

I'm surprised at that reaction as well. 11.6" seems awfully small, but Apple knows how to design a great product that can overachieve.

 

[J400uk]

The MBA doesn't have a brightness sensor. It only dims the screen after a couple of minutes (it does that under Win 7 as well). For everything else you will have to manualy adjust the brightness.

Cool, that's an improvement over my 08 MacBook which seems pretty much incapable of automatically lowering the screen brightness in Windows 7 when its on battery or hasn't been used for a few minutes.