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Could a MBA handle this?

B

blairbeckwith

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 14, 2008
121
1
Ottawa, Canada
Hey Guys;

I'm currently in the market for a new laptop. Basically, i want to know if a MBA could handle the following, or if a MB or MBP would be better suited:

1) Instant messaging
2) Working in Word or Powerpoint 2008
3) Listening to music or watching a movie

Would the MBA be able to handle these tasks at the same time without skipping?
 
yes it handles all of those tasks just fine. it can handle quite a bit more than that. i would recommend you go into your local apple store and try it out on a mba display model before buying one to see if it fits your needs.
 
Robbieduncan, these will be movies that I have purchased off iTunes.

Thanks for the input, both of you, although I'd like to hear if the use of iTunes to watch movies will affect performance. Another thing that I may be doing, although I have to pick my words carefully, is using a SNES emulator to play ROMs of games that I own :eek:
 
Just another'yes easily' post. The Air is a MUCH better computer than most give it credit for. It IS a Core 2 Duo and is not a crippled computer (unless you spill coffee in it :D )
 
i have the base model MBA that can do all that and a bit more so any MBA should be able to handle it. the fan might kick in a bit and the short cord for the superdrive gets annoying
 
ayeying said:
Yes. The MBA is more then capable to handle those tasks.
Click to expand...

I don't understand why people think the Air is such a crippled machine?? I mean it has a Core 2 Duo at 1.6Ghz... this is plenty any daily computer usage!

c'mon people... the Air is a very well powered machine!
 
As an MBA owner I'm fed up of people telling me that I bought an underpowered machine...... the MBA may not be as fast the other mac portables but it is by no means a weak machine.... it is more than capable of doing day to day stuff (i have a mac pro for heavy stuff)

(p.s. i don't understand why people want to run 1080p movies on the MBA: the native resolution of the 13 inch screen is well below that and even if you hooked it up to a 23 inch monitor, very few people would be able to tell the difference between 720p and 1080p on a screen of that size)
 
I too am sick of people bashing on the power of the Air. I have a MBP 2.6 and an 8 core 3.2 with 16GB of RAM, and you know what? The Air does just fine for everything but the hardcore editing/ sound mixing, when i need to do that I go to one of the others. But more and more i am impressed by this machine, I actually do run final cut on the system just fine editing DVCProHD 1080 & 720p material off a USB harddrive running 3 streams for editing. Not bad for a "weak" system.

Now that fan...
 
fuzzielitlpanda said:
i can play most of my 1080p movies just fine
Click to expand...

On an external display?

Ofcourse if I am going to play 1080P I'll hook it up to my large screen, otherwise there is no point.

I have not really put it to the test though, but I think it's going to come short. But I could be wrong...
 
stakis said:
I don't understand why people think the Air is such a crippled machine?? I mean it has a Core 2 Duo at 1.6Ghz... this is plenty any daily computer usage!
Click to expand...

Haven't you read that it will only work for a minute or so on 1,6 (or 1,8) before it throttles down to 1,2 Ghz?
 
The MBA can handle anything except games and stuff requiring huge amounts of HD space (which in theory could be solved with an external drive)

I have no idea why people think that a C2D can't handle watching movies and instant messaging.
 
Philflow said:
Haven't you read that it will only work for a minute or so on 1,6 (or 1,8) before it throttles down to 1,2 Ghz?
Click to expand...

Assuming your not being sarcastic.

Do you think that even 1.2 Ghz C2D can't do the things mentioned?
Also, this is only on MAX BATTERY settings.

Not too long ago I used to use a G3 iMac 700 Mhz for all the things mentioned. Powerpoint (2004), Microsoft Messenger, iTunes, and VLC for movies.
 
Philflow said:
The things mentioned yes, playing 1080p on external display, I'm not sure if 1,2Ghz C2D can do it.
Click to expand...

We can agree on that, but even so, if one wanted to run 1080p on an external display, you'd just have to change the power settings to performance to make it run at 1.6 Ghz all the time.
 
nick9191 said:
Its the graphics that bottleneck it when playing 1080p not the core 2.
Click to expand...

Not entirely true. Yes, the graphics is the bottleneck, but because the GC is integrated, it uses the CPU and Ram to run video. The faster the ram and CPU, the smoother, and faster the video.

The Pentium 4 that I have now has integrated graphics from 2004.. and it runs 1080i (havent tried progressive) just fine!
 
Well the good news is that my Air (1,6) plays 1080p wmv files and 1080p .mov files 100% smoothly in Windows XP.

While doing it in OS X, it went 100% smoothly in a window, when I switched it to full screen it was 95% smooth. Maybe some of my settings where not optimal, need to check that.

Dustman said:
you'd just have to change the power settings to performance to make it run at 1.6 Ghz all the time.
Click to expand...

From what I understood, that's not possible.

From what I read here on the forum: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/459306/
Even if you set it to run at 1,6Ghz it will trottle down to 1,2Ghz quite quickly, when it gets a bit hot.

I have not tested this in OS X, but I did test it in XP. It seems to be true.
 
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