Is the Screen on the 11" too Small?

[mrsir2009]

Dude, not everybody have an Apple store nearby.

Yeah, there aren't any Apple stores in my whole country as far as I know. Apple resellers, sure, but no Apple stores.

 

[Ronnoco]

There are two potential issues with a small screen: desktop real estate/space and the size of displayed items/text. As one goes up, the other goes down.

The 11.6" MBA has really great desktop space. Essentially as much as the 13" MBP, though 16:9 instead of 16:10. WAY better than any other netbook I've seen.

Because of the relatively high resolution, text and images are, by default, smaller than they would be on a similarly-spec'd larger screen. It's not a problem for me, but if it DOES bother you, many/most programs will allow you to adjust the display size.

So is it too small? I say no.

I just LOVE the 16x9 display and form-factor...

 

[gb1631]

No! The 11" MBA isn't to small for my needs!

 

[bmat]

It works fine for me. I use spaces a bit more now, and have certain programs just assigned for certain spaces, which I didn't do before. And for word processing I hide the top menu bars or go full screen mode more often to capture a few extra lines.

But I don't find the extra space lacking, but I do have a desktop as well -- with a 27 inch monitor for photo editing, etc. That said, for the daily tasks the 11 inch is perfectly fine for me, and I'm almost twice the OP's age and work on computers all day.

 

[iRun26.2]

I just LOVE the 16x9 display and form-factor...

I agree! The wider screen (more pixels on the sides) more than makes up for what was taken away on the vertical axis.

I will admit that I didn't like it, at first. I was also concerned that the text would be to small. Now, I think that it is just right.

I really like how bright the screen is. I almost never have it at full brightness which also really helps with the battery life.

 

[Ronnoco]

I agree! The wider screen (more pixels on the sides) more than makes up for what was taken away on the vertical axis.

I will admit that I didn't like it, at first. I was also concerned that the text would be to small. Now, I think that it is just right.

I really like how bright the screen is. I almost never have it at full brightness which also really helps with the battery life.

I also like the form-factor the 16x9 display gives the 11" MBA...it just looks so sleek and modern...my 15" i5's 16x10 form-factor just looks more square, it looks so....errrrr.....2000's...

 

[Bakari45]

In terms of the MacBook Air being too small, here’s I assess for the activities I do on it:

Good for:

Surfing the web
Short and long form typing/text editing
Watching videos
Twitter and Facebook
iTunes
iPhoto editing

Not good enough space for doing long term projects using:

Keynote
iMovie
Bulk photo editing in Photoshop, Aperture, Lightroom
Garageband—depending the extent of your project

Editing the above projects in MBA is okay, but I would not like to create them in Air because there’s simply not enough screen real estate. I start the above projects using my Mac Pro, and I edit them in MBA.

I can’t speak to gaming because I‘m not a gamer.