I had mixed, but generally good results testing my hdd air, with the in-store ACD.
I couldn't get lid closed mode to work.
Although my Air did pretty well with Aperture, & Raw files, it couldn't
match my 3.06ghz imac for speed and increased graphical power.
but performance was similar as without the acd.
Where I noticed the difference was when I tested spores, it played pretty well but without the rich graphics.
HD movies played well too, but not as smooth as I'm used too on a 24"
imac, agin I think its the slow HDD, or the relatively slow, 1.6 chip.
I could imagine it being a much better all round experience with the SSD
Man I bet that Air could replace a desktop, for many people as mentioned
above!
My Revision B, still feels like a little in-between, not quite perfect for a power
user. I wish I had the SSD!
You know, I have the SSD and my video is amazing on the 24" LED Display, but video also looks amazing and I watched some HD on a 30" ACD.
I didn't think the SSD would have anything to do with that, but at the same time the original MBA had so many video problems that were attributed to the slow speed PATA drive, the overheated 65 NM CPU, and the poor graphics.
So, maybe the SSD does provide faster read for HD video somehow resulting in the larger display video playback... don't really know though. I just tried it one time at a client's office because someone had asked me here on MR if my rev B MBA would really drive a 30" ACD playing HD video, and of course it did just fine.
The other thing I would say, is that from the Mac Pro to the rev B MBA, the display looked EXACTLY the same. No video, performance, clarity or color differences were noted by trying a 15 minute video first on a Mac Pro then on a rev B MBA with 1.86 GHz and SSD... then playing both at same time (almost simultaneous for a few minutes)... with the Mini Display to dual link DVI cable (which computer user had and was using with his MBA). Also, there were six or seven of us at least watching both ways, and to everyone's amazement, the image/video/clarity/picture/color/and etc looked IDENTICAL watching both one after the other then watching two next to each other played by MP and MBA. I was amazed, but I fully expected it to work. The guy who had the Mac Pro with dual 30" displays (in this one office there are over 40 users and over 60 30" ACDs) and MBA Mini Display Port cable I was using said he had pretty much quit using his Mac Pro and was using his rev B SSD MBA MOST of the time. The only thing was certain files he was working on that is according to him "huge and massive" wouldn't work on any non-Mac Pro machine (no idea myself, but he's an aerospace engineer).
Sorta odd to have a Mac Pro user prefer the rev B MBA with a 1.86 GHz C2D and SSD... rather than an Octacore Mac Pro with 32 GB RAM and etc. He definitely said it was just a phase, but he absolutely could not believe how fast the SSD had made his MBA (him and I used to discuss the poor performance of the original MBA we both were sick about the original and were amazed everything that Apple had changed). His was one of the line-free MBAs I used to test on before buying my rev B MBA.
Amazingly, I have used seven MBAs and ALL SEVEN had SSD, while only one had a 1.6 GHz CPU. What are the odds? I used a 1.6 HDD in the store, and the apps opened slower and the boot difference was amazing for the SSD, but once they're on, and the apps being used, I didn't think much difference until need to open another file or app.
But definitely interesting and possible that an HDD would possibly have problem feeding an HD video??? Again, I really don't know if that is true or something else...
I would say for those using the MBA as a primary Mac or as a business computer or for anything intensive, the SSD is worthy of the extra $500. But if not asking much of the rev B, an HDD would work for most.
The truth is I don't do much video, but when I do it always works really nicely.
