Macbook Air 2.0 Reviews / First Impressions

[chopcho]

Macbook Air for web design?

Hello all,

I want to buy a new portable mac and for now i cannot choose from Macbook Air or Macbook Pro.

I'm currently running iMac G5 1,8 ALS with 1,5 RAM for Fireworks and Dreamweaver and sometimes flash.

I really want to go mobile and take my computer each day with me to the office 'cos there i work with windows and i'm tired of this sh$t. I will buy my own 'cos the boss doesn't care about macs

I'm hesitating btwn Macbook Pro 2.53 with 4 GB ram and Macbook Air 1,8 with 128 SSD.

I really want to buy the Air for portability but do you guys think it will be enough for my needs?

I'm not a gamer and i don't care about games! All i want to do is to work with it 'cos i'm really in love with it! I bought the first version for my wife and since then i want this baby really bad! Sometimes i will watch some divx moves and that's all i need it.

I can attach this sexy beauty to a bigger screen and planing to get the ne ACD. (still don't know how it will be possible to plug Air and ACD together)

If i can get some help here? What should i do?

Thank you in advance

P.S. Sorry for my english and i hope you can understand me what i mean

 

[zer0tails]

I think you won't go wrong with either as they're both portables

The key question is how portable do you want to be? If super portable with some sacrifice of power get the macbook air.

If you want raw power but still portable although not as much as the air then get the macbook pro.

Do you want the ability to expand your machine's ram and HD in the future? Then get the MBP, if not the Air will be great.

 

[chopcho]

I don't really care about the HD. 128 SSD will be enough for me. For the RAM i don't know.

I'm just wondering will Adobe CS3 or even CS4 will run nice on the Air?

Will the Snow Leopard will help the Air to run even better

 

[Essjay]

I don't really care about the HD. 128 SSD will be enough for me. For the RAM i don't know.

I'm just wondering will Adobe CS3 or even CS4 will run nice on the Air?

Will the Snow Leopard will help the Air to run even better

Been running CS4 and Lightroom 2 on the new Air and everything is working fine. Dont really notice a difference between the Air and my old 2.4 SR MBP. Screen size is the only major difference I see

 

[ant043]

anyone think it would be worth upgrading from previous gen hdd air to the current generation one. I am really running low on disk space so the extra 40 gb would make a difference. Would it be possible to play games on the new air like pro evolution soccer or would the 4200 rpm harddrive make this impossible. I would love to buy the ssd version but can't justify the cost.

 

[ant043]

meant to say thanks for any help.

 

[twist2b]

anyone think it would be worth upgrading from previous gen hdd air to the current generation one. I am really running low on disk space so the extra 40 gb would make a difference. Would it be possible to play games on the new air like pro evolution soccer or would the 4200 rpm harddrive make this impossible. I would love to buy the ssd version but can't justify the cost.

Nobody has been able to post benchmarks for the HDD Rev B yet.... I think shipments have not even been sent :'(
You will have to wait about a week for reviews on this one. I would go SSD though

 

[HLdan]

anyone think it would be worth upgrading from previous gen hdd air to the current generation one. I am really running low on disk space so the extra 40 gb would make a difference. Would it be possible to play games on the new air like pro evolution soccer or would the 4200 rpm harddrive make this impossible. I would love to buy the ssd version but can't justify the cost.

If you were doing it just for the HDD alone and you weren't going for the SSD option then I would say it's not worth it. But since you are interested in some gaming then yes, it's worth it to sell your 1st Gen and get the 2nd Gen model. The Geforce 9400M is an awesome card and based on this forum (who happens to be nitpicky) people have given this GPU good feedback.

 

[ant043]

thanks for the help guys. I'll wait for people to start reviewing the hdd model before making a decision. I would have bought the new macbook if it wasn't for the crap screen.

 

[Carl Abudephane]

.

 

[mhnajjar]

If you are getting the ACD, then get the MBA for sure. Even the MBA1 is fixed now (if you wanna get the cheapest, but it will not support the same resolution as the new ones while plugged to the ACD).

 

[NC MacGuy]

Hey, epicycle, really enjoyed reading your review, and wanted to ask your opinion on something(and any other folks owning/wanting/undecided on the rev B Air)that may or may not be hugely important to it's day-to-day usage.
At the moment I'm using an iMac G5 which may be going to my parents' quite soon and I'm pretty certain I'm gonna plump for a laptop. My girlfriend has a last gen 15" Macbook Pro and it's just too heavy in my opinion for taking out to do stuff. I want to go current gen but personally find the new Macbook/Pro quite unattractive and the glass-fronted glossy screen way too much, so from all corners the Air is the one for me. It is however, going to be my only computer. I'm gonna be doing mainly illustration work on it, so sometimes it'll entail quite serious Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign work. I won't be doing any video watching or working and definitely no game-playing.
I admit the 2Gb limit concerns me a little but I'm also wondering about the throttling back of the cpu as well. In another thread NC MacGuy, whilst on the whole being very positive about the new air, has also pointed out(after being asked to check on it)that when he checked, the cpu was actually operating at 1.59GHz and even on occasion was throttled back as low as 800MHz.

So, my question! Have you thought of checking this? Shouldn't the cpu be continually operating at 1860MHz, unless it has to lower in order to stay within best operating limits?
I suppose I, like many others, am simply seeking to be re-assured on many things before buying, and perhaps I should wait for the full-on intensive reviews to come.
As I said, I thought your review(as well as many other comments, thoughts and advice from others, on this & other threads)to be fascinating and helpful.

What d'yer think folks, am I expecting too much from even this new Air, to be able to fulfill my needs? 2Gb(probably HD)Air for serious CS4 work & driving an external monitor? (wonder how it'll go with the 30"?!)
I would hate to feel as though the new Macbook Pro was the only realistic option.
A last thought though: As I said, I really don't like the aesthetics of the new Book/Pro and I do worry that the next Air revision might bring it in line with those two, a'la glass mega-gloss and black bezel. IMHO, the best looking Mac currently out there will then, for me, be ruined.

I really appreciate any thoughts you, or anybody else for that matter, might have. Thanks.

Lots of proc. speed changes. I could only get it kicked up to 1.86 by opening a whole bunch of crap. Three movies, three safari pages, photobooth, ichat, Word, mail, preview. Played videos w. NO DROPPED FRAMES. Doing this made me more impressed. Damn, you guys are going to make me fry this thing!:

 

[iDave]

Damn, you guys are going to make me fry this thing!:

Better now than when it's out of warranty.

 

[NC MacGuy]

Better now than when it's out of warranty.

My thoughts exactly. I think now I'm comfortable in handing down my gen. 1.

 

[epicycle]

I think it makes sense why the dev null test caused the CPU's to drop to 800 MHz. The MBA is being presented with conflicting problems … a long running set of CPU tasks that are raising the temperature and a need to keep the machine running which requires lowering the temperature. Because it can’t offload any of the load to the GPU (like in the video and application opening/ui test can) it throttles down the CPU and it begins to bounce around to find some equilibrium. The machine never locks up like it seemed to do in MBA V1 so that’s a big win. All in all I think the machine handled the test properly.

 

[rittchard]

Some more test results, random impressions and thoughts (I'm not a hardcore tester, so bear with me):

- I ran the standard 3DMark06 and it was looking pretty bad, the first result was around 500! I knew something was wrong with this so I looked around but didn't see much info on drivers or settings. I did come back here and saw Maven1975's comments on my earlier post. I didn't find much to adjust in XP's power settings, but I did change nVidia's Mizer(?) setting. I re-ran the results and got around 1500. Still a bit disappointing (I was expecting closer to 2000) but much more respectable. I'd be curious to hear what others are getting and/or if I'm forgetting to set something or missing some detail. In reality all I really care about is real world performance, but I just want to make sure nothing is wrong.

- I ran Xbench and got basically what the earlier reviewers said, my score was just under 137. So I presumed the machine itself was fine.

- Boot Times: 25secs for Mac OS X, 45secs for XP (starting at the point where you choose the option). Love it!

- More gaming notes. Installed and tried 3 very new games: Fallout 3, King's Bounty The Legend, and Sacred 2. I haven't had enough time to really evalutate, but from what I saw the latter 2 ran very well. Fallout 3 felt a bit choppy, but I think that might have been prior to adjusting the nVidia settings. I will look at that more later.

- I went through an XP optimization guide (removing unneeded services and extraneous junk), and finally re-tested Warhammer Online. This time for kicks I ran without the power plugged in. Again I had very decent performance, always in the 20-30+fps range (from what I could read), and this didn't really change when I boosted graphics to "Balanced" settings. After just killing some stuff solo, I jumped into a scenario (kind of like a 12 on 12 deathmatch for those not familiar) to see how it would hold up. The answer was: great! Staying on Balanced, I had a few moments of choppiness (which may or may not have been due to the computer), but I was pretty much able to play the entire 15 minute scenario as I would "normally" on my desktop. Amazing. The left top corner did indeed heat up quite a bit, and the fan was kicked in full bore, but I expected this. Reality is if I were going to play for a longer period I'd use a cooling platform.

Long story short: as I'd hoped, the upgrade to the new MBA has made the Air a legitimate, *serious* portable gaming system. Of course you won't be running Crysis and other hardcore games at highest resolutions and quality levels, but it will definitely serve as an extremely portable and playable secondary gaming unit.

 

[NC MacGuy]

FYI; MBA Rev. 2 OSX disks can't be used to install OSX on Rev. 1.

Had the same thing happen using standard retail OSX DVD to install OSX on new MB. Code rewrite for NVIDIA is my guess.

 

[ant043]

just the news i was hoping for. Thanks for the review. That ssd option is looking very tempting.

 

[lenselijer]

The best test would be the 3 videos and 2 terminal windows with yes > /dev/null, this will stress both GPU and CPU to the max. Just let it run for 15min.

On my Rev1 it goes to 1200mhz when its getting too hot, i think it was at 75C.

 

[daneoni]

FYI; MBA Rev. 2 OSX disks can't be used to install OSX on Rev. 1.

Had the same thing happen using standard retail OSX DVD to install OSX on new MB. Code rewrite for NVIDIA is my guess.

Is your screen model 9C73?

 

[twist2b]

Is your screen model 9C73?

Yeah, I BELIEVE there was a screen change because of the graphics card change. The 9400 works totally diff and BETTER.

 

[NC MacGuy]

Is your screen model 9C73?

9C9A

 

[daneoni]

9C9A

Yeah, I BELIEVE there was a screen change because of the graphics card change. The 9400 works totally diff and BETTER.

Understood

 

[Mactagonist]

...

So, my question! Have you thought of checking this? Shouldn't the cpu be continually operating at 1860MHz, unless it has to lower in order to stay within best operating limits?
...

No, not on a portable battery powered machine. A desktop might always run at max rated speed (though that is wasteful of electricity) but a laptop does much better to run at the lowest possible speed and raise the processor speed as needed. This saves battery life and reduces heat.

 

[sriggles]

I bought a MBP 2.4 back in Feb of 2008 after deciding to wait till the Air had some time under its belt. The 1.86/128SSD was definitely worth the wait! If you are on the fence about this computer just get it and don't look back.