Macbook Air Owners Rate your MBA

[SCMedic]

I was up in the air on this purchase, and figured I'd give it shot. I have an iMac and a new Santa Rosa MB that's 4 months old.. I have to say, I've been pleasantly suprised...

This little thing is packaged in a great form factor, and is definately kick ass!

Even at 1.6, it's pretty peppy. I can't say I've been running into any slowdowns, but I'm also not a power user. If I was, I'd be using a desktop of MBP..

Overall, Nice fit and build. Great quality screen, and even the mono speaker sounds pretty good to the right side of my head.

I'd recommend it, but only if you're willing to be a convert for life!

 

[mashoutposse]

I rated it a 9. I'm finding it difficult to find anything truly wrong with it. It's a pretty straight up affair: A beautiful laptop with a large screen, large keyboard, and the smallest body possible wrapped around it, with stellar build quality and more than respectable performance. These design specifications fit my needs perfectly. What's not to like?

 

[raremage]

I rated an 8. Rather than focusing on the plusses,I'll point out what brought it down a couple points for me:

1. Single USB. This is an inconvenience, there's no argument here. On site with clients I need my ethernet connection with my current client, but I'd also like to be able to pop my iPhone in to sync. Too much shuffling needed here
2. Battery is a bit wonky - it's a little tough to get a read on just how long I really have left, and it seems to take an inordinate amount of time to recharge.
3. No firewire - This is more of an inconvenience to me during setup than anything else - I wound up just copying everything from my MBP to an external USB drive because the wireless migration assistant is so glitchy.

Thats about it so far - in general it does everything I wanted and performs much better than I had expected.

 

[ProFX]

Only 7 from me.
Mostly due to how incredibly slowly my battery charges. I get decent life out of it discharging but the recharge is really painful.

I also think my magsafe connector isn't fully connecting. I feel a strange buzzing dragging my palm/finger over the metal areas to the sides of the touchpad - like you would get if something wasn't grounded properly.

This goes away if I push/hold the magsafe connector in place.

Not sure what I'm going to do about that...

 

[MazingerZ]

Only 7 from me.
Mostly due to how incredibly slowly my battery charges. I get decent life out of it discharging but the recharge is really painful.

I also think my magsafe connector isn't fully connecting. I feel a strange buzzing dragging my palm/finger over the metal areas to the sides of the touchpad - like you would get if something wasn't grounded properly.

This goes away if I push/hold the magsafe connector in place.

Not sure what I'm going to do about that...

Bring it into an apple store.

 

[koloo]

Absolutely love my MBA, but sometimes when i actually carry it to other room, i feel that it may slip off my hands and fall,cuz its too thin and too light...

 

[gr8tfly]

I was going to give it a 9, but then I realized we also enjoy it when it's off. Gotta be worth a point there, easily.

 

[stillwater]

I give mine a score of eight.

I really wish they had put one firewire port on it or another USB at least.

Other than that, I love it. The lightness is great when you carry it from room to room. The LED backlit screen is way better than the screen on my core duo MBP. Performance seems fine to me. I really like the keyboard too.

I look forward to taking it with me on my next trip.

 

[Catch]

I gave it an 8. Nothing is a10 so it would have been a 9. Especially since I also have a fan problem being stuck at 6200rpm. Not a big deal, but not perfect 10 either. I also took off a point for missing 3G. My house in the country has sketchy broadband and when its not online I will have to use a dongle which I don't like. The machine is the closest to a 10 I have ever experienced though. If I lost it I would buy another in a flash.

Once you go Air there's no going back!

C

 

[switched to mac]

Pretty Damn Good so far

Well, it's been here a week but I've only had about 24 hours to use it. Don't try the wireless migration (6 hours). Everything else works as advertised and fairly quick (own a MBP 2.33 CD) and battery is very good! Love the keyboard and of course the weight. I might have to get rid of the MBP and just go with the MBA but I'll give it a few more days! I gave it a 9 as the lack of ports and speed keep me from giving it a 10!

 

[Tosser]

The person who gave it 1 , is not a owner Macmanus is the poster, you can click on the numbers to see who voted

I didn't believe you, so I clicked on number two.

Anywho, that is how I would have rated it, had I had one.

However, isn't it rather pointless asking owners on a scale from 1-10? Seriously? If they are rating it, say, 1-4, they obviously made a wrong purchase. And who is willing to admit to such a thing, after spending so much money on a mediocre computer?

 

[paulyras]

Just broke down and bought one. Gave it an 8-

The network disk stuff is a bit of a pain (though is a one time problem for initial installs), and it seems to have some of the same Airport 'Scanning' issue that the MBP has in leopard, where the connection drops intermittently. REALLY annoying, but I'm hoping 10.5.2 will fix that.

It really only got an 8 because EVERYTHING else is fantastic...

BTW- It's a 1.8, SSD.

Paul

 

[0s and 1s]

The constant loud click prevents it from getting a 9.

 

[barefeats]

I give it an 8

I knocked off 2 rating points because,
a) it doesn't have a FireWire port, and
b) it only has 2GB of RAM (and is not expandable).

 

[Catch]

I didn't believe you, so I clicked on number two.

Anywho, that is how I would have rated it, had I had one.

However, isn't it rather pointless asking owners on a scale from 1-10? Seriously? If they are rating it, say, 1-4, they obviously made a wrong purchase. And who is willing to admit to such a thing, after spending so much money on a mediocre computer?

A grownup...

C

 

[Tosser]

A grownup...

C

LOL, how many "grownups" have you seen defending the MBA, simply because they fell for the looks? I have seen people claiming to be adults, but hardly grownups.

 

[Flyer0815]

Clearly the best Apple product ive owned. A flawless experience that was well worth the long shipping wait

9.5

 

[BWhaler]

I gave it a 6, mostly because of the quality issues with the batteries and the fans.

Otherwise, I would have given it an 9. But the quality problems with Apple really need to go.

 

[tnkucomagain]

I give it a nine because of consistent speeds and beauty. I marked down one point because to the left of the keyboard, there is always an excess amount of heat. When I am doing something processor heavy, the area where the battery pack overheats. Otherwise, I recommend you buy one instantly.

By the way, I own a 1.6 ghz 80gb hd.

 

[pstauff]

LOL, Macmanus cannot read. The thread is called, Macbook Air OWNERS. It doesn't count that he looked at one in the Apple store.

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/4977852/

 

[twoodcc]

thanks for this thread. from someone even thinking about a MBA, it's good to read a thread like this.

but i might wait until they update them, before i buy one now

 

[fuzzielitlpanda]

I gave it an 8. I love the mba, but i think the fan and heat problem could have been easily fixed before releasing the mba

 

[wolfie]

i gave it a 8

in a ideal world, to get a ideal score of 10 it would have had a faster processor and its own 3d graphics card.

 

[netdog]

Use it primarily at school and for travel. The more I use it, the more impressed I am. I'd like to up my vote to 11.

If this computer fits your needs (i.e. don't need lots of ports or a bigger screen), it is the best of its kind on the market.

 

[Sesshi]

5 for me.

Looks - No complaints, it's great.
Weight - Good weight for all-day portage but too heavy for what it is, thanks in part to the use of aluminium.
Power - Thermal issues limit the usefulness of the machine, even - very surprisingly - in what I'd consider normal use with my Sony UX's, TZ's and SZ's.
Battery - 4 hours is not bad, but the recharge time kills the usefulness of the machine.

Especially given the tradeoffs I have to conclude the Air's advantages are primarily in the looks area. It has no significant technical advantages and is held back by some crippling problems for people who actually travel and actually do work while travelling. I am really surprised the early reviews didn't mention these issues because they are readily encounterable (sic). Or maybe I shouldn't, as the early reviews were all given to confirmed 'Apple enthusiasts' who could be relied on for a glowing report even if Apple came out with a turd.

The current range-topping Sony TZ runs more predictably, doesn't overheat - and actually runs comparable ultraportable-typical Vista apps pretty much at the same clip as the Air, is a better size for all-day portability and with the extended battery fitted for a 1.38kg (vs 1.36kg of the Air) all-up weight, can run for ~10 hours with the same power saving strategy as I use on the Air - and even the bigger extended battery charges faster. I can also take a spare. It has the ports I actually want to use in normal circumstances, vastly better connectivity and even manages to shoehorn in a drive.

The TZ is what I carry when I don't need a Keynote machine, and it gets a 9 from me on the same yardstick. And when I do need a Keynote machine, the Air is the only OS X machine which is actually all-day portable so I have it by default. I have been trying a Blackbook too more recently as it is a more useful machine, but it is just too heavy, as I anticipated.

The plan next up is to ditch the Air by getting a colleague to hackintosh a TZ or an Ideapad - but I know that wireless issues may persist, etc so I may have to stick with the Air. It's not a terrible machine, but it is less than useful for all its compromises.