Macbook Air Questions: Battery Life \ External Display

[KPGills]

Hi All,

I purchased a MacBook Air over the weekend and am in the process of transferring all the data from my PC over to the macbook.

I have a few questions, can anyone help?

1 - I have a VGA Adaptor to enable me to plug the mba into my Dell PC Monitor. I can get this to work with the screen closed on the mba, but only when the power supply is plugged in. With the power supply unplugged it does not work. It is possible to send the graphics to an external screen without the power being plugged in?

2 - If I leave the mba plugged into the power supply will it damage the battery? I've an old Dell laptop which now cannot work without having a power supply.

3 - What screen resolution does everyone use on the mba? I found the highest one to be to small and the other seem to not leave the screen as sharp.

As I said this is my first mac, so if any of the questions above are daft I'm sorry. Any help will be great.

Thanks alot and Merry Christmas,

Keith

 

[Corndog5595]

3. You want to be using the native resolution. All others will look pretty bad, especially on the kind of LCD panels Apple uses.

 

[Hellhammer]

1. At least I can do that with my MBA and mDP to HDMI adapter.

2. Depends how long. It's not recommended to keep it plugged in 24/7.

3. LCDs look awful when not running at native resolution. Some apps like Safari allow zooming so that may be worth a try

 

[MisterEd]

Hi All,

1 - I have a VGA Adaptor to enable me to plug the mba into my Dell PC Monitor. I can get this to work with the screen closed on the mba, but only when the power supply is plugged in. With the power supply unplugged it does not work. It is possible to send the graphics to an external screen without the power being plugged in?

Unless they've changed this feature recently, Clamshell mode (laptop closed, external display, kb, mouse) only works when plugged into the power supply.

You can however simply leave the mba open, and use an external display without having to plug it in. Of course then you'll have two displays, the native laptop display, and your external. You could either mirror them (in display settings), or use as an extended desktop.

Hope this helps

 

[efirmage]

1 - I have a VGA Adaptor to enable me to plug the mba into my Dell PC Monitor. I can get this to work with the screen closed on the mba, but only when the power supply is plugged in. With the power supply unplugged it does not work. It is possible to send the graphics to an external screen without the power being plugged in?

2 - If I leave the mba plugged into the power supply will it damage the battery? I've an old Dell laptop which now cannot work without having a power supply.

3 - What screen resolution does everyone use on the mba? I found the highest one to be to small and the other seem to not leave the screen as sharp.

1) You can always have both screens on without being in clamshell mode.
If you want the MBA screen off you could mirror the display, and then shut off the display on your MBA with CTRL+Shift+Eject, or by lowering it's brightness.
2) Many threads on this, needless to say it's better to have the battery being used to at least half capacity once. Manuals say drain it fully once a month, to keep the particles moving around.
3) Absolutely, wouldn't think of using a lower res. If you are reading text, trying 'zooming' by moving two fingers away from each other on the trackpad (a la iOS). Most applications also have font preferences that you could suit to your needs.

 

[fswmacguy]

If you are reading text, trying 'zooming' by moving two fingers away from each other on the trackpad (a la iOS). Most applications also have font preferences that you could suit to your needs.

Alternatively, just Control + Scroll (+/-).