I've had an enjoyable time reading about the new MBAs in the last few days. I purchased an 11.6" model the day of release, and just last night picked up a 13" for my fiance. Anyway, in practical use, these machines are exceptionally quick. For everything I've had to do, this machine is by all useful measures at least as fast as my 15" MBP. Which brings me to a bit of a rant.
A (large) number of folks are complaining about the "low-end" specs in the new MBAs, particularly the 1.4 GHz Core2Duo processor and "only" 2GB of RAM. In fact, a number of folks here have said they won't buy due to this fact. Which brings about my rant. In todays computing environment, the number of things which have to mesh to bring a rewarding computing experience together is astonishingly large.
Of all the things that impact computer speed, I would argue that processor speed is far-down the list. Ditto RAM size above a certain point. Modern software has the ability to page in and out of RAM and vary processor speeds to optimize for a certain task. If you think about it, these are intermediate specs, anyway, which at the end of the day, mean nothing! The real "spec" is how well the computer performs for the tasks you want it to do. And here, the MBA just shines.
IMHO, more important elements which impact real-world "feel" include efficiency of the software and drivers (this is far more important than anything else), graphics rendering and display frame rates, and storage read/write speeds. Here, the MBAs are simply stellar. The use of specs like processor speed or construction are frankly an artifact of decades ago, when this was a majority contributor to performance. [mini-rant here, too: newsflash, the Core2Duo and the i3 are for all intents and purposes the same chip. Mostly marketing hype separate them.]
Honestly, I think its lazy to continue to use processor speed as a main spec today, though the market probably demands that such specs continue to be published for computers. Interestingly, marketing has evolved such that other devices (such as smart phones) seem to be judged on real-world performance and not processor type/speed/RAM/etc. Ditto the iPad. No-one questions the processor type or speed in the ipad, folks kinda don't care. They just look at performance of the device.
So, the test is this: can you ignore the psychology of exclusively focussing on "specs" like processor core speed and instead rely on your own, direct experience? If you can, you'll find the MBA is a wonderful new standard in ultraportable computing. I'm not the only one to make this observation, of course. A good published review here makes the same observations.
A (large) number of folks are complaining about the "low-end" specs in the new MBAs, particularly the 1.4 GHz Core2Duo processor and "only" 2GB of RAM. In fact, a number of folks here have said they won't buy due to this fact. Which brings about my rant. In todays computing environment, the number of things which have to mesh to bring a rewarding computing experience together is astonishingly large.
Of all the things that impact computer speed, I would argue that processor speed is far-down the list. Ditto RAM size above a certain point. Modern software has the ability to page in and out of RAM and vary processor speeds to optimize for a certain task. If you think about it, these are intermediate specs, anyway, which at the end of the day, mean nothing! The real "spec" is how well the computer performs for the tasks you want it to do. And here, the MBA just shines.
IMHO, more important elements which impact real-world "feel" include efficiency of the software and drivers (this is far more important than anything else), graphics rendering and display frame rates, and storage read/write speeds. Here, the MBAs are simply stellar. The use of specs like processor speed or construction are frankly an artifact of decades ago, when this was a majority contributor to performance. [mini-rant here, too: newsflash, the Core2Duo and the i3 are for all intents and purposes the same chip. Mostly marketing hype separate them.]
Honestly, I think its lazy to continue to use processor speed as a main spec today, though the market probably demands that such specs continue to be published for computers. Interestingly, marketing has evolved such that other devices (such as smart phones) seem to be judged on real-world performance and not processor type/speed/RAM/etc. Ditto the iPad. No-one questions the processor type or speed in the ipad, folks kinda don't care. They just look at performance of the device.
So, the test is this: can you ignore the psychology of exclusively focussing on "specs" like processor core speed and instead rely on your own, direct experience? If you can, you'll find the MBA is a wonderful new standard in ultraportable computing. I'm not the only one to make this observation, of course. A good published review here makes the same observations.
