Exactly. Which negates the portability/weight advantage of the 11"
I never carry my charger with my 13"....with such a long battery life, there is no need.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Thinking of going from the ultimate 13" to the 11"
- Thread starter acb2m
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Exactly. Which negates the portability/weight advantage of the 11"
I never carry my charger with my 13"....with such a long battery life, there is no need.
An 11" plus charger is NOT lighter than the 13" w/o charger. These chargers way over .6 lbs last I checked.
Just saying.
Only on a plane. At the coffeeshop, the outdoors cafe, the bookstore, or anywhere else I might be during the day that is on the ground and not in the air, I don't need the charger and have the portability I want.
I agree.
And portability is also about footprint for me. The larger air has the same footprint as the 13" macbookpro and that is too large for me for carrying around with me all the time.
Yes because flat surfaces everywhere just shrunk with the introduction of the MBA last month.
I see your point, I just don't think the 13" air is that different than the 13" macbook pro. I have a powerhouse laptop and really love the ultra portability of the 11.6" air.
You are right. The 11 inch and 13 inch MBA both use a 45W power adapter so I weighed mine on my trusty electronic kitchen scale, although my power adapter came with a 13 inch MBA. My 45W power adapter weighs 10.75 ounces, which converts to .67 of a pound.
I see your point, I just don't think the 13" air is that different than the 13" macbook pro. I have a powerhouse laptop and really love the ultra portability of the 11.6" air.
I was just teasing.
I think it's a matter of perspective. I have a 15" i7 MBP as my main laptop. Moving down to the 11" was just too much for me. The 13" MBA had very few compromises by comparison.
And battery life was a prime decision point for me. I love the grab and go portability of the 13" and not having to find seats near a power supply is a godsend for my mobile lifestyle. Since I tend to use my MBA and my iPad in conjunction (custom demo my company uses), it's great to have matching battery capacities that can both go a full day between charges.
Whether it can last you a full day at work or Uni is going to come down to just how much of the day is hands on lid open and how much comprises of doing something else and lid shut. Likewise whether you're required to sit and watch video or not.
Typical working day for me personally would see 5 or 6 half hour hands-on sessions interrogating/reprogramming embedded controllers or in a worst case scenario a single three or four hour one configuring a main server unit.
On a light load of general web browsing, downloading 100meg or so of utils and writing some documents, I got just over 6 hours hands on use.
A similar session but with 20 mins of you tube video watching thrown into the mix, got me 4hrs 57 before battery was hitting 5 pcnt.
Typical working day for me personally would see 5 or 6 half hour hands-on sessions interrogating/reprogramming embedded controllers or in a worst case scenario a single three or four hour one configuring a main server unit.
On a light load of general web browsing, downloading 100meg or so of utils and writing some documents, I got just over 6 hours hands on use.
A similar session but with 20 mins of you tube video watching thrown into the mix, got me 4hrs 57 before battery was hitting 5 pcnt.
Good point, I'm not usually putting the computer under full load at school 5+ hours a day anyway, and the 11" would fit a lot better on the cramped 8" desks in lecture, but I think I'm going to stick with the 13" as a just-in-case I need something a little more powerful down the road. The way I look at it, if I had gone with the 11" to begin with I wouldn't be dissatisfied, but now that I have the 13" I'm very happy. Both are a huge upgrade over my beast of a 2006 15".
If all you are doing is surfing, you can save yourself a ton of money and just buy an iPad.
I'm a student and I have to agree the battery life on the 13" is awesome, coupled with a sleep mode that actually works these are some of the best features on the new macbook air.
It Lion ends up being THAT demanding, even the pople with the 13" will be a bit disappointed, its not like the 13" is a powerhouse, its a bit stronger than the 11" but still has a weak processor. Get the 11", a LOT of people are switching from the 13 to the 11, its definitely worth it. If the 13" can handle whatever you do, the 11" will be able to as well.
Because some of us are past that point in our lives where we constantly have to trade/upgrade our perfectly good machines in order to have bigger and better stuff with the apple logo on it.
What software do we run now that is more demanding than two years ago? Photoshop? Final cut pro? No, they've been the same. The only thing that's more demanding now is maybe games.
I have been particularly pleased by my 13 inch MBA Ultimate's battery performance. As a test earlier in the week I left the MBA on battery power from about 7:30 AM until after 9:30 PM. That wasn't continuous use, of course, and I was gone for a couple of hours during the day, but I was impressed nonetheless. When I finally reconnected the AC adapter the battery icon was in the red but the battery still wasn't exhausted. I had my MBA up and running for a lot of hours that day and satisfied myself that battery longevity is not going to be a problem for me as long I don't watch videos or run some other energy intensive applications continuously.
I see your point, I just don't think the 13" air is that different than the 13" macbook pro. I have a powerhouse laptop and really love the ultra portability of the 11.6" air.
You're right. What's a pound and a half?
Agreed. I actually think that the iPad is BETTER for surfing than a notebook.
As someone finishing grad school, I wish the 13"MBA was around last year. It would have been the perfect choice.
It was interesting to watch students, myself included sometimes, arrive to class early and pick their seats according to the locations of power outlets. Students with newer MBPs never had to worry.
Depending on your studies, the 1440x900 resolution of the 13" MBA may make a difference. I know I craved more than 1280x800, especially for working in Excel. I couldn't or wouldn't justify spending $1700 + tax just to have a Mac with 1440x900 screen res. Now that option is finally $1250 for students.
Interesting observing the computers used by my classmates in a full time MBA program. It was pretty evenly split between Mac and PC users. Mac users had 13" MB and MBP as well as 15" MBP. PC users had 14"-17" laptops with all but 1 17" being 1440x900, the same as the 15" MBP. Also, only one netbook user which means business students don't see the value in netbooks. Especially since the ribbon UI in MS Office takes up a significant portion of the screen of a 1024x600 netbook. 4+ iPads in our class. That doesn't reflect well on the netbook market.
We also had several students switch from old PCs to 13" MBPs.
Just my observations, and I'll probably pick up a 13" MBA soon
It was interesting to watch students, myself included sometimes, arrive to class early and pick their seats according to the locations of power outlets. Students with newer MBPs never had to worry.
Depending on your studies, the 1440x900 resolution of the 13" MBA may make a difference. I know I craved more than 1280x800, especially for working in Excel. I couldn't or wouldn't justify spending $1700 + tax just to have a Mac with 1440x900 screen res. Now that option is finally $1250 for students.
Interesting observing the computers used by my classmates in a full time MBA program. It was pretty evenly split between Mac and PC users. Mac users had 13" MB and MBP as well as 15" MBP. PC users had 14"-17" laptops with all but 1 17" being 1440x900, the same as the 15" MBP. Also, only one netbook user which means business students don't see the value in netbooks. Especially since the ribbon UI in MS Office takes up a significant portion of the screen of a 1024x600 netbook. 4+ iPads in our class. That doesn't reflect well on the netbook market.
We also had several students switch from old PCs to 13" MBPs.
Just my observations, and I'll probably pick up a 13" MBA soon
.07 pounds heavier, yes that will break your back. The difference is the 11" plus the charger still fits in a physically smaller bag than the 13". If you want the 13" that's great, I'm not trying to convince you otherwise. But the 11" IS way more portable than the 13".
Not exactly. My Rev B SSD model cost $2400 in November 2008. I'll get about $800 for it now. There's no way anyone would pay $1200 for it now when $100 more would get a brand new 13" that has a faster SSD and a better GPU.