Tonight's visit to the Apple Store...

[Disavowed]

First off, the new MBAs were on display, as I am sure at most stores by now. Both Rev Cs were on display and could NOT see lines anywhere and have YET to see lines on an MBA at this store (Legacy Village, OH)

Anyway, played with the 2.13 and like others have said, it is SNAPPY. Launched anything and everything in a jiffy; cool. Went back and forth between youtube and Hulu and never witnessed a stutter or dropped frame. That said, I only played stuff in 480, which still looks amazing (to me).

As I have stated before, my main objective is portability for resdencies and field placements for school...writing, keynote, web, email, and may try once or twice a year to watch a movie or even edit something using imovie or FCexpr, just for giggles. (wife is IT with a ton of ext HDs)

No lines, fast as hell for my needs, and beautiful to work with. I have finally decided. I was actually gonna go 13MBP till they pulled that SATA crap reduction on us,

Any ideas yay or nay? Would you go with 13 MBP despite SATA malarchy?

Also, was wondering if the lines are somehow a regional thing. I am not an old guy....if I would put my face any closer to that machine they would make me buy due to making out wiht it.

 

[lekun]

Well, I don't know if you should go with a MBP or MBA, but Anandtech.com had a good chart about the performance effects of 1.5 vs. 3.0 SATA. The chart helped me decide that the SATA issue wouldn't effect me. For some it might, but either way the chart was clear and helpful.

This paragraph sums up the conundrum:

All three of the SSDs in the table above would be interface limited on the new MBP because of their high sequential read speeds. If you were copying large files from the SSD in your MacBook to a similarly fast device, the transfers could take longer. I doubt the performance difference would be significant or noticeable in real world notebook usage, but it doesn’t change that there’s no reason to take a step backwards like that. In the coming years we’ll see more drives that can consistently break 150MB/s; Apple artificially limiting performance today would just hinder progress.

Link.

 

[Henk Poley]

Buy a MacBook Air if you want to and can spend the money.

The SATA 1.5 gigabit/s limitation isn't a good reason though. Current 2.5" harddisks come about halfway the 192 megabyte/s. Solid state versions do come up there recently. But SSDs are mostly nice because of their quick access times (latency), that is the thing you will notice in "snappyness". Not that a multi gigabyte copy takes a few seconds less, those disks are pretty small anyways.

Also be sure to know that the MacBook Air takes the smaller 1.8" harddisks, which have lower performance than 2.5" disks. Also those are more difficult to obtain.

The Air gets you less computer for more money, though possibly one that fits your life better. No high gloss screen, much lighter.

 

[hodgeheg]

Buy a MacBook Air if you want to and can spend the money.

Agreed! It sounds like you're very happy with the machine you've seen. If it meets your needs for the foreseeable future at a price you're willing to pay, buy it. My only suggestion would be to test it before you leave the store. I've personally never found a line-free Rev B or C but they appear to exist. If your store has them that's a good start, but it's not guarantee the one you get in your box will be that way! So just check, to make sure YOU are happy (regardless of whether it has no lines, light lines or bad lines, that is all that matters, but if you check before you leave the store you're in a strong position to swap things if anything isn't up to your needs. I'd also check for dead pixels if they bother you, and check the base is stable. I'd say the same for any aluminium model, not just the Air.

The Air is, for me, supremely portable. However if BATTERY is your primary concern, you might find a new MBP preferable as it lasts a bit longer.

 

[iaymnu]

The Air is "the" best to carry around. Some might say the heft from the 13" MBP isn't much but it all adds up if you are carrying other things with you. I would decide on the new 13"MBP for the supper battery life, but on my new air I am getting a good 4:30-5hr (estimate) with safari4, itunes, and word processing. (wifi, not bluetooth 3 blocks brightness)