I'm thinking about buying a mba, but was wondering what those of you who already have it think about its performance? If you don't mind saying which mba you have in your post, does your mba do everything you want it to do quickly and without struggling (I'm pretty light on processing, email, internet, documents)? I'm on the go always, and travel extremely light, so how much space of your mba's hd are you using, and is forgoing the external hd plausible? Thanks for your help guys.
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Too small? Too slow?
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While I don't have an MBA, I can address some issues.
1) The MBA is faster than the final PowerMac G5.
2) From my limited use of the machine, it is wicked fast. (of course I'm comparing it to my current machine, a PowerBook G4 667)
3) It seems small, but I'm used to a 15".
4) I'd have an external, bus powered hard drive for extra storage. Then again I have a 100GB in my PBG4, and an external 500GB, and I still fell crampped.
TEG
1) The MBA is faster than the final PowerMac G5.
2) From my limited use of the machine, it is wicked fast. (of course I'm comparing it to my current machine, a PowerBook G4 667)
3) It seems small, but I'm used to a 15".
4) I'd have an external, bus powered hard drive for extra storage. Then again I have a 100GB in my PBG4, and an external 500GB, and I still fell crampped.
TEG
checkout my Post Here
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/431903/
Based on your mentioned activities, you should be just fine with a 1.6 / 80.
Mark
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/431903/
Based on your mentioned activities, you should be just fine with a 1.6 / 80.
Mark
I have the 1.6/80 MBA, which I upgraded from a 12" Powerbook G4 1.33 Ghz.
For the most part, all I do is take notes in class, internet, music and some other random stuff but nothing major. The MBA runs faster than my old Powerbook for what I use it for. Regarding the hard drive, I have only used about half because I store my music on my iPod.
For the most part, all I do is take notes in class, internet, music and some other random stuff but nothing major. The MBA runs faster than my old Powerbook for what I use it for. Regarding the hard drive, I have only used about half because I store my music on my iPod.
I have the 1.6/80 model and I am so impressed with this, that I find myself using it as my main laptop. I just bought a Dell Inspiron 1520, and that too, has a 1.6 C2D inside. The Air boots faster and runs more smoothly imho. Course I'm biased towards OS X.
So yes, this does everything I need it to do. I don't have a firewire device so the lack of a firewire port is nothing to me. I bought a bluetooth mighty mouse to use with it, but the trackpad is so intuitive and easy to use, I find using that easier than the mouse, so the lack of more than one usb port is nothing to me.
The lack of an optical drive is nothing to me, either. I just use the drive in my Inspiron. No big deal. I highly recommend this laptop, you won't regret it.
So yes, this does everything I need it to do. I don't have a firewire device so the lack of a firewire port is nothing to me. I bought a bluetooth mighty mouse to use with it, but the trackpad is so intuitive and easy to use, I find using that easier than the mouse, so the lack of more than one usb port is nothing to me.
The lack of an optical drive is nothing to me, either. I just use the drive in my Inspiron. No big deal. I highly recommend this laptop, you won't regret it.
I think it's fast enough for most people's everyday use of word processing, excel, internet, email, iphoto and everything that non-professionals use daily. If you're working with something that NEEDS more power, you'll already know that and not be looking at the macbook air. If you don't know that you need more power, you probably don't!
1.8/SSD. Aside from the irrational fear that I will run out of drive space (24GB remaining... thank you Xslimmer), its been very good to me. Does my presentations, document processing and occasional WoW session quite well.
I live a very networked life, with a home server and good infrastructure at work, where I'm very used to the notion of distributed network storage. Hard drive space is only important to me for applications and when I'm offline (if I'm on, even via EVDO, I will ssh stuff back home or back to work). Nonetheless, I have been so irrational with the SSD's "small" size that I in fact, now have more free space on it than I did on my MacBook at last glance (only 13GB remaining out of a 80GB Mac OS X partition).
I live a very networked life, with a home server and good infrastructure at work, where I'm very used to the notion of distributed network storage. Hard drive space is only important to me for applications and when I'm offline (if I'm on, even via EVDO, I will ssh stuff back home or back to work). Nonetheless, I have been so irrational with the SSD's "small" size that I in fact, now have more free space on it than I did on my MacBook at last glance (only 13GB remaining out of a 80GB Mac OS X partition).
MBA With Fusion Still Has Plenty of Storage Space
i have a full install of Leopard and standard apps with few extras, running VMWare Fusion with Office 2003, Adobe CS3 suite and MS Visual Studio 2005 and still have 40GB free. Granted I have yet to migrate any multimedia but I will put essential music and photos and keep the rest stored on my main computer -- still a Windows XP machine -- soon to change.
So from a storage point of view 80GB is quite a bit. I bought the MBA because of the amount of travel I do and am tired of hauling a huge laptop and accessories. Based on what you say above I would say no need for an external HD -- maybe a 12GB flash drive like I use would give you a safety net but I doubt you will need it.
i have a full install of Leopard and standard apps with few extras, running VMWare Fusion with Office 2003, Adobe CS3 suite and MS Visual Studio 2005 and still have 40GB free. Granted I have yet to migrate any multimedia but I will put essential music and photos and keep the rest stored on my main computer -- still a Windows XP machine -- soon to change.
So from a storage point of view 80GB is quite a bit. I bought the MBA because of the amount of travel I do and am tired of hauling a huge laptop and accessories. Based on what you say above I would say no need for an external HD -- maybe a 12GB flash drive like I use would give you a safety net but I doubt you will need it.
For what I use it for, it excellent. I did purchase the 1.8 SSD option based on the inability to really upgrade anything other than perhaps the hard drive. I could use this as my primary machine but every now and then I need some horse power to do some video editing, gaming, etc. For that I have a IMac with enough horse power to get me buy.
In all, an excellent laptop.
In all, an excellent laptop.
There has been ... can't find link - it's in one of the earlier MBA threads..
One of the first benchmarking example put in comparison with the first macbook 2ghz and macbook pro 2.16ghz
The macbook air pretty much matched the macbook in all tasks with tiny discrepancies here and there (in each's favor).
This makes and interesting read about the MacBook Air maybe being under powered.
http://thinkmacbookair.com/index.php?topic=53.0
http://thinkmacbookair.com/index.php?topic=53.0
Not too sure what 'non-professionals' means here.
I consider myself a professional - I'm a technology consultant working with Fortune 500 companies - and I've switched over completely to my MBA as my primary system. I've made only one compromise in my day-to-day use - I wish I had one additional port. Could have been either USB or Ethernet and I'd be perfectly satisfied.
My old system was a two year old MBP15. One of the first gens. It had a 100GB drive and 2GB RAM.
I ran (and moved entirely) a WinXP VM running in Fusion over. I typically dedicate a Gig of RAM to the Win VM and use it quite a bit onsite with my current client. Some of the things I do require Visio, many require Project, and with my current client I use Outlook to access their email system.
I am not a casual user - I'm a technology architect, my current engagement involves re-engineering eighteen application ecosystems. I do light development (my job involves design more than code these days) and other than the reduction in screen real-estate, I don't see any drop-off in performance from the MBP. The Core2Duo (replacing my olde CoreDuo) certainly makes up the difference.
In my office I have a 20" cinema display and USB hub. I use a bluetooth mouse and keyboard, and operate using dual screens with the 20 as my primary when at my desk. I use wireless to connect (not an AirPort, it's a dlink WAP at the moment, 802.11G) and have not had any problems at all.
Have I made a few compromises? Sure, I carry the Superdrive if I think I'll need it, as I said before I'd add one more USB port if I had designed it (primarily for Ethernet use onsite with clients) and I lost some screen. I also lost about 3 pounds in weight and gained about 1.5 hours in batter life. Gained a nicer display as well (the old tech is really noticeable to me now).
Bottom line to me: while it's not for everyone as their primary system, it will work great for many, many people. Don't underestimate the performance or the broad range of use you can get from an MBA
Got me convinced
Not too sure what 'non-professionals' means here.
I consider myself a professional - I'm a technology consultant working with Fortune 500 companies - and I've switched over completely to my MBA as my primary system. I've made only one comprimise in my day-to-day use - I wish I had one additional port. Could have been either USB or ethernet and I'd be perfectly satisfied.
......snip.......
This was exactly what I wanted to hear/readNow I'm getting one too !