Macbook Air - Hot or Not? 11" or 13"

The touch seems perfect for travelling. Having to reconfigure everything for another user was the catch. She didn't want to be without it, for one, but intercepting all her friends conversations killed the idea instantly. Not that I wanted her reading all my messages, either.

 

2.8 MHz?

 

That's why I'm so pleased with the iTouch. It does everything I need a travel computer to do. It's tedious for composing long emails, but I hardly ever need to while traveling. I usually just acknowledge receipt of an email, report briefly on my activities, and promise a longer reply when I get home. I'm generally too busy for long emails while on vacation.

I've considered a smartphone, but aside from solicitors and beggers, there's only one or two people I talk to on the phone more than once a year.

 

Meh...my desktop workstation is a dual xeon workstation: It's going to be the end all performance workstation for 3D for some years. Apple is good enough for making computers that have enough performance while giving good design for most segments: but for professional 3D, I'd say making your own system leads to the best performance/cost difference. At the time I built my workstation, I got all parts for 5K....I noticed most PCs/Mac Pro configs were running 8K for the same configurations.

 

Not really interested in a small less-than-computer.

Used to be a Linux-head (since Slackware 1.0--65 floppies!) on my laptops, and on subsequent laptops and desktops (home and work) for quite awhile. Fit well when I worked in high-performance computing, where Linux dominates. Later the really hard-core guys showed up at tech meetings with Apple laptops, because they required almost no attention, but could be dealt with because OS X is Unix underneath--we already knew what to do.

When my home laptop/desktop was stolen six years ago, I took it as a Sign from God, and replaced it with a PowerBook. Replaced that with a 17" MacBook Pro this summer (maximally configured, but with a rotating disk). Impressive! Went 17" because it is my desktop, and I travel by air much, much less frequently these days. BTW, B&H is a highly reliable vendor, free ship and no tax outside of NY.

I have been paying constant $ and getting ever-better systems since the Slackware days. This one has two hyperthreaded cores, so I am tempted to get back into parallel computing in a recreational way.

So clearly I am bucking the Air/iPad trend, but this works for me.

 

Just as one car families gave way to two car families, one computer households are fast becoming multi-computer households. While there is the super horsepower PC number-crunching machines, the real heavy use machine is the low maintenance e-mail/internet terminal....of which Apple is fast capturing this market.

 

There are really three reasons, and that's definitely one of them. The integrated Intel graphics chip is just crap... with the 320, you can run most modern games without a problem... integrated Intel would most likely be a problem. That's why all of Apple's laptops are either core 2 duo with a 320, or have dual graphics.

The second reason, however, is the form factor of the Core 2 Duo used in the Air. Back when Apple first released the Air, Intel gave them a specially designed C2D chip that was flatter than anything else on the market. Even the "regular" C2D chips were too tall to fit in the design Apple wanted for the laptop. That's still true today - the newer i3, i5, or i7 processors are all too tall to fit in the current Air design. Apple would either need to increase the thickness of the laptop or Intel would need to redesign the processors to fit Apple's rigid requirements.

Finally, the third reason is temperature. The C2D tends to run incredibly cool, while the i3, i5, and i7 are quite a bit hotter. With the limited space for cooling (seriously, have you seen how small the heat sink and fan are?) the laptop would probably have serious issues with newer processors.

 

New benchmark results for the Air:
Lab report: MacBook Air benchmark results Review | Business Center | From the Lab | Macworld

This benchmark takes into account the entire package, testing everything. Processor, RAM, graphics, and hard drive. More accurate than previous tests that only tested processor/ram and omitted any possible benefits from the 320 graphics chipset or the SSD.

Or particular importance are the 13" results... the 13" Air scored a 108. The 13" MBP scored a 106... meaning the Air actually outperformed the Pro. Note that these are all for the default setups available from Apple, no customization of any laptops was done.

 

I hadn't seen the review yet... looks like a nice long read.

And like you, I'd love to see someone do benchmarking like this on a "top of the line" Air, not just the standard versions. Get the 2.13 CPU and 4 GB of RAM in there and see how fast it goes!

 

This is going to be my first Air (arrives today!!!!), but I've always been a big fan of Incase's sleeves and cases for my Macbooks. They always fit perfectly, and offer the protection you need.

Keep in mind that the solid aluminum construction of the Air means you don't need too much protection (assuming you aren't going to be doing something stupid with it). My 4 year old Macbook has survived great with nothing more than one of their sleeves, tossed in regular backpacks and shoulder bags.

 

My daughter and I have Macbook Airs, both 1st gen.

She has learned to be unhappy with hers because she finds it overheats to the point of malfunction when she gorges on tv episodes downloaded from the internet.

I love mine, it fits my uses better than any other mac I have owned. My only quibble to say it is not perfect is a longing for longer battery life.

Incidentaly, I took my wife to check out the new models and she was ambiguous, meaning she liked both but prefers an iPad at half price. She is also presbyopic, and I am pretty sure would learn to get annoyed at the 11" screen. She is the ultimate appliance user and content consumer. The iPad will fit her *really* well once it gains a video camera and flash memory slot.

Aside to Daniel: Have you checked out the bluetooth keyboards Apple sells, that work seamlessly with the iTouch and iPad ?

The mac line is so diversified that by now most people can find a model that matches their uses pretty darn well. I say let them all prosper.

 

7 hours use/charge in the 13" ? Wow. My air consumes about 10-15 watts in my use patterns. I wonder what the new ones are. It cannot be much more battery capacity since the weight has not increased and I do not think energy density has either.

 

my Air arrived yesterday, and I have to say... it lives up to all the hype and benchmarks. To put it through it's paces, I loaded up Starcraft II and gave it a go... with the same graphics settings I use on my 1.5 year old Mac Pro desktop.

I was blown away. The framerate was as good or better than my desktop, something i really didn't expect. I was planning on having to go down to the minimum graphics settings, but was able to leave them at high without worry! After a few hours of intense play, the laptop was warm, but not hot. I've had laptops in the past (like the macbook this replaced) that would get so hot i would need to put a throw pillow underneath it to stay comfortable. With this, I could have kept playing all night without noticing the temperature.

The one thing the reviews don't talk about enough is how beautiful the display is. Everything on it just looks amazing... to the point where I almost prefer it to my 21" desktop monitor.

I'm not joking when i say this could easily become my main computer, with my desktop pushed to the back to use as a file server.