

The future of notebooks: Ars reviews the 11" MacBook Air  - abraham
http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2010/11/the-future-of-notebooks-ars-reviews-the-11-macbook-air.ars

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mkramlich
Just got a 13" Air (128gb SSD, 2gb RAM) and in my limited anecdotal experience
it's noticeably peppier in everyday use than my Mini, which has a much faster
CPU clock and twice the RAM. Cold startup is much faster, shutdowns are much
faster, starting apps that used to be real pigs on my Mini (particularly
Firefox and Gimp) is now much faster as well. Oh and file copies, of course. I
haven't compared build performance, nor have I done apples-to-apples
benchmarks. But overall, roughly speaking, it's a big step up in performance
for many common scenarios.

~~~
Herring
Yeah, that's the SSD

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tlrobinson
I just got an 11" yesterday (1.6GHz, 128GB SSD, 4GB RAM)

First impressions: it feels faster than my ~2 year old 2.x GHz MacBook (with a
hard drive and 2GB of RAM). I imagine bumping up the RAM and installing a SSD
would change that, but the point is it's not too slow. I certainly don't feel
crippled by it.

The screen is great, I don't feel too constrained compared to my MacBook. I
could see myself using this as my main dev machine, especially with an
external monitor/mouse/keyboard.

The only thing I kind of miss so far is the backlit keyboard, but as I get
used to the key locations that will fade.

We'll see how it holds up once I install a bunch of crap. Usually my machines
start getting sluggish after a few months for some reason... (I wish there
were an app or something that would tell me why. Looking at CPU/RAM usage
doesn't seem to help. I want automated tracking of newly installed software +
performance metrics correlated)

~~~
vegai
"Usually my machines start getting sluggish after a few months for some
reason..."

The Windows effect. Doesn't seem to happen in Linux...

~~~
ido
I assumes he use mac os x on his macs :)

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vegai
Exactly my point: OS X seems to suffer from the Windows Effect as well.

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borism
yes. HFS+ suffering from fragmentation. plus bloatware.

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Yaggo
> Having Flash installed can cut battery runtime considerably—as much as 20
> percent in our testing.

Enough said. I've zillion of Safari windows running on multiple Spaces, and
when on the road/rail with MacBook, I always disable the Flash plugin
altogether. Despite my use of click2flash, HTML5-enabled video on YouTube &
Vimeo, I still see "idling" Flash-plugin process continuously taking few
percents of CPU, no matter what.

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glhaynes
I wonder if these are "invisible" Flash apps. I've heard that Click2Flash lets
through something like any 1x1 Flash apps because those are almost always just
used for Flash cookies and the like. Would be disappointing (though not
shocking!) to hear that some of them are poorly written and use CPU even when
idle.

~~~
sprout
If Apple's Click2Flash is really letting 1x1 apps through, that kind of kill
Safari as a reasonable Firefox alternative in my book.

~~~
glhaynes
Click2Flash is a 3rd party extension. I just realized the "allow small Flash
objects" thing is in the preferences:

[ ] Allow Flash if size is at most _______

On my machine which hasn't been changed from defaults, it says "1x1" but is
_not_ checked. So, unless Yaggo has changed their settings, my hypothesis of
why they're still seeing Flash is incorrect.

~~~
Yaggo
Weird. I'm using version 1.6b9 which claims to be most recent but it does not
have such an option.

~~~
glhaynes
I'm on 1.8. It's now a Safari extension - if you're running Safari 5 you can
go to the Safari menu then click Safari Extensions Gallery, it's on there. The
Click2Flash project page doesn't do a good job of pointing this out!

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jjcm
I have a 13" in the mail right now. Been an IBM guy all my life but decided to
give this guy a try. I really needed a good comp to use as a ssh client while
I'm on the go, and the portability of it all seemed nice. Only thing I'm
hesitant about is the proprietary parts that are in the machine. If the RAM
goes bad somewhere down the road, I can't simply grab a new stick off of
newegg and take a screwdriver to the machine. Somewhat annoyed about that, but
I can understand the need to do so in a machine that's trying to cut size as
much as this.

~~~
agravier
A Macbook as ssh client? There are cheaper and smaller options out there. I
use an Asus eee 901 (and a MiFi router to use one 3g plan for all devices I
carry around), it was very cheap and it's been working very well. My macbook
has not left my desk since then.

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bensummers
One question which is never answered in these reviews: How long does it take
to charge the battery?

My two generation old MBA takes 8 hours to fully charge -- and this is
apparently normal. For my use it's not a problem, but it does require some
planning to make sure it's got a full battery when taking it out for the day.

~~~
AngryParsley
My 11" Air takes about 90 minutes to charge, but the last 45 of that is going
from 90% to full charge. The 13" has a larger battery, so it should take about
30% longer.

~~~
bensummers
That is good news!

I thought the 8 hours charge was a fault at first, and so did AppleCare, but
eventually it was confirmed as "working as designed."

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iuguy
I've tried an 11" Macbook Air and love it. I never felt the iPad was for me,
but given my space restrictions when travelling the new MBA seems ideal for
me. I'm waiting for Lion to come out to see what that brings to the MBA, but
so far the 11" is going to be my next personal laptop, and I'm finally going
to retire my 10 year old Sony Vaio SRX-51 (with it's might 128mb of RAM and
PIII-850). I somehow doubt my MBA will last as long though.

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b3b0p
I was dead set on getting one of these, but 2 things stopped me:

1\. Steve mentioned this is the future of the Macbook. Which lead me to
think...

2\. Can you imagine what they have in store for the next iteration of the
Macbook Pro? Especially the 13 inch?

So, I have decided to hang on to my 13 inch Macbook Pro and wait for the next
iteration of the Pro's. I really wish the Air had an ethernet for when at the
office and I really enjoyed the backlit keyboard. Otherwise, it seems nearly
perfect.

~~~
baxter
I tend to think in a similar way, but I also recognise that since something
better is always around the corner I might never buy anything!

~~~
sprout
Given the fact that my 6 year old desktop I never use would serve me just as
adequately as "the future of notebooks" for things I _need_ to do, I've always
found that attitude to be a useful hedge against needless spending.

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zhyder
I know this has been asked before, but now some of you would have been using
your MBAs for a week.

1\. How is the 13" (which is 1440x900) as a primary dev machine?

2\. If you moved from a 15" MBP, do you miss the screen real estate? Was the
MBP a 1440x900 one or the higher-res 1680x1050 one?

~~~
swah
Also, do they get hot ?

~~~
mfenniak
I had my 13" Macbook Air pegged at 100% CPU usage for a couple hours
yesterday. It gets a bit warm, and the single fan spins up noticeably
(eventually), but I wouldn't call it hot. I think it'd be comfortable on my
lap still.

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bobf
I have a 12.1" Asus UL20A that I bought last December. It isn't as thin as the
new Air, of course, but it is a great alternative if you want to spend less
and aren't set on a Mac.

~~~
Andys
Acer 1810TZ here. Its 11.6", 5 hours battery life, built-in 3G modem, and I
popped in an Intel 80GB SSD. 4GB RAM, and it still cost less in total than the
base model Air. It ran Ubuntu perfectly out of the box, including 3G modem,
making it better than any other OS in terms of ease of setup..

~~~
Herring
Yours isn't a dual core. The GP's Asus is dual core, but it's about $800 = 1k
with a $200 SSD.

FWIW I'm not entirely certain the Air is a good value, & would appreciate a
real comparison.

~~~
dagw
The 1810TZ has an SU4100 CPU, which is dual core.

~~~
Andys
Confirmed, its a dual core 1.3ghz

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eddanger
As awesome as these are, I'm waiting for the 2nd generation. I simply like to
play it safe and have them work out the kinks before making the plunge... most
times.

~~~
AngryParsley
That's probably a wise decision. I've been using a maxed-out 11" Air as my
main development machine for the past week. I haven't had any issues so far.
But I bet Apple will eventually release a version with a smaller bezel and a
backlit keyboard.

I definitely think Apple is "cheating" somehow, because this thing boots up in
20 seconds, while my 2Ghz MacBook with the same amount of memory and an Intel
X25-M takes 45 seconds to boot. I doubt it takes 25 seconds to check the state
of the superdrive.

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wazoox

      > I definitely think Apple is "cheating" somehow
    

Not necessarily, as the X-25 is on a SATA-2 bus (maxes out at 300MB/s) and the
special built-in SSD may be connected to a faster bus (maybe PCIe?).

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AngryParsley
System Profiler says the SSD is on a SATAII bus. The model is APPLE SSD
TS128C, which doesn't help me pin down the real manufacturer. If I had to put
money on it, I'd say it's a rebranded Samsung SSD, since Apple seems to do
that pretty often.

Edit: Apparently I would lose money if I bet on that. :)

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dagw
The macbook air that ifixit took apart had "Toshiba" written both on the
assembly and on the individual memory chips. But it's not impossible that they
have more than one source of SSDs.

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sea6ear
Has anyone tried running VirtualBox (or other virtualization software) on the
11" Air? If so what was the experience like?

I'd like to get one, but that question has stayed my hand so far.

I'd like to be able to run a virtualized Ubuntu instance and am wondering what
effect the processor speed would have.

I'd spring for the 4GB Ram but there's nothing I can do about the processor
speed.

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varjag
It is the first time I have seen a picture of computer taken with soft-focus
filter. Mac worship has reached the new heights.

~~~
rickmb
Not uncommon with objects of desire. The truly remarkable part is why in 2010
still nobody else is making computers that actually look desirable?

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tyng
It's funny that Apple released a 11" MacBook Air because it seemed to compete
directly against it's own iPad. Now it's a tough choice between the two for
the average consumer.

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bostonvaulter2
There's a fairly large price difference still, about $500.

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pmjordan
I was chatting to the owner of one of the mac reseller stores in Vienna a
while back, and the best selling iPad for him was far and away the top-of-the-
range 64GB 3G version. The (EU) price difference between that and the 64GB Air
is only €200 (€799 vs €999).

Of course they _are_ extremely different machines in practice.

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vvpan
Call me an idealogue, but I am not willing to buy any Apple product. I am
surprised that so many people who label themselves as open-source activists,
or something along those lines, buy Apple's products. As far from "open" as
possible.

~~~
dagw
By what measure is Acer, Asus, HP, Toshiba, Sony or Lenovo more "open" than
Apple?

~~~
vvpan
Well, I am referring more to the Apple's mobile products. On which you cannot
get an application (including your's) without Apple's consent, or without
paying.

