

New MacBook Air Specs - abstractwater
http://www.apple.com/macbookair/specs.html

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Encosia
The Core 2 Duo is disappointing.

I've been holding off on replacing my Dell, hoping Apple would announce a more
powerful 13" model of some sort. My Dell has been technically excellent (LED
backlit display, SSD, etc), but the build quality is distractingly bad. So,
I've been seriously considering biting the bullet and getting a Macbook.

As impressive as the rest of the new Air seems, it's tough to justify buying
~2008 technology two months from 2011. It's hard to believe there's not a
single 13" Macbook available with a Core i5 or Core i7 yet.

~~~
reitzensteinm
I would personally place the blame squarely at Intel's feet. They no longer
allow nVidia to make chipsets for Nehalem onwards, so instead of having a
chipset with integrated graphics, you now have to have an additional chip on
the motherboard for standalone graphics. In this form factor, that's just not
an option.

I guess Apple could also be faulted for wanting to standardize on decent
graphics, but I just can't bring myself to see that as anything but a good
thing!

It will be interesting to see how this changes with time. Sandy Bridge,
Intel's upcoming CPU release, has graphics on die, but it will still be vastly
outclassed by the nVidia 320M that's in the new Air. Unless Intel comes along
with vast improvements with their 22nm refresh, Ivy Bridge, Apple's still
going to be in the same bind - in 2012.

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alex1
Anyone else notice the Software Reinstall Drive?

[http://images.apple.com/macbookair/images/specs_flashdrive_2...](http://images.apple.com/macbookair/images/specs_flashdrive_20101020.jpg)

USB drive with Mac OS X?

~~~
chc
OS X has supported booting from USB drives for quite a few years now.

~~~
stevenp
But I assume this is the first time they've actually packed the OS on a USB
drive, no?

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teye
Sony crams an i7, a gorgeous 1920x1080 high-gamut display, quad RAIDed SSDs,
_and_ an optical drive into a 13.1" 3-lb. package with great battery life.
_That's_ impressive.

[http://www.jp.sonystyle.com/Special/Computer/Vaio/Z/index.ht...](http://www.jp.sonystyle.com/Special/Computer/Vaio/Z/index.html)
(quad SSDs available only in Japan)

I love OS X, but I feel like a retard for sticking with Apple hardware when
they're outfitting "the next generation of Macs" with the previous generation
of processors.

~~~
stumm
You forgot to compare the price. The "reasonable price" option there is more
expensive than the highest price macbook air.

~~~
teye
The price I'd be willing to pay for a powerful MacBook Air sickens me.

And I hate to think what more they could include if they weren't so obsessed
with the tapered edge. More than 4 GB of RAM? A real SSD? WWAN?

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abstractwater
Isn't the Core 2 Duo rather old? Why did they use that instead of a more
recent i3/i5/i7?

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dlevine
It comes down to graphics performance. If they used an i3, they would need to
use intel's integrated graphics, which are much slower than the geforce 320m.
Going with the Core2 allows them to use Nvidia's chipset, which has a much
faster integrated graphics chip.

~~~
abstractwater
Why not a i5 or i7 then?

E.g. the MacBook Pro 15" (i5) comes with a Nvidia GeForce GT 330M.

Does the i5/i7 and related chipset dependencies take up more space maybe? They
seem overall more performant and better battery savers than the Core 2 Duo.

~~~
msbarnett
Yeah; Intel locked NVidia out of the chipset market with Nehalem, so in order
to use an NVidia GPU you need to have an extra die on the motherboard, you
can't fold it into the chipset.

There's no room in the Air chassis for that, so to stay off Intel Integrated
graphics, they have to stay on Core 2 Duo.

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fanboy123
My current MBA has an overheating problem because they didn't bother to design
with heat dissipation in mind. Going to wait and see if similar complaints
come up about current gen.

~~~
mdemare
That is in fact a problem with the Air, the fans are simply not powerful
enough to cool the CPU at full speed for more than 5 minutes. You're wise to
wait (I'm not).

~~~
someone_here
That is, frankly, a poor design.

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milkshakes
interesting.. they renamed the iSight -> "FaceTime camera"

~~~
jwarzech
I'm wondering if that just implies a lower resolution camera than what is
found in the Macbooks/Pros

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icco
You know what I love? TWO USB PORTS. Finally.

~~~
rflrob
Not just that, but ports on each side. No more external mouse cables wrapping
around the computer.

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duck
Does anyone code on an Air? Just wondering how well the current ones do.

~~~
acgourley
I wouldn't buy this as a dev machine unless you're pretty sure you're not
doing anything more than trivial local compilation. Unless you bike everywhere
and the size is really important.

~~~
jbarciauskas
Why not? I use a similarly spec'd 12", 1440x900, 1.8ghz Lenovo X200s. Sure I
dock it and connect dual monitors when I'm at work, but having that resolution
plus being able to cart it everywhere and pop it open without hassle makes it
a great dev machine. I was able to compile our whole Java webapp, maybe a
million lines of code, in the same time as my previous machine - most likely
IO was the limiting factor not horsepower. What kind of compilation or other
intensive work do you expect to need to be doing that would offset the
portability benefits?

~~~
icco
I do the same but with an x200. It kicks ass and I do Linux kernel hacking on
it all the time. Compiles a full kernel in 15 minutes. It also has a 128GB ssd
like the air.

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JeffJenkins
I was really hoping for more than 2GB of memory. I frequently want my entire
application stack for whatever project I'm working on, dev environment, and a
windows VM running simultaneously and that already can get tight with the 4GB
I have in my MBP.

~~~
abstractwater
You can actually configure any new MacBook Air up to 4GB RAM when you buy it.

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silverlake
Two things I disliked about the earlier Air was display resolution and memory.
Both have been improved quite a bit. Now someone needs to check heat
dissipation.

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8ren
Seems pretty much an Apple netbook, but 2-3-4-5 times the price.

Jobs said they weren't interested in that market because too cut-price, but
now it's died down a bit.

It will be interesting to see if Apple ease-of-use etc will be enough to win
yet another market - I think it might.

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stevenp
It seems like this might cannibalize iPad sales to some extent, no? A $999 11"
MacBook with 64GB of storage is an awfully good deal compared to the top-of-
the-line iPad choice, isn't it?

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golgo13
4GB RAM at last! Let's see if Santa gets me this one or a Dell Adamo. The Dell
still doesn't have 4GB, but perhaps that will change before December.

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lukifer
1.4ghz chip at the low end? I suppose that explains in part where the good
battery life and low cost is coming from.

~~~
akrogh
I'm a little disappointed with the battery life. I recently bought a 13-inch
ASUS and regularly get 12+ hours of battery life out of it. 5-7 hours sounds
less than impressive especially if you are on the move/hate looking around for
an outlet wherever you go. But there is no denying that the MBA looks
considerably better/thinner/lighter...

~~~
chc
How much of that time is spent computing and how much is it sitting around?
Because it sounds like Apple was citing the former.

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rubyrescue
Assuming "All Flash Storage" => SSD

~~~
mdemare
It's not really a drive anymore, just individual flash chips, not replaceable.

~~~
hermanthegerman
Is that a joke ? So what do you do if the 64GB are full ? Throw away the
computer ?

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ericd
Most people never upgrade their own laptop hard drive. I'm assuming you'll be
able to take it in to have the apple store swap in a bigger storage circuit.

~~~
hermanthegerman
I'm on the third harddisk on my macbook.

