First post on my MacBook Air ...

While a select few of you where still stumbling over my last thread that was (thankfully) closed I went out and purchased a MBA ... putting my money where my mouth is so to speak ...

I'll be very careful with my review as I write about it over the next days, don't worry I promise I will NOT post any negative comments about my MBA experience whatsoever, I know there's a select few waiting in the shadow's to pounce on whatever I write ... no more fuel for you

It felt good to boot up OS X again, even though I'm a long time windows user and much of our work is centered around windows app's, we wanted a Mac in the office/house so the MBA was the weapon of choice for now.

Reason for buying was to spend more time 'relaxing' with a computer, we've been all business and all blackberry for a long long time, it's time for a change, something new and refreshing, while the 15" MBP wasnt' for me, I hope this little MBA can fill a void and with the excellent mac app's a lot of doors are opened as far as (creative and a intuitive) software is concerned so I'm planning to have some fun with it.

Yes, it's sure thin and light as I expected, keyboard seems great, I don't find the screen font as blurry as I thought it might be, that's great.

Will I like it so much that it will replace my x301, I'm not sure yet a few weeks will tell.

Have a great day!

 

You'll relax alright unplugging your mouse when you want to plug a USB drive in.

Sorry, but the lack of ports just kills any MBA appeal to me.

 

Congratulations m8!I am glad you like it!

P.S. you are free to post/complain about anything on it that you don't like,but please do that in intelligent and factual way! we will understand/try to help you (if it is possible) to resolve your isses.

 

Gee, thanks in supporting my attempt to keep this thread positive, LOL, (joke) ... I got slammed into left field already for critiquing my last MBP, but seriously...

Yes, I understand that about the ports, but I'm taking the notebook for what it is and what its designed to do, using for it's intended purpose. I have desktops and a T500 if I need to do a bunch of work.

I bought this mostly for the OS and apparent pleasure to use, carry and type on ... 1 usb port, wireless that's all good with me ... this will sync up nicely with my iphone, there's software made by Apple that I'd like to learn to use and I'm on a computer a LOT for work so this is a treat to me ...

It's a nice notebook for sure, first impressions anyway, it's fun!!

 

I hadn't realized it was for fun.

Disregard my last post then.

 

Congrats on your new purchase. Have fun relaxing!

 

what model did you bought?

 

Congrats uniq Hope you enjoy this one. I'm still saving up for my MBP:cry: I want one NOW

Lynn

 

I was comparing the X300/MBA a while ago, and I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on how your new MBA compares to the X301 it's replacing. Even though I've already decided on an X300 for myself, I always like hearing peoples opinions on these things

 

Congratulations! I'm glad you got a Mac, because it will be great for years to come!

 

congrats on the air. its suppose to have a better screen then a standard macbook.

 

Thank you... Haha, just kidding...

Definitely hit that one on the head...

I hope it won't be too long! Well think of it this way, the longer you save and wait, the more advanced and better the technology gets, so when you are able to purchase your MBP, it might be quad core with a 9800GT. Food for thought...

 

thanks everyone, yes, so far so good, what's not to like! I was curious to see how I'd like the screen and keyboard more than anything, both are great, screen is better than I thought it would be and the keys have just the right amount of travel for my typing style.

I'm still real clumsy with the Mac OS but it's a refreshing change from Vista and will only get better once I spend some time with it.

I typed over in a Lenovo post some time ago about how much I loved the x301 and it's keyboard and I do LOVE the x301 ... the mac keyboard at my first impression is equally as good to type on, that's another very positive point for my needs anyway.

On an ultra portable, disc drives, more usb ports etc isn't that important to me, if it was then I'd have no choice but to stick with the x301 .... my reason for buying this was a little different ... I've gone down the Latitiude/Thinkpad road for a long time, same with smart phones... blackberry after blackberry ... I wanted to stray off the beaten path and try something different, I want this to work out.

Going by my first out of the box impressions and typing a few hours on it, I think "wow" it's a real cool, well built notebook. The OS is a bonus and an option I can't have if I decided to go back the x301, so I'm going to stick with it and make it work ... put it this way something is going to have to come up that really turns me off in order to make me return it ... if the screen and keyboard hadn't been as good as or better than the 301's then it would be a different story ...

 

I read somewhere in another thread where someone installed windows so they could use Publisher ... that's about all I'd have to do, then the Air really could meet close to 90% of my needs I think, that is amazing considering it's size and weight... I'll probably leave Publisher and windows for the desktop for now, but it's nice to have option for me if would make the whole system complete.

The idea here was my wife loved the x301, namely the keyboard so she was all for me trying the Air, now I have the Air here and she's eying it up, lol, a week or month down the road maybe we'll both have one, lol.

One way to look at it is if you have the Air you have the OS X and the option to run Windows, you can't do that with x301, ports on ultra portable aren't big deal, you can get a bluetooth mouse if need be, but I'm more inclined to trying to use the features of the big trackpad ...

It would be hard to be disappointed with either the Air or the x301.

 

Its interesting that you find the screen of the MBA better than that of MBP.
I believe the MBA has the same screen as macbooks ?
And generally the opinion was that MBPs have much better screens than macbooks.............

 

Uniquestco

Congrats and thanks for all the info. Like others, I'd like to know what configuration you purchased with the MBA

Let us know the particulars ???????

 

i have the thinkpad x300, i played around with the MBA at the store, quite a few times.

- i miss the magsafe on the apple laptop when i was using the x300.
- the MBA comes with clearer screen, but the x300 comes with more usable high-res screen.
- i prefer the keyboard on the new mac compared to the one on thinkpad notebook.
- mac os x is still better than vista.
- x300 vs rev.1 MBA, the x300 wins hands down, the MBA still even uses the old samsung SSD (PATA).
- i cant live without dvd-drive and 1usb, even on my ultraportable notebook.
- it think the x300 is more of a technological marvel than the MBA.
- it is easier to handle the thinkpad, picking it up is easier, and the feet is extremely shock absorbing.
- the fan exhaust on the x300 should comes out the back and not the side.
-the screen brightness adjustment on the x300 doesn't go all the way to zero (no light). i know both my macbook and macbook pro (CCFL lit) can adjust the backlight to fully-off position.

conclusion is... i like x300 better, although the biggest weakness of these thinkpad series is windows OS. and maybe the magsafe.

no kiddin'!!! it heapsssz better! i dont know why the macbook gets so bad screen considering its price and the obvious fact that apple can acquire much better 13" screen.

 

Congrats on the purchase. I see no reason to use a mouse on a MB, MBP or MBA when you can use the multi-touch trackpad. My wife and mother-in-law feel differently about this but then again they haven't really tried the trackpad.

 

Congrats to the OP on the MBA.

 

Mice still have plugs?

I've used a MBA for work almost exclusively for the better part of a year now. A second USB port would have been welcome as would more hard disk capacity but I've managed to work within the MBA's limitations with little effort.

Due to a HD issue I'll be using my MacBook for a bit (and its speed and capacity are welcome but its seemingly small difference in size and weight makes a big difference) but I hope to get back to a MBA again in the future.

 

I have a MBP 15.4 LED display and its terrific but my MBA display blows it away. The latest MB display is good but no where near as good as the MBP or MBA (its viewing angle is not as good nor is its relatively poor contrast ratio).

 

This is my first post on my new MBA and my first Apple product ta-boot. Getting used to the Mac OS is going to be interesting but I've used other non-Windows platforms before so I should be ok. I'm really liking the gesture features on this notebook and the screen looks fantastic (though I'm still adjusting to the real estate on the 13.3" screen compared to my 1440x980 Dell).
I've never been particularly attracted to Apple but I managed to get this notebook at a fraction of the original asking price and I couldn't refuse.

 

Congrats Yak! feel free to ask any question you have about mac os x

 

Well this may be surprising but I'm really interested in the rev b 128GB SSD MBA

It might sound crazy but I'm totally in love with the little things, like the keyboard (backlit OMGBBQ), screen, tapering and the overall minimalism.

I might sell my Acer and raise some funds in time for my trip to the US.

 

Thanks for the support. I'm sure I'll be using the NBR forums quite a bit in the next while as I bounce some questions around.

 

Congrats! Yep, if you have any questions be sure to ask!

 

Well, I'm still enjoying the multi-touch feature of the MBA and have found myself trying to use the two finger scroll on my Dell far too often over the last few days.
One issue I've found is that the MBA fan is incredibly loud and seems to kick in frequently. This doesn't bug me as much as it seems to some people but I do wonder if there is a way to reduce the frequency of this. I did install the Mac software fix for it but the result was little difference.
The MBA airport card is fantastic. Compared to my Dell wireless N it seems to do a much better job of grabbing and using a signal.

 

It should be possible for you to find a program to read the temperatures of your system, like HWMonitor does in Windows. Check them out and post them here, so other MBA users can compare.

 

It is funny but since I mentioned the fan I haven't had it kick in. I downloaded a temperature monitor. So far the idle temperature on the processor is around 50 degrees celsius. I did notice that even with basic internet browsing the temperature spiked to 75 degrees at one point (and yet the fan did not kick into overdrive). I'll keep monitoring it.

 

My processor (see signature) idles in the 35-40 range. But bear in mind that:

- the Air is a lot smaller so it should heat up more
- Apple is known to let its components heat up a bit more so not to turn the fan as often

 

Each to his own but isn't the X300 running on some kind of puny ULV processor? Which is about half as fast as the Core2 Duo on the MBA? Sorry if they fixed that by now...

 

You can download smcFanControl for free - it will show the temperature in the menu bar, and allow you to increase the minimum fan speed. Default is 2000 RPM and I found if you set it to 2400 the laptop keeps much cooler and you still can barely hear the fans... that was on a MacBook Pro, so YMMV, just wanted to mention it.
I also use the iStat Pro widget which monitors all kinds of temperatures as well as other things. The MacBook Pro has 10 temperature sensors built in...

 

Try combining smcFanControl and CoolBook. I have my Rev A set on 4000rpm by default, and my computer is running at 39ºC right now.