Just bought a MacBook Air.... Review coming soon....

So, just a heads up for any of you who are on the fence about buying a MBA, I'm getting one and will do a little write-up.

Except it's not for me, AGAIN!

It's for my dad. But I get to use it for 2 months, w00t! I'm visiting my folks in London at the end of May, but until then, it's mine! All mine!

Anyway, I'm getting one + the Superdrive, and intend to take a ton of pictures etc etc, and expect comparisons to my MacBook Pro 15.4".

Anything you guys want to know, in particular?

 

I nearly bought it...its cool for travel.

 

Congrats! Personally, would like any solid tests on a few games. Benchmarks perhaps? OR just an overall hands on experience with frame rates and visuals.

Again, congrats and hope your two months of use is worth while

 

I'm not really into the whole "benchmarking" thing, and with OS X, I'm not even entirely sure what benchmarks you CAN do (and ones that haven't been posted before). I'm more into the "practical usage" reviews, since that's what people (hopefully) care about more!

But I will compare it heavily to my MacBook Pro, in terms of general speed when surfing, watching videos etc etc.

 

Looking forward to it!

 

Thanks! No idea how long it will take to get get to me, since I ordered it from Amazon, and everyone is out of stock! Phooey!

 

I bought the 1.6/80gb model a couple months back and to me it wasnt worth the $$.

Here's a mini review from me:

The Good:
-First of all I do love the form factor and its built very very solid and sturdy even compared to the mbp.
-The screen is gorgeous (even brighter and more vivid than the mbp led), when open it looks like the same size as a macbook but when its closed it looks small as a 12" powerbook and so damn thin, just looks beautiful closed, looks unreal.

-When the mba is closed and you carry around, feels like a small/thin magazine in your hand better yet feels like a thin comic book, I just simply love the form factor.

-It feels great on your lap, better than any laptop I've on my lap. Just fits there perfectly, dont know how to describe it.. the best way I guess it feels like having nothing on your lap while at the same time having a macbook on your lap. A small internet bowl (because of its shape kinda roundish bowlish shape when its opened feels alot different than a mb and mbp, actually like it) of cereal on your lap, its yummy.

-The speed of the 80gb 4200rpm isnt too bad long as your not heavily mulitasking too much, then your whole machine will see nothing but color wheels.

-The trackpad is very big and its the best trackpad I've ever used, the touch from your finger feels so responsive and accurate, pinching, 3 finger swipe (my favorite), rotating works great.

-I'd say best part of the mba is the gorgeous led screen, trackpad and form factor (I really do welcome the 13.3" screen where you open the mba up and its like another macbook but once close and you take it around with you, its just THAT much smaller like your carrying a small magazine under your arms).

Ok since I already said all the good, here's the bad (to me the bad was too bad to return it).


The bad:
- The mba exhaust is on the bottom back where it can get blocked quite easily thus making the system hotter on top if it already being pretty hot (same hotness as the macbook (non penryn). The macbooks and macbook pro's fan are located on the top back portion so it wont get blocked (hope they change this in the future mba).

-The mba overall is pretty slow, I have a core duo 1.8ghz mb and to me the mb was still a bit faster.

-The mba gets pushed EASILY to its limits thus resulting in a 6000+ rpm pretty much 85% of the time. I mean easily is opening safari with 4+ tabs or firefox 4+ tabs and say itune and ichat and gets the fan to start revving up eventually reaching the 6000+ rpm. I always had to watch out what websites to open and what not to open because it would result in the fan waking up, even demanding websites will run the fan pretty high such as espn.com, nba.com, ign.com, gametrailers.com, etc..

-The mba fan is quite annoying, imagine a mbp/mb fan just much higher toy sounding fan brrrzzzzzzz being the center of your attention while the bottom back and bottom left side is about the same heat as the macbook if not a bit hotter since less area to dissipate heat. I thought the mba would have been better if apple used an ulv core 2 duo like the sony vaio tz that I had was barely warm to touch and fan noise was muuch less audible.

-Also if you watch youtube/hd trailers the mba's fan is crazy loud. Just opening safar/firefox and watching 1, yes 1 youtube video the mba's fan will start to make a tiny brzzzzzz noise eventually in a minute or two being around 6000+ rpm. And the real kicker is that after you close every program for the machine's fan to die down, it took most of the time 15+ minutes for it to finally come down to 2000 rpm, usually I just put it to sleep and wake it up then instantly its quiet again.


Conclusion:
I believe I did not have a faulty mba and it was working as it should have worked. But to me something that much louder,ran hot,slow and for the price of a mbp 2.4 (penryn model) you have to be crazy rich or just insanely love the name macbook air to buy one. BUT if your out and about (5-8+ hours a day) for a job that demands you travel and hitch new plane rides then this is a nice little machine to work on word on the plane.

And the name suits it for now it does need alot air to push it to work. I really really tried to love it but just couldnt because of the fan being very loud and if your in a quiet room or even near quiet room the fan will be the center of your attention.

I exchanged the mba 3 times because I thought the fan had a problem... nope all the same its just the cpu is too overwhelming for that thin of a design yet its not that fast since the hdd is a huge limiting factor. I would opt for the ssd drive version (recommended) but its just wayy too expensive. I'll definitely wait for the rev b. or even c. to buy one though because to me its just not quite there yet about half way there not to mention a 45nm or even better a 32nm will be way better suited on the mba.

 

Thanks for the impressions. Definitely some interesting oddities at work there. I know Apple released a firmware update for fan management a short while ago. Not sure if that addressed anything or not...

I have faith that Apple will address any such issues in time. But I'll let you know what I receive mine.

 

I've only had mine since yesterday.. But to comment I'll agree with jjahshik32 on the fact that I TOTALLY dislike the positioning of the fan cause I often use it in bed and I mean this usually results in the fan spinning a bit faster as the heat vents can get blocked a bit. But aside from that the experience is grand. I haven't had too many hang ups and in comparison to my 2.2 Ghz MBP I'm really impressed with the speed.

I was going to wait for a revision but as of now I'm glad I had not the lightweight ease of use and full size keyboard is great.

The screen as JJ said is AMAZING. I like it a lot more then my MBP or wife's Macbook. I'm usually not one for Glossy screens but I have to say they did a wonderful job

 

Glad you're enjoying it! Any comment on fan noise? (spinning up and not spinning down?)

 

As I've told you that I'm really really still interested in the air and still keeping up. I did hear that the fan control smc update on the air actually makes the machine run its fan even higher in rpm constantly. Alot of people with the ssd/80gb drive versions who said their mba never revved up in fan in casual/very minimal usage now runs at a constant 4000-5000 rpm.

 

I've only used it for about 7 hours total thus far. But last night there was one hour where I agree it was quite loud. That was prior to the updates so haven't yet experienced it again and I know there was a fan update although I don't see how that would have corrected it spinning so much as I thought it was to fix it's responsiveness to when the machine warmed up.

 

The fan noise when its in idle is not audible maybe if you put your ear next to the keyboard area and does not go up and down just stays in a certain rpm speed until it revs up more.

WilliamG, thank god that the mba is for your father, I remember in another thread you told me that bzz noise from your acd makes you go insane... just think about the mba fan noise as 23"ACD x 100, lol.

 

Haha. Seriously! It's one of the things I dread about new hardware! Noise!

 

I am really interested to know how well Aperture 2.0 runs on it

Aperture 1.5 wasn't particularly slick even on a MBP, but 2.0 has smoothed things out a lot, so I would love to know how it runs on an Air when editing large RAW files.

 

I don't have Aperture 2.0. But.... I do have LightRoom so I could try that.

 

Lol, you will literally pull all your hair out because the fan noise will bother ya (I just have a huge feeling) and + the heat as well, I still needed to use my ilap on the mba when I had it.

By the end of your review WilliamG will have pulled all his hair out due to the noise, hehe.

 

LOL. Well I hope not.

Must....see.....MacBook Air....from....position....of.....my.......60-year-old.....father.....gah!!!

 

I think I read somewhere people running aperture 2.0 on the mba but then decided not to. The mba is more of a webbrowsing/occasional movie viewing machine and nothing more. I'd highly recommend using aperture on a macbook or better yet on a macbook pro/mac pro.

I wished they'd make the mba a little more thicker and just allow a 2.5" hdd in it, that would be the perfect/idea solution. 1.8" 4200rpm is just soo damn slow. Feels fast at first but once you start to multitask you will feel the after shock/burn where apps starts/need to play catch up all the time.

 

Well you could always give the trial a whirl, there's a lot of people would like to know how it runs

Given the comments on here about whirring fans for a few Safari tabs... I am not too optimistic!

 

Fine, fine, I'll install the trial when I get it (might need to remind me nearer the time!).

 

Basically the mba is a secret love that cannot be, not yet...

 

heh heh... I think this is the voice of reason

 

Sweet! MacBook Air is now shipping today, according to Amazon. Will have it tomorrow. Hopefully a review over the weekend.

 

Cool, cant wait to hear your rendition of the mba's review.. I can already tell you though you will notice the fans~~!! and heat!!

 

Gosh, you are the party pooper, ain't ya! Maybe I will notice the fans, and heat, or maybe not. Don't forget I'm coming from a MacBook Pro, which, under stress, is literally burning hot. I could cook eggs on the underside toward the hinge at the back. Ridiculously hot. I imagine the MBA couldn't possibly be worse!

 

you should definitely see if you can properly calibrate the screen, as well as get some real world battery usage limits.

 

Ah, yes, the Spyder2 on the screen would be a good idea. I'll also do some photo editing to see how it stands up.

 

Eh... some reviews say the MBA gets much hotter. I know the links are in the other (bit older) MBA threads, but I'm not digging for them

http://www.macworld.com/article/132215/2008/02/mbair_temp_celsius.html <-- mixed bag!

I don't have the other references, but I've seen two that have found the MBA to get much higher temps than the MBP, even the CD (hottest MBP).

 

I can definitely live with those temperatures. Seems the MBA doesn't get quite as hot, depending on heat location. Anyway, I'll find out tomorrow.

 

I definitely want to see what you think of the temperatures and the hard drive. Is the hard drive noticeably slower? How do you think of the keyboard? Questions like that. Congrats, and waiting for the review!

 

Well I can tell you from my test when I had the mba I ran the mba with half brightness looping an mp3 on itunes with 4 safari tabs open and it lasted just under 4.30 hours. So with the brightness set even lower than half and just webbrowsing I could see it lasting just about 5 hours.

 

Sweet. Sounds like good battery life.

I got my shipping confirmation from Amazon. Still on schedule to be here tomorrow!

 

Gosh! It should be here any minute. Can't....wait! And it's not even for me!

 

Take lots of pictures, William!

 

It's here! It's here!

 

pictures... I did a boring unboxing vid the other day http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=n3MHHuIYUns

 

Hehe!

Well, I've got the system up and running, taken some photos, used it quite a bit, and it really is one hell of a system. I hope to get my review up in the next 24 hours. I'm about to use LightRoom to edit my pictures on the MacBook Air! That should give you an honest feel to how it behaves with picture editing!

 

Are you editing RAW or jpeg? Interested to hear how it goes

 

Nice video. Thanks! The more I think about it, the more I think there's a Macbook Air in my future (someday).

 

I'm definitely interested in how this MacBook Air will continue to pan out in generations to come. Bring down the price, add a few more ports, and it'll be a huge seller.

 

RAWs, and it rocks with RAW.

 

If you are feeling bored and fancy trying out the 'straighten'* tool in Aperture 2.0, you could make my credit card very afraid

*The straighten tool was the least responsive/most jittery tool on Aperture 1.5, the reason a lot of people jumped to Lightroom. Even on my MBP 1.5 was poor at times. Aperture 2.0 had fixed this, but I am very curious if the MBA would cope!

 

I will try that today. I've never used Aperture 2.0 before, so I'll install the free trial. Is it easy to find the straighten tool? I assume it's for tilting the image in different directions?

 

Here is straighten (you can do it with Multitouch!):



And histogram adjustment can also be a bit slow:

 

Yep that's what I imagined it to look like. Thanks for the images to show me where! I'm installing Aperture 2.0 today, so I'll let you know ASAP.

 

Just to make it really easy, here is the straighten tool In 1.5 it was quite jittery. On my MBP in 2.0 is smooth as a baby's proverbial

 

Wow. Aperture 2.0 is 180MB download. LightRoom is only 61MB installed for me. Crazy... Thanks for that picture. Installing now.

 

OK, just tried. Buttery smooth, and pretty cool that you can use multi-touch to do it. I'm also clicking on the image (give me two arrows pointing up and down), and dragging up and down with the cursor gives me the grid and wiggles the image all over the place with the straightening tool. No issues. Smooth as silk.

 

Wow.

I would appreciate it if you could try some more intensive stuff... e.g. export a bunch of RAW files to the desktop while you continue simultaneously edit in both Aperture and Photoshop and running your browser/itunes/whatever, which is a normal session for me

If it can do that I will be amazed!