Looking at buying a MBA 13" and have some questions

I am a Windows guy and did buy a Sony Z (3 lbs. 4 GB ram and 256 GB SDD)...returned it because it broke.

Then the MPA 13" came out and peeked my interest. I am looking at getting the 13" 256 GB, 4 GB ram and the upgraded CPU.

Will this function good as a primary laptop? I have a big powerful desktop.
How well will it run Windows 7 in VM or Parralles? I do not want to boot camp
VM or Parralles?

Any input would be great. Thanks

 

VM and Parallels probably won't run too well with the SU9400/SU9600

 

From what I hear (mostly around these forums and others) VM/ Parallels runs fine. I haven't tried it myself but I'm sure for basic stuff won't be too bad.

 

I got the MBA 11.6" and it run VMWare Fusion with Windows 7 very well. With Expose, I can have Win7 running on the right screen and OSX on the left.

So yeah, MBA 13" will run VMWare even better.

 

I am really leaning towards the 13" maxed out.

I think the only thing that is keeping me from pulling the trigger is that I am new to OSx and the CPU seems low compared to Windows machines in this size and price range.

I know it seems to run faster than the others.

Do Mac's just not need the extra power Windows needs?

Also, has there been anything you cannot do on the MBA?

 

I won't compare Windows OS and Mac OSX, but since Apple develop both the hardware AND OSX, they generally works much better and smoother. For example, my MBA 11.6", even though it's low powered, it performs great with multiple apps open, including VMWare.

I'll suggest go to your local Apple store and try out each of the Macbook (Air, Pro, etc.). Run YouTube, Word 2011, etc..etc..

Oh, and try the Multi-touch trackpad, it's truly a bliss to use!

 

Apple's products usually don't deliver performance per dollar as they are designed to excel in other areas.

I've seen many claims that OS X has lower requirements than Windows, but that really only applies to the now-defunct Windows Vista. Windows 7 has equivalent system requirements.

Windows 7 system requirements - Microsoft Windows
Apple - Mac OS X Snow Leopard - Technical specifications

Anything that demands a robust CPU: heavy multitasking, media encoding, media editing, photo editing.

Any professional applications such as Solidworks, CAD, simulators, virtual machines, discombobulators, or any other applications you can make up.

 

I did go to the Apple store and I must say I really liked how well the MBA 13" worked. Once I turned on tap to click I really liked the touchpad.

I know I could get a better MBP 13" for less money, but this MBA felt faster...but man this looks cool being so thin and light.

The most CPU hungry app I would use is VM....need that for some windows apps and as a standby for when I do not know how to do sometihng on a Mac.

 

There is a big difference between system performance and performance capability. While the MBA seems faster than the MBP because of the SSD, it is handicapped in terms of what apps it can run by the low-voltage C2D.

The MBP 13 packs higher- capability hardware due to a more capable heat dissipation design, and it is still a thin machine (though rather heavy for its size). As I said before, there are many things that the MBA can't do, despite delivering good performance with the SSD. The MBP doesn't suffer from that problem.

Thinness shouldn't be much of a concern aside from the "wow, that's cool" factor that will wear off after 2 weeks or so, leaving you wondering why you bought the MBA, the anorexic cousin of the MBP.

I'm sure you're already aware of this, but I would advise that you reconsider the MBP.

 

I sold my Z11 for a MBA 13" and have noticed virtually no performance loss and also the battery life on this thing is amazing.

Using it for 2 hours now on battery and there is still 6 hours and 31 mins left in it.

And for me I got very used to the 1600x900 on my old Z11 and this display is just as good, 1280x800 is crap and trust me you will regret that much more than a C2D.

 

Cool, glad to hear someone went from a Sony to the MBA and is happy. I also loved the screen rez of the Sony and the MBA 13" has better rez than the MBP 13".

 

I picked up the MBA 13" now it's time to give it a workout.

 

What were the specs on the Z? How was battery life, etc?

 

Hmm, thanks for some of the comments here. I'm a die hard window's fan. But recently I'm considering exploring the different capabilities of a Macbook. I would like to get a MBA for it's thinness.

For the person with the Z, what specs? Also which 13in MBA did you get? did you upgrade to 2.13, 4gb Ram, and 256gb ssd?.

 

I got the MBA 13" 2.13, 4 GB ram and 256 GB SSD. I had a Sony Z12 laptop with a i5, 4 GB ram and 256 SSD.

I really liked the Sony and I am a big Windows fan....but no other laptop I looked at had the look and feel of the MBA.

 

so upon using it. did you see a big difference in performance difference?

 

So the MBA outperforms the Z?

 

The spec's of my old vaio where i5-520m, 8gb 1333 memory, esata express card plus the standard stuff of course.

Battery life I got around 4 hours out of it with careful use.

 

My MBA feels 'subjectively' quicker because of the SSD and the stupidly fast bootup time, anything intensive like video encoding, ripping dvd's of course will be a lot slower.

 

No SSD on the Vaio?

 

Oops yeah it came with the 128gb SSD too

 

So the Sony had an i5-520 processor @2.4GHz-2.933 GHz turbo, SSD, and 8 gb of RAM yet the MBA is faster with half the ram and a much slower processor? Do you attribute this to the efficiency of OS X?

 

Well it certainly "feels" faster even though benchmark wise it quite obviously isn't and yes I would put a lot of it down to OSX and how Apple have tweaked it over the years to run better and better.

But for the the big question is Do I miss the Vaio??..... NO!!

 

That's quite an accomplishment as processor wise the core 2 isn't even on the same planet as the i5, let alone the extra RAM and calling the SSD's a wash. I'm assuming that the Vaio was running Windows 7. OS X must be incredible to overcome that hardware gap. I'm impressed.

 

I think its the other way around.

It's not that OS X is efficient; relative to Windows 7 it isn't (you can check the requirements yourself). It's just that the gap between Core 2 Duo and Core i3/5/7 is not that large. Unless there is a whole new architecture involved, CPU upgrades aren't a big deal. Case in point, the i series is merely an evolution of Core 2 Duo.

 

So, day 1 with the MBA and I have to say I am very impressed.

Everything snaps open and works well. I don't think it out performs the Z....but it's very close.

I think I might notice the big difference if I do CPU intensive stuff.

Loading Parallels and Windows 7 now.

 

I didn't think a core 2 running at 1.86 or 2.13 could keep pace with an i5, let alone in turbo mode. I would have thought that the core 2 would even have been a bit behind the i3 series.

 

I didn't say that C2Ds can keep pace with i3/5/7. I said that the performance improvement of the "i" series over the last-gen Core 2 Duos is not as great as Intel would like us to believe.

 

well its true.
basically 2.4ghz that comes standard with MBP is equivalent to i3-370M.

now dont say core speed isnt everything,i3 doesnt have turbo boost but has hyper threading which i could not use because of most softwares lacking use of virtual cores.it just makes feel good that it has an extra feature of hyper threading but does nothing else much.

 

Core speed does count for something, I'm sure. We can get into the details of multi-threading benefits and case-specific performance benefits, but I only wanted to point out that i3/5/7 is an evolution of Core 2 Duo and thus does not bring the huge performance benefits that Intel would like us to believe. You can provide specific case studies of workloads where the newest CPUs excel, but then again you can do that with any CPU. However I think its important to remember the context of my comment:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/app...mba-13-have-some-questions-3.html#post6871866