Macbook air for me?

So, I'm seriously considering getting a Macbook air with all the bells and whistles; cost is not a factor since this would be for work. Here is what my typical day would include, please let me know if you think this would be feasible with this machine.

Oh, and I put this here instead of the 'which notebook for me' forum since I'm asking specifically about what the macbook air can handle.

-light use on the way to work (commuter rail), maybe some text documents, etc
-at work, would hook up to a 20" apple monitor, a keyboard/mouse (bluetooth or daisy chained usb, haven't decided yet), and network wireless. I would open up a few terminal windows and connect to my servers via ssh tunnels, have an xemacs instance open or two, and probably a web browser. I imagine this shouldn't be a problem with 2 GB of ram.
-for meetings, I would just unplug everything and carry as I go. I don't think I will be needing more than 2-3 hours of battery at a time.
-on the way home, I might sometimes boot into a windows partition (via bootcamp) and play civ4 during the commute
-at home I would place it aside and use my main computer, a sager np5790, for gaming and any other work I need to do remotely.

Does this sound like a good use of this? I mean, if I use it pretty heavily during the day for 8+ hours doing scripting and editing, it will hold up? Will it overheat during this time? I've read some things about the mba downthrottling the cpu because it gets hot, thus making everything stutter after about 10-15 minutes; is this still a problem?

Also, will it be powerful enough to play civ4 on battery in windows xp/vista on the ride home, and will the battery last at least 45 minutes doing this? I don't expect to do a ton of gaming on it (I have my np5790 for that) but I would like to be able to do at least civ4 (windows) on trips or during my commute.

Since most of my work is done through ssh tunnels, I don't need a ton of power or hard drive space otherwise, nor do I need an optical drive or a ton of usb/firewire ports. I mostly just want something extremely light and travel friendly, something that is big enough to still program on but that I can toss in a bag with a notepad and easily take with me. I love my np5790 and bring it to work every day (currently) but it becomes a hassle during travel.

And yes, I've looked at the voodoo envy 133 and the lenovo x300, but I think I would really like osx for what I want to do, and the extra ports/optical drive really aren't that necessary for me for what I want to use it for.

Any thoughts?

 

Civ IV on a integrated graphics on battery power? I'd say no. It may run, but it will run very slow.

It's a good laptop though if you want something very portable, that costs alot of money, and has subpar specs. Personally I'd buy the regular MacBook or any other 13.3" laptop over the MacBook Air anyday. I hope you don't plan on locking it up either as it has no security slot.

 

you THINK you would like OS X, if I were you I would try it out and make sure you like it.

 

I believe they took a price comparison of the VooDoo Envy 133 and the MBA actually was a little cheaper. That was the result from an article I read.

Anyawy, the MBA sounds good for that! Having your Sager around will be a good idea for when you need a more powerful primary computer! Civ IV, it'll run, but how well I don't expect it to look or play too great. Integrated graphics.

 

I'd say just wait until sept to buy a new macbook. It will replace the mba with the same casing, aluminum body, led backlit display and probably 200-300 cheaper too. But might be a tad thicker than the mba but probably with a built in superdrive and especially the 2.5" hdd its will sell like hot cakes.

 

It's probably because the envy is carbon fiber, and comes with a an external drive?

 

Well, the article I read also noted that and bought the $99 SuperDrive too, and the Envy was still a little more expensive. But yeah, carbon fiber is nice. I don't like the corners of the Envy though...its very awkward.

 

civ 4 is a pretty demanding game once you actually start playing despite what ppl say judging from screenshots.

 

sterben,

"at work, would hook up to a 20" apple monitor, a keyboard/mouse (bluetooth or daisy chained usb, haven't decided yet), and network wireless. I would open up a few terminal windows and connect to my servers via ssh tunnels, have an xemacs instance open or two, and probably a web browser. I imagine this shouldn't be a problem with 2 GB of ram."

You might want a macbook instead, since if you are going to leave this plugged in at work, remember that this is non-removable so you can't carry extra batteries or slow down the wear of it. A macbook might be better, unless you desperately need to save that weight. You won't have any serious battery issues then.

 

Thanks for the comments everyone.

I really liked the envy, but it would probably be a hassle for me to purchase since apple is a preferred vendor and I really don't want to deal with that, and at least on paper it is equal to the mba in terms of cpu/gpu/ram/ssd. Also, I have indeed used OSX before, just not for any length of time; I liked it but just haven't had a chance to do any real long term work with it. At least with the mba, if I do decide I hate it I can always put windows or ubuntu on; I won't have the choice with other non-apple thin notebooks.

As for civ4, I have it (and all expansions) for my np5790, and it (naturally) runs great on it. It seems to be a much more cpu oriented game, though, so that is why I was thinking the macbook air would be able to handle it, with the 1.8ghz and all, at least on standard sized maps. it might be a little choppy graphics wise too, but I don't play it for the graphics

There's a time constraint involved here too, so I'm not sure I can wait until the next macbook comes out; I am basically switching jobs and I have some money to either spend or lose on work related supplies/equipment, so that's why. Is there a link somewhere to the next macbook specs though that I can check it out?

 

You were good up until here....then it went downhill.

For what it's meant to do, it doesn't have "subpar specs". The Air isn't meant to be a workhorse.....it's meant to be light and extremely portable.

IMO, the SSD is WAY overpriced, and the difference between 1.6ghz and 1.8ghz isn't enough to justify the price increase......so for $2k, the base model Air really is pretty decent.

I've got both a MB and MB Air and honestly I'd much rather carry my Air around with me (which I do daily).

A security slot isn't going to deter someone who wants your notebook bad enough......it's only going to delay them by a few seconds.

 

Yeah, while I'm not giving Apple any credit for not having it, I've heard the Kensington security slots aren't that useful...

 

i have to disagree about the kesington security slot

From personal experience, there are 2 scenarios. First, if you are among other laptops, if yours is locked up, a thief would rather take the one not locked, despite price. The other one is if you are the only laptop there, then depending on the situation, it DOES NOT deter the thief by a few SECONDS unless they have special tools, which is probably not the average person who goes "hey its a unsecured laptop lemme just swipe it". Although not foolproof, its merely stating "hey, i'm locked, you have to put some effort into me", which as stated above, probably not the majority of walk-by stealings.

 

Those 1.8" 4200 rpm drives in the MBA are really sluggish... I would think it would get on your nerves using it all day. I'd go for the SSD. Apple dropped the SSD price so it's only about $500 more now I think. And your company's paying, right? If you'd rather save money, you can pick up a 64gb SSD on newegg.com for around $250... and then you can pick up a cheap 1.8" USB enclosure for the hard drive that your machine came with so you can use it as an external drive for extra storage.

EDIT: Er... sorry, I forgot... the cheap SSDs on newegg etc. are the 2.5" kind, and the MBA needs a 1.8"... so that won't work. So I guess buying it from Apple is the best option if you want an SSD. Personally, I wouldn't buy an MBA without an SSD... just to pay that much and have it be sluggish would just irk me.

 

Agreed. Security lock slots do more than many think. Of course someone who has enough time and the proper equipment to do it will. But when would you ever leave your laptop for a long enough amount of time for someone to take the time to break the lock and head off. Not very likely. So in public places, when you are going to leave for a short amount of time, it is very important to lock up the computer even though its not a 100% preventative of theft.

 

Definately. The average thief is the "walk by" type. A MBA is definately a target in the public workplace, unless you plan on taking it to the bathroom with you. A locked MB among anywhere you are will pose less of a target, if you are in public and other less security conscious are there. Its simply trying to make a statement that actually deter thieves.

However, if you really need to save 3 pounds, then taking the MBA wherever you go if you step away shouldn't' be a problem. That is, you have to take if /everywhere/ then. So its weight vs convenience and security

 

So you guys actually leave your laptops unattended when you go to the bathroom in a public place?

 

we will actually leave it locked in, depending on the situtation

 

So, say you're in a library, and you need to go pee.

You don't pack your laptop, put it in your backpack, go pee, come back, take your laptop out and continue whatever ???

 

if ur in the library, just lock up ur laptop to one of the desks. If you have a MBA however, you would have to pack it and take it along with you

 

Well you know what? That's not going to work for me, never.

There's no such thing as leaving your laptop out of your sight when in public places. No matter what lock, what desk, whatever.

You just don't leave you laptop. At least I don't and never will.

 

-Deleted- double post

 

When you're in the Uni library do you browse on the John? :tongue:

 

i leave my laptop at library or sbux when going to restroom all the time but our school is located in one of the most affluent zip code in the US

 

Have you used a MBA for extended periods of time?

I use mine daily, all day, and never have I felt it to be "sluggish" or even wished for a faster drive. Granted, I'm only doing basic Internet/Email/Productivity type stuff and not hard drive intense apps, however that's exactly what the Air was designed to do.

 

Well, I never leave my laptops anywhere unattended, lock or no lock, so I'm not too worried too much about the lack thereof on the mba. Besides, it's just about small enough that I could close it and stick it in the small of my back behind my belt if I have to use the restroom

So here's a question. I have zd8000 that's about 3 years old now, has a x600 gpu. Now, it played civ4 and wow pretty well, even bf2142 wasn't so bad on it. I'm using it as my media computer at the moment so I don't have a ton of benchmarking tools on it atm, and I know that the windows experience index isn't the best one in the world, but it appears the MBA has a very similar score as the zd8000:

zd8000


mba


I should note that the mba wei was taken from the nbr review, which used the 1.6ghz and 4200rpm hd; i would be getting the 1.8 and the ssd, so I imagine it might be a little better than what is shown.

Now, I know that some people will say that great, the mba has a performance equal to a 3 year old laptop (an 9lbs+ laptop, I might add). But powerwise, the zd8000 would be fine for what I need (just way to big and heavy), and if the mba is about the same, then I'm set. So do you think that it's a fair comparison?

 

I love my MBA and would recommend one to anyone looking for an ultraportable.

My personal opinion about the 1.8ghz and SSD upgrades however, is to leave them alone. They're just way too expensive for the negligible increase you'll get.

 

Yeah, the MBA performance absolutely is not sluggish, don't sell the 1.8 HDD short. For me, the disappointing things about my MBA are the following:

1) Heat - It didn't seem to get all that hot when I first got it, but when I'm cranking along in OSX with a million different things running it does pipe up. I got one of those lapdesks and a laptop table and all is fine, though. It's not an "everyday lap computer though."

2) Battery life - This is not good, it gets a couple hours. This is the most annoying thing to me about the system, I'm plugging it in more often than I'd like to, my "everyday usage" just does not line up with Apple's.

3) Drive space - I'm a hog, my music library is gigantic and storing my iTunes library remotely on Time Machine has not worked out as well as I had hoped. For most people, this will not be a problem but I had expected this to work out with time machine but it's just not a perfectly consistent NAS.

4) GPU - Intel's X3100 sucks. Straight up. In boot camp, it can't even play Half-Life 1 smoothly. Sorry, Intel's Integrated GPU team is a pile of fail. This has nothing to do with Apple, I'll say the same thing about any other integrated laptop when it comes to gaming.

I really like it, the complaints, besides battery life and heat, are things I expected going in. I might not have expected it to be as bad as it was, but it really is a great laptop for what it does right. It's just not perfect.

 

Yea I think the SSD drive is way overpriced for the performance which isnt that great.

I had the samsung 64gb SSD SATA-II version and installed it in my macbook pro and to me besides the bootup speed being a bit faster than my hitachi travelstar 7k200, the 7k200 was pretty much felt the same overall in everyday usage. If not faster at times because once you open up a program and quit it, you can reload the program it loads much faster than any ssd drive because of cache.

But the first time you load the program the ssd is faster by a couple of seconds.

 

Have you considered the Sony Vaio Z series. If your playing Civ 4 the Nvidia 9300m GS is gonna hammer alot of games out there. The MBA should be getting a refresh in september but with that design its highly unlikely it could handle the thermals from a 9300. Check it out here

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...0151&langId=-1&categoryId=8198552921644570897

 

Agreed.

 

guys, his company is paying for it.

the huge price increases for SSDs and the 1.8ghz CPU wont matter

 

I don't think I agree with your post. If I were going to purchase a machine for an employee, I would expect him to buy what he needs and not take advantage of the company's willingness to set him up generously (the MBA is a nice machine, and more expensive than what might otherwise work just as well accomplishing whatever the job requires). I'd be disappointed with the employee and he'd not only hear about it, such things as expense accounts, travel costs, etc, would from then on be scrutinized much more closely. Not to mention, my lost faith and trust in the employee might cause me to reconsider whether his services were still required.

If asked first, I might agree to allow all the bells and whistles, but the argument would have to be strong! I would be more than slightly irritated if the employee abused an already generous company policy.

 

And you've completely missed the point.

 

Surprisingly, for the typical work activities the OP mentioned he's unlikely to mind the MBA's standard drive or CPU. The MBA boots more slowly than other MB's (much faster than even high end Windows laptops) and large applications take longer to load, but once you are up and running (and you can run a pile of stuff in 2gb ram on a MBA) the MBA does not seem sluggish in all day office use.

I don't reboot very often (usually just for air travel). Sleeping and waking only takes a few seconds each. I normally have a dozen or so apps running at any given time (Office stuff, Graphics stuff, Browsers, Terminal Sessions, Parallels etc). The MBA runs much cooler (a good 10 degrees C) that my other Macs at similar load levels, I get about 3.5 hours of better life, and the size and weight of the MBA are a joy when traveling or going from meeting to meeting. And its screen, keyboard, and trackpad are great for all day use.

While typical business applications don't tend to max the cpu/disk of the MBA, trying to use it while ripping a dvd or doing a backup in the background will tend to noticeably impact machine performance. So plan on actually executing one heavy duty application at a time. This is typical of most thin/light or ultra-portable laptops.

 

Lol

So are you saying it's faster than this low end laptop, let alone high end ones: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJXS5xht1UU

 

My MacBook boots in about 20 seconds...from the Power button. No tweak of any sort!

 

I'm saying in general, a real world XP or VISTA machine will take significantly longer to start up or shut down than than a real world configuration of OS X. This is one of many reasons I no longer use Windows as a primary OS.

I'm a traveling consultant, have used a wide variety of high end (Windows) notebooks myself (including a tricked out Dell XPS M1710 series). I see a large variety of varied IBM/Lenovo, Dell, HP etc notebooks on a regular basis running XP and Vista. I know a lot of propeller head IT folks I talk to regularly that know windows inside out and spend a lot of time optimizing it.

Bottom line - I've never encountered a daily use Windows laptop that starts up or shuts down even close to the speed of any OS X machine I've used. My Mac's typically boot in 20-40 seconds and Windows machines I've used have been more like 60-120 seconds. Most Windows users that see my Mac boot comment on how fast it starts up (even my MBA).

I can optimize an XP machine and get it booted in 40 seconds. But its not real or useable. When I add in all the libraries, services, drivers, software etc that I need to operate in the real world and I have 1-2 minute boot times again. Worse, they slow down significantly over the run of 6 months to a year requiring a machine re-mage. I don't have to optimize or re image my Mac's that see the same use patterns.

Mileage may vary and people with different needs and usage patterns may see different results. I just haven't seen it. If you can get the software you need to meet your daily needs on a Mac and it can be supported in whatever environment you are in, I'd recommend trying one for yourself next time you are looking at a new machine. I think you might be pleasantly surprised.