Are you satisfied with your MacBook Air?

[chewbacca390]

i am getting a mac: i just don't know yet

For those of you that have a MacBook Air.... do you like it?

is the sacrifice of speed, hard drive space, and memory worth it?

[shoulin333]

Do you like it? ----

No, i LOVE it!


Is the sacrifice of speed, hard drive space, and memory worth it? ----


As long as you have a desktop computer at home that can do your gaming and store you bizillion GB of music, there is no sacrifice of speed/hdd space.

For the memory, 2gb is pleanty for anything, you can have more, but that wold be for doing tasks that you should do on your home desktop.


==--=-=-=-=
all in all, if you have a nice desktop at home, and actually have a use for a laptop like traveling, or college the MBA is awesome for you.


--- if you dont have a home desktop and have a need for a laptop get a MBP

---if you dont have a home desktop and don't have a need for a laptop get a iMac

---if you do have a desktop, but don't have a use for a laptop keep what you got, or sell it and buy an iMac

---if you do have a desktop, and do have a use for a laptop get the MBA


(I left out the MacBook from this rundown, well because it's plastic :P )

[wacso]

i bought it as a 2nd computer to my macbook pro.

the pro is now gathering dust.

sure, i'd love to have my 250 gig hard drive in the air, oh well...the price of progress i guess.

[mspman]

Turthfully, no I am not.

The biggest thing for me is the battery life and recharge time. Basically, even with plugging the thing in, I can’t get through an entire day of work/school without the battery going empty on me. It takes sooooo long to charge that it has made it impractical for my purposes.

The disk space on my SSD is also very aggravating. 64Gb vs 6x10^10 bytes is a pretty good size difference. Not what was promised.

I’m also a little disappointed with the performance of Parallels. Just trying to read a powerpoint yesterday was quite the challenge – it was taking forever to load the slides.

Just a differing opinion. I’m probably going to return it and get a new 15” MBP. We’ll see.

[Ratty]

Simply, yes. My first mobile Mac and I will now buy more.

:)

[appletastic]

It is simply brilliant. So light and thin.

I use it for browsing web, keynote presentations etc - I have a mac pro at home for the hardcore stuff.

I am very impressed - in fact more impressed than I thought.

Everyone was saying how slow it would be, but I haven't noticed. It is just as quick as my mac pro for everyday surfing etc.

The trackpad is also a pleasant surprise - it is really easy to use and very responsive.

So I am a happy customer. :-)

[teerexx52]

Yes. It runs well. Screen is a joy to look at. So easy to move it about

[raremage]

With the understanding that there are limitations - primarily ports - I'm quite pleased with mine.

I have a Windows rig for gaming, everything else I now do on my MBA.

[gregk205]

I can't wait to get mine... Do any of you use it on your lap?? Does it get hot when websurfing with it on your lap???

[MacRumorUser]

No regrets here I can safely say.

[TanToday]

Well for five years, I had a mouse for my Apple laptop, just couldn't get used to a trackpad...

UNTIL....

NOW.

This is the FIRST trackpad that is actually faster and more intuitive than a mouse.

Buy it for the screen, keyboard, and trackpad alone. Everything else is pure gravy if you use it as a supplemental machine for moving around.

[diabolic]

Very pleased with mine.

I traveled with it last week for the first time. Footprint was great on the plane. I've been getting over four hours of battery life on average.

I don't push it really hard though. I do run some Windows programs both through Bootcamp and VMWare Fusion with no trouble at all. I rented a couple of iTunes movies for my trip, and they played back fine and I even used the built-in speaker without getting annoyed.

Being as light as it is, I can recline on a bed and hold it in one hand and navigate with the other on the trackpad. Oddly, that was pretty comfortable.

I wouldn't get one if it was my only computer, but I have several others for the things I don't expect the Air to handle.

[aussie.damo]

i am getting a mac: i just don't know yet

For those of you that have a MacBook Air.... do you like it?

is the sacrifice of speed, hard drive space, and memory worth it?

Like some of the other posters, I don't like my MBA, I LOVE it! It is an amazing machine for what it is. I plan to use the MBA to travel with and also for the usual work related activities, such as Office, Internet, Email and iTunes. Okay, so iTunes isn't exactly *work* related. But it makes my day go faster! :D

I have come from a MacBook Pro and I haven't had any issues with the speed thus far. That said, I haven't encoded any videos or run any virtual machines (which I used to do frequently). That might be a different story. Not a huge problem for me anyway, as I have a MacMini and a super powerful Dell laptop for work.

Best of luck!

Damo

[netdog]

I love it. Despite what I found when demoing the two models in the store side by side, and despite the recent reports and tests, I do find the SSD to be really impressive. I don't find the 1.8 SSD to be a sacrifice of anything. It works beautifully.

[LizKat]

Yes, someone will have to pry this or a down the road Rev out of my cold dead hands to get it away from me. I even admit I like the 13" glossy screen...

[typerlover]

I just picked one up an hour ago, base model, gonna try and see how it stacks up as a replacement for my 15" mbp 2.16 C2D. I'm running a 24" dell off my mbp right now, and just do pages/itunes/webkit.


If it gets by with that powering the external, I'm sure it will be fine on its on for its size/weight. We will see though, I'm giving it a desktop challenge for my needs.

[chelseasian]

Let's just say love is in the MacBook Air everywhere I looked around :D

I have it as a compliment to my Mac Pro as I do my heavy lifting on it and i use the MBA for business presentations, show and tell kind of stuff.

[beatzfreak]

Very satisfied.

Actually, I was pretty disappointed when the Air was announced, but I needed something light, and needed OS X. So, I bought it, and it's been a joy to carry around NYC. The trackpad is great and the screen is beautiful. Plenty powerful for me.

[queshy]

The experience hasn't been smooth for me...the first one I had took 10 hrs to charge, and while the second one seems to be better, the screen was built "too close" to the base, so whenever you open the screen the bottom part of the bezel rubs against the base and so the aluminum just below the "macbook air" logo is starting to erode already.

Interestingly, the first unit I had (HDD) had the hard drive click every 30 seconds, whereas this new unit I have heard it click maybe once. Interesting...

Hopefully #3 will be good.

[Munich]

Guys, I went to my local coffee shop with my macbook air yesterday and I sat down in the patio and I could see everything fairly easy. Today I went with my "monster" T60P, and to my amusement the quality of the screen on the macbook was very, but very impressive when compared to the Lenovo laptop. Just amazing, without the weight and the size of it. This is my first Macbook and I just love it.:eek:

[Cybergypsy]

Love it!!!!

[Clix Pix]

MORE than satisfied -- I adore this thing!! :)

[alpinadvl]

CONS:
Speed is definitely an issue - I would not get this device as a primary device.

Battery recharging time just plain sucks.

PROS:
BUT.... I think the Air is an incredible computer - and when you have one, you will be amazed at the build quality (barring the occasional hiccup with some production units).

The quality is just amazing....

[petestein1]

I too don't like my MBA -- I absolutely love it.

Today I used it outside on a bright sunny day. Even with the screen slightly dimmed due to the powersaving features the screen was as bright as the page of a magazine. NO glare whatsoever.

That it's a good outdoors machine is huge to me -- I'd love to work outside most days and now I finally have a machine that allows for it.

MBA = A+.

[SunshinegotaMac]

I love it and it is my only computer. Enough space, speed, etc for my needs. The sharp edge is my only aggravation.

[ayeying]

Turthfully, no I am not.

The biggest thing for me is the battery life and recharge time. Basically, even with plugging the thing in, I can’t get through an entire day of work/school without the battery going empty on me. It takes sooooo long to charge that it has made it impractical for my purposes.

The disk space on my SSD is also very aggravating. 64Gb vs 6x10^10 bytes is a pretty good size difference. Not what was promised.

I’m also a little disappointed with the performance of Parallels. Just trying to read a powerpoint yesterday was quite the challenge – it was taking forever to load the slides.

Just a differing opinion. I’m probably going to return it and get a new 15” MBP. We’ll see.

For the battery, I'd agree the recharge rate is a little slow to be fully useful. Beyond that, I was able to use my MacBook Air continuously and installign stuff within VMWare Fusion from 8 AM to 3 PM and by the end, I had 9% battery left.

The hard drive available space is among both HDD and SSD models. My 500GB external only has 460 GB usable. I don't complain. My 1TB drive only has 940 GB, thats part of life. You can't blame apple for that, if youwanna blame someone, blame the companies who makes these things.

If anything's slow in Parallels, its highly likely you didn't configure XP or Vista properly. I run XP and Ubuntu, both at the same time, with 256MB ram dedicated to both the OS and I am able to play a HD video with no problems.

[gr8tfly]

It's perfect, and no problems OTB (does that make it doubly so?).

[clayj]

Very very.

Now if I could just get a really nice case for it (Vaja/Booq), I'll be totally happy.

[teek]

I can't wait to get mine... Do any of you use it on your lap?? Does it get hot when websurfing with it on your lap???

No it doesn't get hot if you only surf the web. I'm doing some heavy stuff with this thing on my lap and it still isn't very hot.

Best computer I've ever had. And I've had many :)

[arcanic]

Very very.

Now if I could just get a really nice case for it (Vaja/Booq), I'll be totally happy.


Here's the case I got from the Charlotte Apple Store...it's GREAT for the Air. (I got the olive green...black is boring)

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wa/RSLID?mco=165E5366&fnode=home/shop_mac/mac_accessories/notebook_cases&nplm=TL996LL/A

:apple:Arc:apple:

[macanudo]

Here is my post regarding the MBA
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=425946&page=15

Simple answer: YES! :D

[swedefish]

I like it a lot. However, the fans are starting to drive me crazy. When I plug it into my 20" ACD, the fans start up in a matter of minutes even when I am doing err... nothing. I've tried the COPS reset, but I don't know if it worked (is there any way to verify this?).

I am extremely sound sensitive when I work and fans running at 5500-6000 rpm while simply doing word processing or writing emails in mail.app simply isn't acceptable. This better be fixable through future firmware updates because, unlike many of you, I live in a state where there are no Apple Stores, plus I really need it around for a project I am working on. Any ideas as to how the fan issue can be fixed would be more than welcome!

[r00]

Unfortunately I'm starting to get annoyed. The fact that the fans run full blast on almost anything besides just surfing the net and that I can't even run iTunes Visualization or play a game that was made in the 90s without it overheating and choking is REALLY ANNOYING. I'm starting to hate the fact that I've spent $1700 on a laptop that can ONLY surf the web at appropriate temperatures.

The more and more I think about it I think I'm just going to sell it and get the BlackBook for $1500 and throw 4GB of RAM in it...

2.4GHz Penryn
2GB RAM
250GB HDD!
DLDVD Burner

... All in the same footprint plus an extra 2lbs for cheaper. It's so hard for me to justify this notebook anymore

[mspman]

With a very heavy heart, I returned mine today. :( I know, it sucks. I was really hoping that this machine would do everything I need it to, but unfortunately, it does not.

The battery recharge time is the killer. I couldn't go an entire day - work/school - without the battery dying. It took soooo long to recharge that it wasn't getting enough charge while sitting at my desk. By the time I went to class at 5, the battery was still at 60% or so.. not enough to get through a 2.5 hour class.

I traded for a Macbook Pro 15". The guy at the Apple store was really nice - didn't charge me a restocking fee. :apple:

[NC MacGuy]

Very satisfied. My Air makes me happier than any computer I've ever bought except for maybe the 12" PB when it first came out. Even though I have an iMac, MB & MBP the Air has been my only used computer almost a month now. Funny, haven't missed the 2 lbs., ports, HD space or speed one little bit.

Traveling with it is a dream. Coolest (temp.-wise) laptop I've ever owned, hands down!

One thing I did notice though. I have a briefcase w. a standard "up to 15" laptop pocket & caught my sleeping Air slightly opened up and running. Never a problem w. the others since they fit rather snug.

[cohibadad]

I haven't used my MBA for a couple days and I'm just amazed at how fast it is. SSD is amazing. Things pop up so fast. Restarts are so fast. Makes me think of the tests that were recently posted showing not much difference. Can't really explain them given my experience. Love the MBA. Don't know how satisfied I'd be if it was my only computer, or my only notebook, but for an ultralight it is a dream IMO.

[xparaparafreakx]

I love my macbook air in the MBP 17"/MBA Combo.

Battery life is good but could be better. Charging is a pain but I do not care, my backpack is only 4lbs and I have 4 textbooks in my air with EDGE internet.

[BWhaler]

Actually, I was pretty disappointed when the Air was announced, but I needed something light, and needed OS X. So, I bought it, and it's been a joy to carry around NYC. The trackpad is great and the screen is beautiful. Plenty powerful for me.

Funny, this is exactly my situation.

I wanted something for international travel. Saw the Keynote, and the lack of swappable battery was a deal killer for me. Flights aside, I often am in foreign countries with no way to charge my laptop during a day of meetings.

But OS X is my OS of choice, and I wanted a super small laptop for international travel. (I've happily traveled with the 17")

I folded after about 2 weeks of denial, and ordered the 1.8 SSD. I had buyers regret almost instantly. Even friends from Apple said I should cancel the order.

This regret lasted for the first week I owned this. 10 hour battery charges, anemic battery life, reversed backlighting, and slight light leaking from the left side of the laptop, also reminded me about Apple's sliding build quality and why you never, ever buy a first build of an Apple product.

But after using it for a few weeks, I love it. The battery issue seems to have worked itself out, the backlight issue will get solved, etc.

But the portability and overall quality is simply awesome. Apple made the right trade-offs in my opinion.

Yes, I love my MBA.

[al82]

I had the MBA and it became faulty. I took it back to the store and they were out of stock. I told the guy i HAD TO have a laptop for the week for university, he said take the new MBP and if you dont like it when the air comes in i will call you and swap it over and refund you the difference.

I am now back with my MBA. I would never use the power of the Pro, i study business and all i need is Word and internet. I can watch movies on it too.

The main thing is the size and weight, perfect for me.

Are there more powerful laptops out there, sure, in fact they are a LOT more powerful but i dont need that. This is perfect for me.