Could a MBA handle this?

[blairbeckwith]

Hey Guys;

I'm currently in the market for a new laptop. Basically, i want to know if a MBA could handle the following, or if a MB or MBP would be better suited:

1) Instant messaging
2) Working in Word or Powerpoint 2008
3) Listening to music or watching a movie

Would the MBA be able to handle these tasks at the same time without skipping?

[robbieduncan]

I see no reason why not, but the lack of internal DVD drive might make the watching of movies a bit annoying...

[fuzzielitlpanda]

yes it handles all of those tasks just fine. it can handle quite a bit more than that. i would recommend you go into your local apple store and try it out on a mba display model before buying one to see if it fits your needs.

[blairbeckwith]

Robbieduncan, these will be movies that I have purchased off iTunes.

Thanks for the input, both of you, although I'd like to hear if the use of iTunes to watch movies will affect performance. Another thing that I may be doing, although I have to pick my words carefully, is using a SNES emulator to play ROMs of games that I own :o

[ayeying]

Yes. The MBA is more then capable to handle those tasks.

[akm3]

Just another'yes easily' post. The Air is a MUCH better computer than most give it credit for. It IS a Core 2 Duo and is not a crippled computer (unless you spill coffee in it :D )

[nintendude]

i have the base model MBA that can do all that and a bit more so any MBA should be able to handle it. the fan might kick in a bit and the short cord for the superdrive gets annoying

[Philflow]

Keep in mind though that it's not the best laptop for playing 1080p content.

[stakis]

Yes. The MBA is more then capable to handle those tasks.

I don't understand why people think the Air is such a crippled machine?? I mean it has a Core 2 Duo at 1.6Ghz... this is plenty any daily computer usage!

c'mon people... the Air is a very well powered machine!

[fuzzielitlpanda]

Keep in mind though that it's not the best laptop for playing 1080p content.

i can play most of my 1080p movies just fine, but viewing 1080p trailers from apple is not very good. i think 720p is the perfect resolution for the mba

[BWhaler]

Yes. I do it all the time.

[beast]

As an MBA owner I'm fed up of people telling me that I bought an underpowered machine...... the MBA may not be as fast the other mac portables but it is by no means a weak machine.... it is more than capable of doing day to day stuff (i have a mac pro for heavy stuff)

(p.s. i don't understand why people want to run 1080p movies on the MBA: the native resolution of the 13 inch screen is well below that and even if you hooked it up to a 23 inch monitor, very few people would be able to tell the difference between 720p and 1080p on a screen of that size)

[Cloudsurfer]

The MacBook Air is by no means a crippled machine. I even found it to be pretty good at iMovie, too.

[kiomon]

I too am sick of people bashing on the power of the Air. I have a MBP 2.6 and an 8 core 3.2 with 16GB of RAM, and you know what? The Air does just fine for everything but the hardcore editing/ sound mixing, when i need to do that I go to one of the others. But more and more i am impressed by this machine, I actually do run final cut on the system just fine editing DVCProHD 1080 & 720p material off a USB harddrive running 3 streams for editing. Not bad for a "weak" system.

Now that fan...

[Philflow]

i can play most of my 1080p movies just fine

On an external display?

Ofcourse if I am going to play 1080P I'll hook it up to my large screen, otherwise there is no point.

I have not really put it to the test though, but I think it's going to come short. But I could be wrong...

[Philflow]

I don't understand why people think the Air is such a crippled machine?? I mean it has a Core 2 Duo at 1.6Ghz... this is plenty any daily computer usage!

Haven't you read that it will only work for a minute or so on 1,6 (or 1,8) before it throttles down to 1,2 Ghz?

[diabolic]

Thanks for the input, both of you, although I'd like to hear if the use of iTunes to watch movies will affect performance.

I watch iTunes movies all the time on my MBA. No trouble at all.

[Dustman]

The MBA can handle anything except games and stuff requiring huge amounts of HD space (which in theory could be solved with an external drive)

I have no idea why people think that a C2D can't handle watching movies and instant messaging.

[Dustman]

Haven't you read that it will only work for a minute or so on 1,6 (or 1,8) before it throttles down to 1,2 Ghz?

Assuming your not being sarcastic.

Do you think that even 1.2 Ghz C2D can't do the things mentioned?
Also, this is only on MAX BATTERY settings.

Not too long ago I used to use a G3 iMac 700 Mhz for all the things mentioned. Powerpoint (2004), Microsoft Messenger, iTunes, and VLC for movies.

[Philflow]

Do you think that even 1.2 Ghz C2D can't do the things mentioned?
The things mentioned yes, playing 1080p on external display, I'm not sure if 1,2Ghz C2D can do it.

[Dustman]

The things mentioned yes, playing 1080p on external display, I'm not sure if 1,2Ghz C2D can do it.

We can agree on that, but even so, if one wanted to run 1080p on an external display, you'd just have to change the power settings to performance to make it run at 1.6 Ghz all the time.

[nick9191]

Its the graphics that bottleneck it when playing 1080p not the core 2.

[Dustman]

Its the graphics that bottleneck it when playing 1080p not the core 2.

EDIT: DP

[Dustman]

Its the graphics that bottleneck it when playing 1080p not the core 2.

Not entirely true. Yes, the graphics is the bottleneck, but because the GC is integrated, it uses the CPU and Ram to run video. The faster the ram and CPU, the smoother, and faster the video.

The Pentium 4 that I have now has integrated graphics from 2004.. and it runs 1080i (havent tried progressive) just fine!

[Philflow]

Well the good news is that my Air (1,6) plays 1080p wmv files and 1080p .mov files 100% smoothly in Windows XP.

While doing it in OS X, it went 100% smoothly in a window, when I switched it to full screen it was 95% smooth. Maybe some of my settings where not optimal, need to check that.

you'd just have to change the power settings to performance to make it run at 1.6 Ghz all the time.

From what I understood, that's not possible.

From what I read here on the forum: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=459306
Even if you set it to run at 1,6Ghz it will trottle down to 1,2Ghz quite quickly, when it gets a bit hot.

I have not tested this in OS X, but I did test it in XP. It seems to be true.

[queshy]

I'll have open a large pages document, powerpoint, adium, preview, safari, and sometimes iTunes w/ absolutely no lag. Like others have said, not enough people give the Air credit for its performance...it's not "crippled" like many think, it's actually pretty fast. Remember - it has a dual core processor and 2 GB ram. The bottleneck is the slower hard drive, but even then, it's not BAD like people think it would be.

[neven]

I typically run the following:

- Mail
- iChat
- Safari (4-5 tabs)
- Photoshop CS3

and about a third of the time, Fusion running XP as well. I have no complaints.

[stakis]

Haven't you read that it will only work for a minute or so on 1,6 (or 1,8) before it throttles down to 1,2 Ghz?

check out coolbook... solves that problem....

[Philflow]

check out coolbook... solves that problem....
Yes I am aware of coolbook. I'm running rmclock because I do most of my work in XP.

But even after undervolting I've noticed it switches back to 1,2Ghz after 10 seconds on heavy CPU loads. And reading in the overheating thread, this is quite normal.

So really if you run apps that need a lot of CPU power, you're getting 1,2Ghz.

[stakis]

Yes I am aware of coolbook. I'm running rmclock because I do most of my work in XP.

But even after undervolting I've noticed it switches back to 1,2Ghz after 10 seconds on heavy CPU loads. And reading in the overheating thread, this is quite normal.

So really if you run apps that need a lot of CPU power, you're getting 1,2Ghz.

What kind of stuff are you doing under in XP?? I can say that under OSX I do alot of video encoding were cpu load will be 100% for about an hour... and I've never noticed a drop in the GHZ... I get a max temp close to about 90C

maybe thats the difference between rmclock and coolbook...

anyways, my experience doesn't show any throttling....

[pianojoe]

It won't run Office 2008 any worse than my MacPro w/ 9GB RAM. This piece of software lags by definition.

On the other hand, I'm typing 300 keystrokes/min, therefore my definition of "snappy" might be fastidious.

[Philflow]

What kind of stuff are you doing under in XP?? I can say that under OSX I do alot of video encoding were cpu load will be 100% for about an hour...

The testing I've been doing is with Prime95 torture test.

Maybe it's a different load than encoding.

I've also been doing encoding on Win XP, it stays at 1,6 Ghz.

Ps. no it has nothing to do with rmclock. rmclock is being overruled by the hardware.