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1 Month After Review: Best Laptop I've used 13 MBA

C

centymeat

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 11, 2010
32
0
Hey guys,

I've had the laptop for a month now.

I purchased it on Nov 11th online at the Apple Store.

1.86ghz/4gb/128gb SSD, it came out to about $1560 after tax in Canada.

This is my first personal Mac and my first laptop since i've had an Asus Z71V(Over 5 years ago).

The combination of weight, speed, built quality is unparalleled to any PC laptop i've seen.

Having this in my bag along with a 6gb Data plan on my iPhone 4 means Instant access to a powerful system online.

My primary usage is for secondary work computer when i go to conferences, or meetings.

Build Quality - 5/5
Design - 4.5/5 (Any1 else wish the foot print was smaller or the screen was bigger with the 11.6 and the 13.3 ? , the bezel seems unnecessarily large )
Heat - 4.5/5 - gets warm AT BEST
Performance - 4/5 - The OS, SSD, flash 10.2 makes it really fast
Battery life - 4/5 - I am getting ~6 hours of actual work ( multiple browsers, IM, streaming music, web apps, wifi, screen brightness at 70% )

Here are some pictures,

Size is great, but sometimes i'm still wishing if i could have gotten away with the 11.6

Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,
 

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So does tethering the Air to the Iphone 4 still require Jailbreaking the Phone?
 
Nope

Scarpad said:
So does tethering the Air to the Iphone 4 still require Jailbreaking the Phone?
Click to expand...

The iPhone 4 brought tethering into the scene and just requires an update to your AT&T agreement that I believe you can do from your phone. Can anyone back me up on this?
 
vaderhater245 said:
legal way is to go through your phone plan. the other is to jailbreak and get the mywi app through cydia.
Click to expand...

That is what I do with my 3GS and my MBP. When I am on the street or somewhere without wifi, I will fire up MyWi on my 3GS, connect to the wifi hotspot on my MBP, and I am surfing the web in seconds. Too bad I am cheap and only have the 2GB data plan...
 
Scarpad said:
So does tethering the Air to the Iphone 4 still require Jailbreaking the Phone?
Click to expand...
BigBeast said:
The iPhone 4 brought tethering into the scene and just requires an update to your AT&T agreement that I believe you can do from your phone. Can anyone back me up on this?
Click to expand...
I got AT&T data tethering on my iPhone 4 so that I could tether it to my MBA when necessary. I believe it costs an extra $20 a month. It worked, but only when I connected the iPhone to the MBA via USB. Unfortunately, the iPhone's Bluetooth capability has been crippled in such a way that you can't use it to wirelessly transfer data from the iPhone to a computer, including an MBA. It stinks but there it is. Thanks Apple. When I learned this, I immediately cancelled the tethering option.
 
gwsat said:
I got AT&T data tethering on my iPhone 4 so that I could tether it to my MBA when necessary. I believe it costs an extra $20 a month. It worked, but only when I connected the iPhone to the MBA via USB. Unfortunately, the iPhone's Bluetooth capability has been crippled in such a way that you can't use it to wirelessly transfer data from the iPhone to a computer, including an MBA. It stinks but there it is. Thanks Apple. When I learned this, I immediately cancelled the tethering option.
Click to expand...

Tethering over BlueTooth has worked well for me. In what way are you saying that bluetooth on iPhone is crippled?
 
Panch0 said:
Tethering over BlueTooth has worked well for me. In what way are you saying that bluetooth on iPhone is crippled?
Click to expand...
I would appreciate if if you could tell me how you managed to establish a Bluetooth connection for data transfer between an unmodified iPhone 4 and an MBA. I was on the phone with Apple care for nearly an hour trying to get it done and neither the tech nor I had any luck establishing a Bluetooth connection. Only then did I cancel the tethering option. If there is, indeed, a way to use Bluetooth for data tethering, I will consider adding the data tethering option back to my AT&T account.
 
Is this Bluetooth tethering issue limited to iPhone 4 and/or AT&T? I can tether fine from my iPhone 3GS (no JB) to my MBA, via Bluetooth and USB.

Unlimited data at up to 15Mb/s for 3€ per month <3 :p
 
gwsat said:
I would appreciate if if you could tell me how you managed to establish a Bluetooth connection for data transfer between an unmodified iPhone 4 and an MBA. I was on the phone with Apple care for nearly an hour trying to get it done and neither the tech nor I had any luck establishing a Bluetooth connection. Only then did I cancel the tethering option. If there is, indeed, a way to use Bluetooth for data tethering, I will consider adding the data tethering option back to my AT&T account.
Click to expand...

jailbreak your iphone

and buy mywi app from cydia

then fire it up and enjoy your FREE tethering over bluetooth.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Key word for him was unmodified. Some people choose not to jailbreak.
 
Hellhammer said:
Is this Bluetooth tethering issue limited to iPhone 4 and/or AT&T? I can tether fine from my iPhone 3GS (no JB) to my MBA, via Bluetooth and USB.

Unlimited data at up to 15Mb/s for 3€ per month <3 :p
Click to expand...
I think it's a completely different plan in Europe but don't really know for sure. In the U.S., though, you can only tether an iPhone by either subscribing to AT&T's data tethering option or jailbreaking it. As I have noted a couple of times in this thread, I am not interested in the jailbreaking option.

SidewaysTakumi said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Key word for him was unmodified. Some people choose not to jailbreak.
Click to expand...
Thank you. You saved me the trouble of having to say it (again).
 
Bluetooth tethering works fine for me — I use it for my 13" MBP and it's how I'll be using my 11" MBA once it arrives.

Hit Settings > General > Network and turn Internet Tethering to On. When you do, it'll ask you to turn on Bluetooth (if it's not on already).

On your Mac, pair the device via Bluetooth. I'd suggest deleting it from your Bluetooth listings first, as it may be set up incorrectly (ie. the root cause of your existing problems). Run through the steps, then once it's done hit the Bluetooth icon in the menu bar, choose your iPhone and then "Connect to Network". Wait a minute or so for it to handshake, and off you go.

I have this working fine on an iPhone 4 (that has never been jailbroken) here in Aus. My carrier allows tethering for free, but you will need to activate it with AT&T first before you can follow my steps.
 
Jailbreaking is worth it for tethering alone. It's completely reversible, and only stands to benefit you.

Why some people still don't jailbreak is beyond me (unless of course you have no need for the feature set, since your tethering, you do!)
 
elithrar said:
Bluetooth tethering works fine for me — I use it for my 13" MBP and it's how I'll be using my 11" MBA once it arrives.

Hit Settings > General > Network and turn Internet Tethering to On. When you do, it'll ask you to turn on Bluetooth (if it's not on already).

On your Mac, pair the device via Bluetooth. I'd suggest deleting it from your Bluetooth listings first, as it may be set up incorrectly (ie. the root cause of your existing problems). Run through the steps, then once it's done hit the Bluetooth icon in the menu bar, choose your iPhone and then "Connect to Network". Wait a minute or so for it to handshake, and off you go.

I have this working fine on an iPhone 4 (that has never been jailbroken) here in Aus. [Emphasis added.] My carrier allows tethering for free, but you will need to activate it with AT&T first before you can follow my steps.
Click to expand...
Tethering to the AT&T wireless network in the U.S. is much more complicated than that. When you attempt to pair an iPhone with a Mac laptop, the Mac generates a numeric code, which the iPhone should prompt you to enter. Unfortunately, my iPhone wouldn't do it, despite having an AT&T data tethering plan. Although my MBA, properly, generated the code, the iPhone never displayed a dialog box to allow me to enter it. Both the Applecare tech rep and I were flummoxed and failed to figure out a way to make it work.
 
gwsat said:
Tethering to the AT&T wireless network in the U.S. is much more complicated than that. When you attempt to pair an iPhone with a Mac laptop, the Mac generates a numeric code, which the iPhone should prompt you to enter. Unfortunately, my iPhone wouldn't do it, despite having an AT&T data tethering plan. Although my MBA, properly, generated the code, the iPhone never displayed a dialog box to allow me to enter it. Both the Applecare tech rep and I were flummoxed and failed to figure out a way to make it work.
Click to expand...

I wish I could give you the steps, but I just followed along with the prompts and it worked for me. I remember that I had to go to the AT&T website to upgrade my account to add Tethering first. After that, It all seemed to go quite smoothly. I think I had to put either my iPhone or my MBP into bluetooth Discoverable mode, but I'm pretty sure that was just something I was prompted to do.

Sorry I can't be more helpful, but it worked for me.

iPhone4 - no jailbreak
2008 MBP - SL 10.5.6

EDIT- Once Setup, to activate tethering, I first turn on Tethering from the iPhone, then open the Networking Preferences on my MBP and connect to the "Bluetooth PAN" connection. It's in Network Settings, not Bluetooth settings.
 
Panch0 said:
I wish I could give you the steps, but I just followed along with the prompts and it worked for me. I remember that I had to go to the AT&T website to upgrade my account to add Tethering first. After that, It all seemed to go quite smoothly. I think I had to put either my iPhone or my MBP into bluetooth Discoverable mode, but I'm pretty sure that was just something I was prompted to do.

Sorry I can't be more helpful, but it worked for me.

iPhone4 - no jailbreak
2008 MBP - SL 10.5.6

EDIT- Once Setup, to activate tethering, I first turn on Tethering from the iPhone, then open the Networking Preferences on my MBP and connect to the "Bluetooth PAN" connection. It's in Network Settings, not Bluetooth settings.
Click to expand...
Many thanks for your feedback. I may take another run at tethering my iPhone to my MBA via Bluetooth sometime but for the moment I think I'll just live with the status quo. Even if I could do it, I am not sure that being able to tether the iPhone to the MBA wirelessly would provide $20 a month worth of benefit. Thanks again.
 
Thanks for the review, good photo's. What make of car is that?

New MBA is the most amazing and best laptop I've owned to date.

I'm thinking I could sell all my computers and use only my 13" MBA and 27" ACD and a mini for a home server ... but I do love my 11" too, and my MBP and my Mac Pro ... ah, too many computers ... had this MBA came out 18 months ago I wouldn't of bought them all, lol.
 
BigBeast said:
The iPhone 4 brought tethering into the scene and just requires an update to your AT&T agreement that I believe you can do from your phone. Can anyone back me up on this?
Click to expand...

I am on Fido(Roger's subbrand) with the 6gb data plan, tethering is enabled by the carrier.

I can tether thru USB or Bluetooth, tethering USB gives me full speed of the network (i get about 1.5-4 mbitps) , USB, i seem to be limited to about 1mbitps

My iphone is jailbroken but you DO NOT need it to tether via USB/bluetooth. Your plan just need it enabled.

That car is a mini-copper :)

I just recently switched over to a Galaxy S Vibrant, i'm going to see how that pairs with the MBA. The iphone 4 gives a much better experience than the galaxy s so far, just in case you are wondering :)
 
I used my MBA 3 weeks and have no slow downs on my daily using / playing.

I use my 3GS Unlocked from factory with tethering, works and positiv side effect my 3GS Battery is full ;)
 
I tether my iPhone 4 here in Norway. It is not very stable. It often takes me many tries to get it to work.
 
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