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MacBook Air users, what do you use your MacBook Airs for?

JoeG4

JoeG4

macrumors 68030
Jan 11, 2002
2,842
518
Can you even show off a mac anymore? They are about as common at starbucks or most universities in the US as a honda accord is in the parking lot. *yawn* I like mine just fine, and a couple of my classmates that hadn't used one themselves were surprised just how usable and thin it was when they used it themselves but.. yea no big deal really.

The MBAs are still a lot less common than the 13" MBPs though hehe :D that's good for "dang you have the THIN one huh!" XD
 
Steve121178

Steve121178

macrumors 603
Apr 13, 2010
6,402
6,956
Bedfordshire, UK
bellboy1982 said:
My 2011 Sony Vaio would have crashed with just Steam and iTunes! It also took my Sony around 5mins to on iTunes. My MBA opens iTunes in under 2 seconds!!!
Click to expand...

pinocchio.jpg
 
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B

blanco.juanfeli

macrumors newbie
May 13, 2012
25
0
4 GB vs 8 GB of RAM?????????

Hey,

I'm planning to get a baseline 13 inch Macbook Air, but im just not sure if 4 GB are enough for my need, and if it is worth the extra 130 dollars (Macmall)... I´ll basically use it for iWork, MS Office, very Light gamming, lots of web surfing and maybe running windows occasionally using a VM, and I plan to keep it for at least 3 to 4 years, so do you think that the upgrade is necessary?

I´m also considering a MacBook Pro, becuase of its "Upgradability", but i just cant justify spnding $1200 on a 1200x800 screen and a traditional 5400 RPM Hard-drive...

BTW: Sorry for my bad english

Thanks
 
Warhawk15

Warhawk15

macrumors regular
Feb 1, 2012
208
10
I use mine(base 13" 2011) for everything I do.
Audacity, Spotify, Xcode, Steam and Blizzard games, web browsing, vlc watching videos from external hdd, school, done some stuff with Civil3d(boot camp), etc.
Don't do much with photo or video editing.

I might hold out till next year for Haswell and just get apple care in November since its still doing great.
 
J

jabingla2810

macrumors 68020
Oct 15, 2008
2,271
938
My Macbook Air does everything, it's my main computer.

Photo editing is my main hobby and it's a breeze on the Air.

As for storage space, the cloud takes care of everything.

For music I use iTunes Match and Spotify.

For movies I use iTunes in the cloud.

I don't illegally download anything, I pay for it all so no need to mess about storing dodgy AVI and MKV files anywhere. :rolleyes:

It's 2012 and the cloud has finally caught up with the Macbook Airs design and philosophy. It's an amazing machine.
 
Abazigal

Abazigal

Contributor
Jul 18, 2011
19,575
22,036
Singapore
Blackberryroid said:
You could have bought an rMBP with that. I'm interested to find out why you didn't, especially since Apple made the rMBP just as thick as the MBA.
Click to expand...

Size and weight probably. The Rmp still doesn't strike me as being particularly portable, even with the reduced footprint.
 
W

wditters

macrumors member
Apr 10, 2012
80
0
Blackberryroid said:
You could have bought an rMBP with that. I'm interested to find out why you didn't, especially since Apple made the rMBP just as thick as the MBA.
Click to expand...

Regardless how thick, it still is 15", so for me a no go. Perhaps with a 13" rMBP that I would take the plunge ...
 
filmbuff

filmbuff

macrumors 6502a
Jan 5, 2011
967
364
Jasonscott71 said:
Seriously? How is it for this? How are the render speeds? Do you render 480 files? I always assumed discrete graphics is not powerful enough.
Click to expand...

It's not the best, obviously, but it's perfectly workable. I import everything as AVCHD and don't have any problems. The Vegas preview window has a lot of lag at high quality but you can select low-def preview and it's a lot smoother. Rendering to HD takes a while but not nearly as long as my old 2.4GHz Core2duo laptop.
 
thadoggfather

thadoggfather

macrumors P6
Oct 1, 2007
15,551
16,285
jvmxtra said:
Anytime I want to get mobile. Anytime I don't feel like sitting in front of my imac..

Anytime load is light enough that my MBA is not burning.. I will use it..

It's been great so far.. but let's not kid ourselves.. laptop will always be laptop.. if you need to work on big project which requires space, you will need to move to the desk w/ big monitors...
Click to expand...

external monitor and external hd and numeric apple kb (though I love the airs just fine as well) + magic mouse = yummy

Got a nice HP ZR24W matte IPS 1920x120 (16:10) I scooped for $200 back in late 2011 around the same time I got a MBA and sold my 13" Pro (which was optibayed with SSD+hd, miss that but love air portability and thinness and lack of glass reflectiveness)

my air is my daily driver and sole lover
 
D

DisplacedMic

macrumors 65816
May 1, 2009
1,411
1
thadoggfather said:
external monitor and external hd and numeric apple kb (though I love the airs just fine as well) + magic mouse = yummy

Got a nice HP ZR24W matte IPS 1920x120 (16:10) I scooped for $200 back in late 2011 around the same time I got a MBA and sold my 13" Pro (which was optibayed with SSD+hd, miss that but love air portability and thinness and lack of glass reflectiveness)

my air is my daily driver and sole lover
Click to expand...

...and you got your wedding vows off the internet
 
Jasonscott71

Jasonscott71

macrumors member
Dec 13, 2009
39
2
Northern Virginia
filmbuff said:
It's not the best, obviously, but it's perfectly workable. I import everything as AVCHD and don't have any problems. The Vegas preview window has a lot of lag at high quality but you can select low-def preview and it's a lot smoother. Rendering to HD takes a while but not nearly as long as my old 2.4GHz Core2duo laptop.
Click to expand...

I appreciate the added perspective, and yeah, must be much better than any Core2duo. So it's not what you want, but if needed, the integrated graphics can eventually render out HD clips.
 
jvmxtra

jvmxtra

macrumors 65816
Sep 21, 2010
1,245
3
thadoggfather said:
external monitor and external hd and numeric apple kb (though I love the airs just fine as well) + magic mouse = yummy

Got a nice HP ZR24W matte IPS 1920x120 (16:10) I scooped for $200 back in late 2011 around the same time I got a MBA and sold my 13" Pro (which was optibayed with SSD+hd, miss that but love air portability and thinness and lack of glass reflectiveness)

my air is my daily driver and sole lover
Click to expand...

I guess it could work that way.. good for you
 
J

jojoba

macrumors 68000
Dec 9, 2011
1,584
21
jabingla2810 said:
My Macbook Air does everything, it's my main computer.
Click to expand...

Ditto. I'm a researcher, so use it a lot for typing up documents, downloading, reading and marking up PDFs, outlining and mind mapping, and then I have different data bases that organise all my research literature and my personal stuff. Also have all my music and photos on it, but don't really do any photo editing. I work a bit with video in my research, but no serious editing. In addition, the usual stuff like web surfing, note taking and emailing.
 
needfx

needfx

Suspended
Aug 10, 2010
3,931
4,247
macrumors apparently
I'd rather post the software I can use on my MBA on the go, which is the reason I love this machine

Among others :

Safari, Chrome, Firefox
Microsoft Word, Excel
Apple Keynote
Apple GarageBand
Mozilla Thunderbird
Teamviewer (to connect to pc running windows only software such CICOS, Travelforce, YC etc)
Dropbox, Skydrive
Adobe After Effects, Premiere, Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, some Flash
Pixologic zBrush
Apple FinalCut Pro, Motion, DVD Studio Pro
Canon EOS Utility (remote shooting)
Yamaha THR Editor
DM1 drum machine
VLC, Quicktime Pro, iTunes
Splashtop Streamer / XDisplay

and trying to learn Cinema 4d (coming from 3d studio max on PCs)
I would have installed the iOS SDK to fiddle around as I have done on my 2009 MBP, but it takes too much space

I loooooooooooove computers
 
happyslayer

happyslayer

macrumors 65816
Feb 3, 2008
1,027
578
Glendale, AZ
I use mine for web surfing with Safari & Chrome, email with Mac Mail and programming/setting up network hardware on the job Safari & Chrome and occasionally booting into Win7 (Bootcamp) and light MS Office stuff with Word & Excel. At home, I use it for web surfing using Safari & Chrome, writing using Scrivener, and occasional Ms Office 2011 stuff, mostly Word & Excel. And I LOVE it for all those tasks.

I tried some gaming with Star Wars The Old Republic but it ran really hot and noisy (fans) so I stopped that.
 
G

GKDAIR

macrumors regular
Oct 4, 2011
230
4
I use mine mostly for college type stuff and just general internet usage. My Ipad is my main netflix, youtube, game etc. device.


I don't see myself ever going back to windows personally, but I wish I got a more powerful rig.
 
D

DisplacedMic

macrumors 65816
May 1, 2009
1,411
1
Abazigal said:
Size and weight probably. The Rmp still doesn't strike me as being particularly portable, even with the reduced footprint.
Click to expand...

have you held one? as you say it has a smaller footprint, but it's only .5 lb heavier. that was what actually turned me to the 11" MBA... the 13" MBA just felt like a really sleek laptop to me, i wanted an ultralight...

now, spec for spec i think the 13" MBA is a better deal bang for your buck wise but the rMBP is perfectly portable
 
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