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New MBA Minor Details: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

S

shurcooL

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 24, 2011
967
178
This post is about the minor details of the new MBA. Since everything else is pretty much perfect (okay, except the lack of dedicated graphics, but I'm not gonna go into that), this is what I'm gonna pick on. :D

The Good: Backlit Keyboard (yaaay), Bluetooth 4.0 (up from 2.1)
The Bad: No FaceTime HD camera
The Ugly: No SDXC card slot

The lack of FaceTime HD can be sorta explained by thin screen, but come on, it's :apple:, they should be able to pull these things off. They managed to re-add the backlit keyboard without making it thicker/heavier.

But no SDXC speeds? Wtf, no technical limitation preventing them from adding it. It's there in the new Mac Mini, MBP, iMac. My only explanation: cost savings, planned obsolescence (something to add to the next MBA in a year).
 
Last edited:
As I've said in a previous thread, the MacBook Air has supported SDXC (since October 2010) but not at SDXC speeds. I assume that is why SDXC is not listed.
 
shurcooL said:
This post is about the minor details of the new MBA. Since everything else is pretty much perfect (okay, except the lack of dedicated graphics, but I'm not gonna go into that), this is what I'm gonna pick on. :D

The Good: Backlit Keyboard (yaaay), Bluetooth 4.0 (up from 2.1)
The Bad: No FaceTime HD camera
The Ugly: No SDXC card slot

The lack of FaceTime HD can be sorta explained by thin screen, but come on, it's :apple:, they should be able to pull these things off. They managed to re-add the backlit keyboard without making it thicker/heavier.

But no SDHX card? Wtf, no technical limitation preventing them from adding it. It's there in the new Mac Mini, MBP, iMac. My only explanation: cost savings, planned obsolescence (something to add to the next MBA in a year).
Click to expand...

actually the new MBA is a bit heavier than the old one (2.96 lb vs 2.90)
 
Bump to a thread about the mid-2011 MacBook Air to make a comment about the situation.

Whoop-de-doo, the mid-2012 MacBook Air gets the 720p FaceTime HD camera upgrade. So it was possible, they just decided to do it later.

It still doesn't have a SDXC card slot, I guess you gotta wait for the next year's model for that. :rolleyes:
 
Does the SD slot on the new (2012) air work with an SDHC card? I have 16gb SDHC card in my camera and it's not really a big deal if I can use the slot since I've got a perfectly good cord, but just curious.
 
shurcooL said:
Bump to a thread about the mid-2011 MacBook Air to make a comment about the situation.

Whoop-de-doo, the mid-2012 MacBook Air gets the 720p FaceTime HD camera upgrade. So it was possible, they just decided to do it later.

It still doesn't have a SDXC card slot, I guess you gotta wait for the next year's model for that. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
I would like to point out that not only does the 2012 MBA support SDXC, the 2011 does as well.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1207093/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1193711/
http://gdgt.com/question/do-64gb-and-128gb-sdxc-cards-work-on-the-macbook-air-f5s/

And here's the chip controller it uses, which as specified, supports SDXC
http://www.genesyslogic.com/_en/product_01_1.php?id=79

:)

EDIT - Unless I'm missing something. I see up above that someone said it's not at SDXC speeds? I haven't tried myself, but there's a lot of sources out there that says it supports SDXC, so it seems so?
 
lls4f said:
Does the SD slot on the new (2012) air work with an SDHC card? I have 16gb SDHC card in my camera and it's not really a big deal if I can use the slot since I've got a perfectly good cord, but just curious.
Click to expand...
Yes, SDHC are of course supported (probably even the original MBA supported it, since SDHC is a very old spec).

----------
KylePowers said:
I would like to point out that not only does the 2012 MBA support SDXC, the 2011 does as well.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1207093/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1193711/
http://gdgt.com/question/do-64gb-and-128gb-sdxc-cards-work-on-the-macbook-air-f5s/

And here's the chip controller it uses, which as specified, supports SDXC
http://www.genesyslogic.com/_en/product_01_1.php?id=79

:)

EDIT - Unless I'm missing something. I see up above that someone said it's not at SDXC speeds? I haven't tried myself, but there's a lot of sources out there that says it supports SDXC, so it seems so?
Click to expand...

I know the SDXC card can be read/written. That's not what this is about. It's about the SDXC speeds, which are there on the MBPs but not MBAs.
 
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