thejadedmonkey
macrumors G3
Then what do you consider a good benchmark? High-speed data transfer? The ability to store a lot of files? Because the Macbook Air's only feature is it's thinness.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Do you have ANY regrets or second thoughts on your MBA purchase?
- Thread starter Nikomanz
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Then what do you consider a good benchmark? High-speed data transfer? The ability to store a lot of files? Because the Macbook Air's only feature is it's thinness.
No second thoughts.
It runs everything I throw at it smoothly and gracefully. I game on my Xbox 360 and the few MMOs I play run just fine on my MBA. If I need higher end graphics, I'll opt for an eGPU setup at my desk.
I'd rather have an all-in-one machine I can tote anywhere over a big hunk of cheap plastic that I dread taking from my office to my living room.
It runs everything I throw at it smoothly and gracefully. I game on my Xbox 360 and the few MMOs I play run just fine on my MBA. If I need higher end graphics, I'll opt for an eGPU setup at my desk.
I'd rather have an all-in-one machine I can tote anywhere over a big hunk of cheap plastic that I dread taking from my office to my living room.
Complete Regret
I completely regret my purchase when I bought a 13" i7 MBA last august the day it was announced. It lasted me until December 18th and Apple tried to tell me they wanted $800 after tax to fix the unknown "damages" that were "caused" by me. I completely babied this machine from the day I bought it and Apple claimed that I introduced an UNKNOWN liquid substance to it causing my HD to fail completely. Luckily I can boot it from an external drive, but it is complete BS that they will not just replace the HD for me at a rate a lot less than $800!!! The substance they claim I introduced to my MBA is a sugary liquid but resembles dried super glue. It makes me sick that I paid around $1700 for a machine to last me only four months 😕
Apple is lucky that I love them so much, but I have completely lost all faith in their laptops 🙁
I completely regret my purchase when I bought a 13" i7 MBA last august the day it was announced. It lasted me until December 18th and Apple tried to tell me they wanted $800 after tax to fix the unknown "damages" that were "caused" by me. I completely babied this machine from the day I bought it and Apple claimed that I introduced an UNKNOWN liquid substance to it causing my HD to fail completely. Luckily I can boot it from an external drive, but it is complete BS that they will not just replace the HD for me at a rate a lot less than $800!!! The substance they claim I introduced to my MBA is a sugary liquid but resembles dried super glue. It makes me sick that I paid around $1700 for a machine to last me only four months 😕
Apple is lucky that I love them so much, but I have completely lost all faith in their laptops 🙁
Thunderbolt
SD expansion
256GB SSD is plenty - can upgrade to 480 with an aftermarket SSD
Fast processor - yes, it is fast.
Enough RAM to run pretty much any productivity app you need
Examples of what I run:
CAD software - DraftSight/AutoCAD
VMWare Fusion with 1 Win7 VM, 1GB RAM dedicated 24/7 to it, running Visual Studio Pro in unity mode
Xcode 4.3
Office
And all the small stuff
Macjournal
Textwrangler
itunes
Preview (with PDF manuals)
OneNote in VM unity
Active Directory Users & Computers in VM unity
Hyper-V manager in VM unity
All of this runs, all the time on my MBA. No slowdowns. My daily work is stored on the laptop, my backups on a USB 1TB drive, my music in the cloud, and I frequently move large files over the network.
For network equipment configuration I have USB adapters for Ethernet and RS-232.
I wouldn't necessarily call it its ONLY features, but it is a predominant one nevertheless.
Last year I purchased a clunky hp dv6 laptop *with 6gb of RAM, and a windows experience index around 5.9. It was just and utter pain to work with, and travel with. The whole computer felt awkward to carry around weighing in at around 5 pounds, and the computing speed was just slow and terrible. On average it took the machine around 17 seconds JUST to open word. Whereas in my air it takes less than 3 seconds to fully open pages.
I see your point, the air IS limited in terms of gaming, very heavy tasks such as running multiple adobe suites, and physical storage. But it IS an incredible machine, and I have no regrets whatsoever. I can do very "heavy" web design without a problem, and carrying my air back and forth is a breeze.
If gaming is such an important factor, I think somebody should just purchase a gaming laptop, such as the alienware if they want to play the MMOS, or purchase a ps3.
----------
What MMOs do you recommend, that I can install fine on my MBA, that aren't available for ps3?
I run WoW natively and two oldies in a VM, EQ and UO. Never had much luck with an MMO in a console.
I am not a heavy user, but I do not regret my purchase at all because I really did regret the purcahse I made in 2010. Now that I have the 128gb w4gb ram I am happy.
I dont think I will need to upgrade again in 2012 unless it has some sort of retina/HD screen
I dont think I will need to upgrade again in 2012 unless it has some sort of retina/HD screen
Old Smuggler
macrumors 6502a
Love mine so far, no regrets. Would have been nice to get the 256GB version but for me it wasn't worth the money.
thejadedmonkey
macrumors G3
I'm not saying that you can't do it, just that it's impractical. I have 3vm's (I switch between 2 usually), 2 IDE's, and a few steam games, plus a 24gb iTunes library. The machine can handle it just fine. I'm just saying that sometimes it lacks certain... mainstream features that make me prefer even $500 netbooks to this laptop. So this laptop usually ends up being used by my girlfriend for Facebook and Pinterest.
So going back to my original point, it lacks too much to make it a good workhorse, and it's too overpriced to make it a netbook.
How do you know what his/her financial situation is? Never ceases to amaze me how so many Apple fans are straight-up *******s.
noisycats
macrumors 6502a
JHUFrank
macrumors 6502a
Sorry, I disagree with you. My other work laptop is a HP 2760P tablet, and it pretty much has all the bells and whistles of any modern laptop w/ a Core I5 processor and 8 gigs of ram. I still would rather carry my C2D MBA to do my everyday work. Bogatyr and I have very similar workflows. The only thing I miss is being able to run 3-4 VMs at once. That is what I use the HP for, but the MBA does a decent job with 2 VMs.
revelated
macrumors 6502a
Screen pinching at the bottom. Issue.
Forced Lion that cannot be (easily) removed. Issue (though I will say, if I could grab Lion's Preview.app and use it in Snow Leopard, It'd be a perfect OS for me)
Lacking raw power. I mean raw power.
Drive goes, the laptop goes. That's a negative IMO.
No upgrade path except buying a new machine.
The new ASUS machine was looking quite svelte, if it has the battery life I expect I may consider it and sell the Air. I've found myself using the Pro more and more - the Samsung SSD I put in it runs circles around the Air and it's got 8GB of RAM to boot, so it can handle anything I throw at it whereas most stuff can bring the Air to its knees. Simple Flash games render the poor thing unusable.
It's a fine machine for a simple use case. For a power user - and frankly that's what I am - it's ok as a secondary travel machine. But ASUS and Samsung are not far behind now.
Forced Lion that cannot be (easily) removed. Issue (though I will say, if I could grab Lion's Preview.app and use it in Snow Leopard, It'd be a perfect OS for me)
Lacking raw power. I mean raw power.
Drive goes, the laptop goes. That's a negative IMO.
No upgrade path except buying a new machine.
The new ASUS machine was looking quite svelte, if it has the battery life I expect I may consider it and sell the Air. I've found myself using the Pro more and more - the Samsung SSD I put in it runs circles around the Air and it's got 8GB of RAM to boot, so it can handle anything I throw at it whereas most stuff can bring the Air to its knees. Simple Flash games render the poor thing unusable.
It's a fine machine for a simple use case. For a power user - and frankly that's what I am - it's ok as a secondary travel machine. But ASUS and Samsung are not far behind now.
I bought the 13" 2011 when it came out and Ive had zero regrets. I came from a 2010 13" MBP and the MBA definitely felt "newer" in the sense that build quality, portability and everything was just better despite being lighter and smaller.
It still serves me well. The only thing that really bugs me is the poor color gamut and the 120 GB capacity. I am gonna need a bigger disk and better screen to pay for a new model.
It still serves me well. The only thing that really bugs me is the poor color gamut and the 120 GB capacity. I am gonna need a bigger disk and better screen to pay for a new model.
LordVic
Cancelled
yes and no.
the MBA is by far the greatest laptop I have ever owned.
but when I got it. I was basically an out of work private contractor and on an extremely tight budget.
My dad gave me a $700 Mac Store gift card. He believed I wanted an iPad (i dont). So i paid the different and bought the 64/2 11" MBA.
I love this machine.
BUT, i would still have preffered a 13" with more ram / disc space.
Or even a Macbook pro. To be honest, Apple, despite liking their products, was never on the top of my list of purchases. I had never actually used a Mac before so OSx was not something I cared about having.
Overall I am happy with my purchase. I just wish I had the extra cash at the time
the MBA is by far the greatest laptop I have ever owned.
but when I got it. I was basically an out of work private contractor and on an extremely tight budget.
My dad gave me a $700 Mac Store gift card. He believed I wanted an iPad (i dont). So i paid the different and bought the 64/2 11" MBA.
I love this machine.
BUT, i would still have preffered a 13" with more ram / disc space.
Or even a Macbook pro. To be honest, Apple, despite liking their products, was never on the top of my list of purchases. I had never actually used a Mac before so OSx was not something I cared about having.
Overall I am happy with my purchase. I just wish I had the extra cash at the time
Bad quality and customer support
Last September i bought my new 13,3 MacBook Air.
From the first time i noticed that the surface of the track pad does not respond in some points (top right and bottom left corners), so i had to take it to an authorized service provider where the track pad was replaced without the problem being solved (the answer of the service provider was that i have to press my finger harder or click on another point... )😡. Taking it back home I realized that the Air was not charging so I had to take it back to the service store😡 . After the charging issue was solved the whole first row of keys (except the volume buttons) stopped working...
3rd time😡 to the service where the whole keyboard was replaced. I have to say that each time the air goes to the service stays there for a week or more because there are not spare parts available.
Few days ago when i tried to power up my air i noticed that it was not charging again and the problems with the keyboard appeared again , but unfortunately 5 hours later it started charging but the first row button plus the right shift were dead again...
So i decided to make the big step! Contacted Apple to complain for the problems and ask for a replacement( i paid almost 2000$)........and the answer was: “Go it back to the service again and if in the future same problems appear we may talk for a replacement"😡😡😡
Ok i am tired, angry, i can not do my job, i am spending many hours going again and again to the service and the answer it “take it one more and we will see??
I am a dedicated apple customer since 1993 Apple II SE,i have never faced such problems and that is one reason that i pay double the price than a normal pc.
I also cannot understand the way that apple treats its customers.
I have to say here but i have no problem with the Apple USA but with their representatives in Greece where i live, where unfortunately there is no official Apple but only a few authorized resellers.
maiki
Last September i bought my new 13,3 MacBook Air.
From the first time i noticed that the surface of the track pad does not respond in some points (top right and bottom left corners), so i had to take it to an authorized service provider where the track pad was replaced without the problem being solved (the answer of the service provider was that i have to press my finger harder or click on another point... )😡. Taking it back home I realized that the Air was not charging so I had to take it back to the service store😡 . After the charging issue was solved the whole first row of keys (except the volume buttons) stopped working...
3rd time😡 to the service where the whole keyboard was replaced. I have to say that each time the air goes to the service stays there for a week or more because there are not spare parts available.
Few days ago when i tried to power up my air i noticed that it was not charging again and the problems with the keyboard appeared again , but unfortunately 5 hours later it started charging but the first row button plus the right shift were dead again...
So i decided to make the big step! Contacted Apple to complain for the problems and ask for a replacement( i paid almost 2000$)........and the answer was: “Go it back to the service again and if in the future same problems appear we may talk for a replacement"😡😡😡
Ok i am tired, angry, i can not do my job, i am spending many hours going again and again to the service and the answer it “take it one more and we will see??
I am a dedicated apple customer since 1993 Apple II SE,i have never faced such problems and that is one reason that i pay double the price than a normal pc.
I also cannot understand the way that apple treats its customers.
I have to say here but i have no problem with the Apple USA but with their representatives in Greece where i live, where unfortunately there is no official Apple but only a few authorized resellers.
maiki
chrono1081
macrumors G3
No regrets here.
I was surprised at how fast this thing is. I can run Maya* and ZBrush on it no problem.
*I'm not doing high end renders in Maya but for modeling and texturing it does just fine.
I was surprised at how fast this thing is. I can run Maya* and ZBrush on it no problem.
*I'm not doing high end renders in Maya but for modeling and texturing it does just fine.
My thoughts...
I am a wildlife photographer, and I use Aperture all of the time, and iMovie occasionally as well. I bought the basic one, the 2011 version. (2GB RAM, 64GB SSD).... my only regret is not having the big hard drive space, but I can overcome that obstacle by means of an external drive.
If I had the purchase to do over again I would probably consider the 13" for more screen space... but it's all good! I can multitask even with the best of them when it comes to Aperture... I probably can't multitask as much with iMove, but then again I've never tried it.
Phenomenol machine. Would recommend to anyone. It can completely replace a pro for most users.... and when I need a DVD or CD, I have the SuperDrive!!
I am a wildlife photographer, and I use Aperture all of the time, and iMovie occasionally as well. I bought the basic one, the 2011 version. (2GB RAM, 64GB SSD).... my only regret is not having the big hard drive space, but I can overcome that obstacle by means of an external drive.
If I had the purchase to do over again I would probably consider the 13" for more screen space... but it's all good! I can multitask even with the best of them when it comes to Aperture... I probably can't multitask as much with iMove, but then again I've never tried it.
Phenomenol machine. Would recommend to anyone. It can completely replace a pro for most users.... and when I need a DVD or CD, I have the SuperDrive!!
Use a cloth in between. I had this problem three times ~ bought a cloth and problem disappeared.
whodatrr
macrumors 6502a
After owning 2 11" MBA
I bought the first 11", a couple days after it was released. I've subsequently upgraded to the latest maxed out i7, because my work issued me one. These have been my primary work machines, and I haven't looked back. Here are my observations:
Minor gripes
But these are minor annoyances. Really, I can't imagine why anyone would buy a MacBook Pro. I guess the main thing I'd like to see is more RAM. 4gb is OK, especially with how fast the SSD is, but more RAM is always a good thing. I tend to work with about 10 apps and 20 docs up simultaneously, however, and 4gb does OK by me. YMMV.
I bought the first 11", a couple days after it was released. I've subsequently upgraded to the latest maxed out i7, because my work issued me one. These have been my primary work machines, and I haven't looked back. Here are my observations:
- 1. Performance - It's fast enough for everything I do. Really, the only time I use my i7 iMac, is for converting videos with handbrake. Event that isn't terrible on my new MBA, but my desktop is a bit faster.
- 2. Capacity - This is my work system. As I don't have a lot of movies on it, 256gb is plenty of space. And, with homesharing and iCloud, I'm cool.
- 3. Ergonomics - Love the portability, and the small screen is worth the hit, for portability. I work on this thing 95% of the time, with an external monitor and KB.
- 4. new vs old MBA - Really, the performance between these two generations is negligible, for most of what I do. My only gripe with the new i7 is that the fan runs 90% of the time. The fan almost never ran, in my old MBA.
Minor gripes
- Display - the 11" display is somewhat limited, as a second monitor, when used on my desktop (external KB, mouse, and display). In this setup, my 11" display winds up being 3-4ft from my eyes. And, though my eyesight is excellent, I struggle to see some text. But it's still usable, and it works great in a portable situation (when my eyes are 2ft from the display).
- Fan - Again, the fan on my newer i7 runs 90% of the time. This is an annoyance that I didn't have, with my older 11" MBA.
But these are minor annoyances. Really, I can't imagine why anyone would buy a MacBook Pro. I guess the main thing I'd like to see is more RAM. 4gb is OK, especially with how fast the SSD is, but more RAM is always a good thing. I tend to work with about 10 apps and 20 docs up simultaneously, however, and 4gb does OK by me. YMMV.
Storage...Thats the only thing. I would like more room for more options. But to expensive...other than that, nothing. But I do think the keyboard feels flimsy on my 13 inches.
Loving my 11" MBA. It's perfect for writing & a welcome change after staring at the iMac all day while recording music in the studio. I'm not going to do heavy work on it though I hear it does well in iMovie. I've got our wireless network set up so I can stream music & video anytime.
I likes mine 🙂
I likes mine 🙂