Is this $680 MBA good for my needs?

[viperGTS]

http://store.apple.com/us/product/FC505LL/A (currently out of stock)
It's the october 2010 model, with 64GB SSD, 2GB RAM, nvidia geforce 320m graphics, 1.4 GHz intel core 2 duo. I would intend to replace my netbook with this.

My uses:
iTunes and iOS device management
Web browsing, flash gaming ESPECIALLY (my netbook struggled BAD)
Making Word docs, Powerpoint presentations, etc.

Also can it run lion decently? It ships with Snow Leopard so i might keep it there, I have no interest in iCloud. Also would the graphics be able to handle flash games pretty good?

Thanks!

 

[dona83]

It'll be at least twice as fast as your Netbook for sure. Just food for though though, my 2006 iMac is slightly more powerful than the machine you have your eyes on and it struggles with a small number of Flash websites. Bob the Builder for my son for example.

 

[viperGTS]

It'll be at least twice as fast as your Netbook for sure. Just food for though though, my 2006 iMac is slightly more powerful than the machine you have your eyes on and it struggles with a small number of Flash websites. Bob the Builder for my son for example.

I see, thank you for the quick response!

Is that a game, by the way? If this MBA struggles, could the 1.6 GHz core i5 with intel HD 3000 handle flash games/websites?

 

[steve dave]

The gpu will help with flash playback. you just need to enable hardware acceleration. I had that model for a year. Before flash updated, I could only usually play flash @ 720p after I constantly played 1080 flash videos on my television. Netflix is another story, though. It uses silverlight which runs like hell on that machine.

 

[viperGTS]

The gpu will help with flash playback. you just need to enable hardware acceleration. I had that model for a year. Before flash updated, I could only usually play flash @ 720p after I constantly played 1080 flash videos on my television. Netflix is another story, though. It uses silverlight which runs like hell on that machine.

How would I enable hardware acceleration? Thanks for the reply.
(i probably wont use netflix, lol thanks for the heads up though)

 

[steve dave]

How would I enable hardware acceleration? Thanks for the reply.
(i probably wont use netflix, lol thanks for the heads up though)

right click a flash video and make sure "enable hardware acceleration" is ticked. You should only have to do it once.

 

[viperGTS]

right click a flash video and make sure "enable hardware acceleration" is ticked. You should only have to do it once.

Alright, cool. I assume this works for flash games as well?

I might go for the 2011 version, same specs but with a 1.6 GHz intel dual core i5 and the Intel HD 3000. It's an $80 upgrade. Would it be worth it for my needs?

 

[dona83]

Bob The Builder is a game, I haven't tried hardware acceleration yet but Youtube and most other sites run just fine.

The Core i5 machine is more than twice as powerful. If you can spring the extra $80, definitely do it.

 

[viperGTS]

Bob The Builder is a game, I haven't tried hardware acceleration yet but Youtube and most other sites run just fine.

The Core i5 machine is more than twice as powerful. If you can spring the extra $80, definitely do it.

2x more powerful?? Thanks for the heads up on that one! that plus a backlit keyboard definitely seems worth it. Would 2GB RAM be sufficient as well?