Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Lion for 2010 MBA?

treynolds

treynolds

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 17, 2010
158
0
Seattle
So after trying to look at all of the Lion threads, I'm trying to make a decision whether to upgrade from Snow Leopard to Lion or not? I already have an iPad 2 and like it a lot, but Im uncertain whether I really want my MBA to have that iPad-like functionality. When I first saw the keynote and Lion premiered, it looked irresistable. Now I'm not so sure...

For those that have done the upgrade:

What do you see as the prime benefits?

What are some of the caveats?

Any performance hits?

Any software conflicts?

I have a late 2010 MBA 13" Ultimate running MS Office 2010, CS4, Aperture 3.0, Parallels with WinXP Pro, ACAD LT 2010 (in Parallels).

Tony
 
DON'T DO IT! Go read all the threads in the Lion forum, it's a complete cluster, especially Mission Control and extra drain on battery. I'm keeping Snow, nothing revolutionary about Lion!
 
calvol said:
DON'T DO IT! Go read all the threads in the Lion forum, it's a complete cluster, especially Mission Control and extra drain on battery. I'm keeping Snow, nothing revolutionary about Lion!
Click to expand...

Thanks loads. I didn't realize there was dedicated forum for Lion. Shoulda guessed...

Tony
 
Do it. Its a much more secure OS (read up on it). It has its quirks , but it is a good service pack forward :D than snow leopard. I acouple of point updates will probably mature it and optimise the code under the hood.
There are definetely some upgrade issues, depending on the mac involved and the user doing the upgrade. I had a problem with an mb pro and a c2d mini, while other 5 upgrades with similar gear went by without a hitch.
 
Do it, I've upgraded since the first day and I'm no regretting it. Running perfect
 
Did it myself on my 2010 13 MBA and am very happy with it. I really like Lion a lot. For example:

Trackpad gestures: Take some getting used to, but I'm liking them. Once you get the hang of them, it's easier to do a lot of things.

AirDrop: Very easy. Used it to transfer my iTunes library from my old MBA to my new one.

Launchpad: Once I figured out how to organize things in it, I really like it. You can drag app icons on top of each other to create folders, which you can name as you like. You also can move and reorder app icons like on iPad. Now that I know how to use it, I greatly prefer it to Stacks (or whatever it was called).

Full screen: Very nice feature on a MBA in particular.

Overall, I really like the look and feel of Lion. I feels like a new OS without being too unfamiliar. And it runs fine on my 2010 13 Ultimate.
 
Well....

It's definitely looking like the goforit's are outnumbering the dontdoit's.

I think since it's a download and Apple doesn't rape customers on upgrade like Microsquish, I'll just go for it.

:)
 
My 2010 13" MBA Ultimate runs faster and gets slightly longer battery life on Lion.

As soon as you install any new Mac OS upgrade, there's a lot of behind-the-scenes maintenance that happens, so I wouldn't expect to see normal battery life until a few hours after the upgrade has completed.

Before you upgrade, make sure your Adobe Creative Suite will work with Lion. I thought I heard some grumbling in the art dept. where I work about one of them having issues with Lion, but I don't use it, so I didn't catch the details.
 
My first post here. Registered just to say this...

But really, I think you should go for it. Lion is really awesome on 2010 MBA, and that's not because I can completely separate my workspace and playspace but keep them both running at the same time, nor is it because I can present documents and such in fullscreen view complete with zooming and it makes my life a lot easier.

It's because I'm seeing 9:00 remaining next to the battery while typing this message.
 
I did it on my 13 ultimate, so far I really like it...does take some getting use to but not bad for $29...you can always go back to Snow if you really miss it.
 
Really no reason not to. It's working great -- actually better than the last SL update on my '10 MBA 11".
 
So I Suppose it Goes Without Saying...

that one should do a complete Time Machine backup before installing Lion?
 
bill-p said:
My first post here. Registered just to say this...

But really, I think you should go for it. Lion is really awesome on 2010 MBA, and that's not because I can completely separate my workspace and playspace but keep them both running at the same time, nor is it because I can present documents and such in fullscreen view complete with zooming and it makes my life a lot easier.

It's because I'm seeing 9:00 remaining next to the battery while typing this message.
Click to expand...

Welcome, glad you decided to chime in. This a great place to learn! (and contribute...)

Tony
 
You won't believe me when I say this, but I had the same mindset as you. Prior to installing Lion, I was like "why the heck do I need a scrollable shortcut screen on my desktop?" [referring to Launchpad] and "what the heck do I need Mission control for?".

Well, I upgraded and it's been pretty nice. You honestly just have to try it.
Everything seems much more "fluid" (and subsequently faster - well it is faster AND fluid). There's a lot of improvements that are in the core apps such as Safari that you'll like.

My favorite feature is Mission control and implementation of Spaces. Now I can swipe between different desktops with 4 fingers and it's really convenient.

If none of the new features appeal to you, I think that the improved performance is worth it. Before I was going to upgrade my RAM because I was swapping like crazy, but now I generally have about 1.5GB RAM Free.

It's a nice upgrade. You'll know what I'm saying if/when you upgrade.
 
i have a 11" 2010 mba with 1.4ghz c2duo, 4gb of ram and 64gb ssd.

i upgraded to lion, all is working well, really great OS and one thing that really helps a lot is fullscreen apps, because the 11" screen seems larger when using iPhoto and Safari with full screen.

so no more putting the dock to the left side of the screen to gain extra vertical space.
 
Treynold, let us know how your upgrade goes... I read this comment and decided to pass on Lion for now...

Okay, so day 3 running Lion. Just light web browsing (with Click2Flash enabled, not using any flash anywhere, mostly just MR). Indexing is finished long ago. For some reason, my 11" MBA ultimate (2010) is running warmer than it ever used to (iStat Nano temps now ranging from 95F - 122F). I don't remember the iStat Nano temps before, but to the best of my recollection, I believe it was high 70s or 80s. Its physically hot to the touch, and in the past 8 months of having this laptop, I've rarely noticed this type of heat.

Also, my battery is almost dead, and its only been ~2.5 hours so far. Before installing Lion, doing the same activities (light web browsing), I would have at least 4 hours. My display is low-mid, and other than safari, I've got nothing else running. No music, no videos, no games, etc. If this is purely due to Lion, then I may have to go back to snow leopard. I can't function with under 3 hours of battery life, thats ridiculous.
 
Treynold, let us know how your upgrade goes... I read this comment and decided to pass on Lion for now...
Click to expand...

Interesting comment. I'm in no hurry. Definitely not going to do the upgrade for the next two weeks as I'll be out of town.
 
I upgraded yesterday. On both my late 2007 iMac and my 2010 13" MBA. All is great, I have Office 2008 and it is working fine. Just getting use to the new features of Lion but so far I really like it.
 
I installed Li on my 13" MBA and I can't say that I'm noticing much of a difference from SL. The changes to Spaces are the most noticeable of course. I'm still holding off on upgrading my iMac since that's my primary machine and I want to make sure everything works (multi-function printer software compatibility is my primary concern and I haven't had time to test it).
 
I upgraded my 2009 Air on day one, and haven't regretted it since. The OS has its share of x.0 bugs, but nothing overly serious. Basically, I'm glad that I upgraded, but I'll be happy to see x.1 come out.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back