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Perhaps the version of Lion installed on the new MBAs is truly a different build (not uncommon, but surprising given they both came out on the same day).

Indeed this is true. The version that ships with the 2011 MBA is 10.7 build 11A2063, not 11A511. The build on the MBA likely contains the drivers for the new chipset, graphics, and Thunderbolt drivers for the MacBook Air. Also Bluetooth 4.0 drivers.
 
That's the build number as it came from Apple.
 
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Well I've been using the i7 for a while now and the fan does still run. At first it was dead silent. But now with Safari and mail running, it is spinning. I'm starting to wonder if it's because of the i7 will run hotter vs. the i5??
 
Well I've been using the i7 for a while now and the fan does still run. At first it was dead silent. But now with Safari and mail running, it is spinning. I'm starting to wonder if it's because of the i7 will run hotter vs. the i5??

Can you quantify what you mean by the "fan does still run"? The fan will always run. Normally it runs around 19xx - 20xx and is inaudible.
 
Can you quantify what you mean by the "fan does still run"? The fan will always run. Normally it runs around 19xx - 20xx and is inaudible.

I got the i7 just like you. How's the battery life with yours?
 
I got the i7 just like you. How's the battery life with yours?

I haven't had a chance to check yet. Just busy doing a charge / discharge cycle to calibrate the battery meter and I haven't paid attention to exact battery life.
 
That means that while running Handbrake, your CPU temp is about 201.2° Fahrenheit -- that is pretty hot.

The main thing I care about is can I keep it on my lap while this is happening. I see in the same screen shot that the enclosed temps are around 32C? So maybe 90F is that to hot to keep on your lap?

I'm coming from a returned MBP as I couldn't have it on my lap for doing things like skype, netflicks viewing, having a VMware guest in the background.
 
The main thing I care about is can I keep it on my lap while this is happening. I see in the same screen shot that the enclosed temps are around 32C? So maybe 90F is that to hot to keep on your lap?

I'm coming from a returned MBP as I couldn't have it on my lap for doing things like skype, netflicks viewing, having a VMware guest in the background.

At that temperature in the screenshot the enclosure is pretty cool to touch and to have on your lap. When I had the CPU at around 70 C, I had it on my lap and was wearing surf shorts so they are pretty thin. It wasn't uncomfortable, but I am not sure how one would feel after prolonged use. One thing worth mentioning is that the keyboard does not get as hot in the top left corner as other Apple laptops I've experienced so that's a big positive.
 
At that temperature in the screenshot the enclosure is pretty cool to touch and to have on your lap. When I had the CPU at around 70 C, I had it on my lap and was wearing surf shorts so they are pretty thin. It wasn't uncomfortable, but I am not sure how one would feel after prolonged use. One thing worth mentioning is that the keyboard does not get as hot in the top left corner as other Apple laptops I've experienced so that's a big positive.

I do agree with you on the keyboard heat.
 
At that temperature in the screenshot the enclosure is pretty cool to touch and to have on your lap. When I had the CPU at around 70 C, I had it on my lap and was wearing surf shorts so they are pretty thin. It wasn't uncomfortable, but I am not sure how one would feel after prolonged use. One thing worth mentioning is that the keyboard does not get as hot in the top left corner as other Apple laptops I've experienced so that's a big positive.

hmm I guess its going to be one of those things to test. I could have the MBP on my lap at 180F(cpu) but in the end didnt want to. lol

I was kinda hoping this would be cooler as the processor was toned down but maybe im wrong. What areas would you say are hot? The bottom back center? Only were the air is coming out? (below the mac name?) And what temp is that heat ruffly?

The most heat I could take was about 60c or 145f(cpu) thats why I ask. If all that cpu temp comes though the case I could be retuning this one too. :(
 
hmm I guess its going to be one of those things to test. I could have the MBP on my lap at 180F(cpu) but in the end didnt want to. lol

I was kinda hoping this would be cooler as the processor was toned down but maybe im wrong. What areas would you say are hot? The bottom back center? Only were the air is coming out? (below the mac name?) And what temp is that heat ruffly?

The most heat I could take was about 60c or 145f(cpu) thats why I ask. If all that cpu temp comes though the case I could be retuning this one too. :(

I must admit that I didn't take much notice of where the heat is coming from on the bottom. I'll play around this weekend and give you some more definitive answers.
 
I do agree with you on the keyboard heat.

This was actually my biggest gripe with my old MBP. The top left corner used to get too hot to work on comfortably, even when I was just writing some code in Xcode, had a couple of utilities running and Chrome with a couple of tabs.

After a couple of hours it would become so unbearable that I ended up using an external keyboard. Tab, Q, W and E were the worst culprits, especially since I tend to tend to rest my fingers in that area

This seems much improved. Even when encoding the top left of the keyboard stays reasonable to touch. It seems to me that the heat has been relocated further to the top left corner away from the actual keyboard.
 
Here my xbench disk test results.
 

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Just an update on "heat"

My 13" i7 stays cool to the touch and is comfortable to use on my lap even when the CPU is up to 80 C. It also stays silent until I encode a movie or do another similar CPU intensive task.

I've just been busy setting things up, installing Xcode and so forth, whilst holding it on my lap. The fans have remained silent and stay at around 2000 RPM. I also have a couple of tabs open in chrome (with flashblock).
 
something a bit scary :eek: regarding the SSD performance here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_vaZl0H56o

I just ordered the mba 13'' i7 with the 256 SSD - hope I will get the Samsung not the Toshiba one...

Others with the mba 13'' i7 do you all have the Samsung SSD like theSeb and Apple Expert ? ??
 
I haven't had a chance to check yet. Just busy doing a charge / discharge cycle to calibrate the battery meter and I haven't paid attention to exact battery life.

What method are you using for the calibrating of the battery?
 
Seb, it looks like your machine is running a different version of OS X 10.7.

The retail build is 11A511 with a Darwin kernel version of 11.0.0.

Your screenshots show a different version. Are you running a developer release? Perhaps the version of Lion installed on the new MBAs is truly a different build (not uncommon, but surprising given they both came out on the same day).

I can confirm that I'm on a 2011 MBA and my build is not the 11A511, but the one in the pictures.
 
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