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New Benchmarks Show 13-Inch MacBook Air Rivaling Its MacBook Pro Counterpart
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what do you mean ":lol:"
apple is headquartered in the US, where you guys barely get Turbo3G.
i've had 4G for almost a year (50/5) and the whole country will be 80Mb by early-2011 (with 150Mb/s in the cities).
it's just a lack of foresight ... again
Or they're trying to meet a price point. Would you expect a $30,000 car to have the same new whiz-bang technologies that a $100,000 car has?
Oops, forgot the backlit keyboard. That's one of the reasons I have a late 2008 MBP 15 instead of a 13. It's one of the great things about the MBP line but I can understand the compromise requiring it to be left out of the Air. Maybe the late 2011 Air will have a backlit keyboard.
It's a bit odd - that last generation of MacBook Airs were slower than the previous generation (according to MacWorld's tests) too. I'll have to dig out those Speedmark tests and see how the new ones compare to mine, which is two generations back. Obviously they'll kill mine wrt graphics processing...
There's only one "4G" network in the US and it's not the network that most of the world is moving towards. HSPA is more useful for travelling professionals.
Your students really should be able to type without looking at the keyboard.
The amount of people that lock their laptops is decreasing. I say is as an employee in a college bookstore where the amount of laptop locks we sell decreases drastically each year.
I think in this instane, you fail.
a prof at one of the Excellence unis in Germany ... but I still also run a research group in Stockholm.
That research group wouldn't be involved with taking daily massive doses of lysergic acid diethylamide would it?
I'm just saying, given both your nic and your rantings...
How on earth did you get your Ph.D. without all the above FUNCTIONS?
My professors got their Ph.D.s with an old Apple clone and a dot matrix computer. Are you telling me your students aren't smart enough to get a Ph.D. unless they have the right computer.
The MBA has enough function for the people who people who require only MBA's functions.
You found the Mac computer that suits your doctoral students' needs; why crap on the MBA?
There's a lot of 4G outside the US ... including a lot of EU/Asian capitals ... so you're comment may be based on traveling in the US.
Sure, but if they switch to a compact keyboard which, the backlit feature is quite nice to reduce the abruptness of the transition.
I disgaree, thefts at unis are always very high, especially at unis placed in the middle of urban areas without restricted keycard access.
because it would be nice for apple to produce a polished product.
the iPad with unlocked HSPA capabilities is an excellent example ... people dump on the iPad as have no "function" ... but it's connectivity is much, much better than the MBA and most people find it quite useful.
They have produced a polished product--and you mentioned it in your initial post: the MBP with 512GB SSD....
1. it is not silent - once you put it to work for a good time it sounds like an airplane
2. not playing games on it for very long - bootcamp, windows 7 and Bad company 2 test ended after 20min with the fan sounding like it was going to explode (do not play games so not a big deal)
3. unlike the MBP - 2 or 4 gigs of ram is irrelevant - once you really start multitasking in a workflow with this thing the 1.83 starts to show its limitation.
4. If you need to have Parallels open with Windows to test your last update in IE stick with your MBP (see above)
5. best thing is not the SSD but the screen - no glass and the 1440X900 on 13inches is amazing - nice colors and decent contrast.
6. I rather have the button on my mouse pad of the old Air, but that just me
7. If all you have is the MBP 13 2.4 with 4 gigs of ram and work for a living stay with it.
10. If you have a decent imac or macpro and do not really ever go on "vacation" because the "we have a problem, see attachment" email from work always shows up - get a MBA as a road companion
11. if you think that multitasking is having 8 tabs open on your browser and polishing your blog post on Word as you finish putting final touches on your iWeb site the new Air is for you
12. batteries do not last 7hrs - 4:10 was what we got on the first cycle run actually working on a project at the office, so we all still packing our HyperMac batts.
13. The Radtech Sleevz from the old Air does not fit it
14. It does feel lighter and the Power adaptor also is smaller and lighter
15. boot up and restart is very fast even after fully installed application package
16. flash videos play fine for what we saw - fan does kick in. At work so did not see many for a long time - not used that way so not a big deal for me
17. no backlit keyboard - never used it before anyway
We found no reason to replace our 1.83 RevB SSD Air - I traded my Rev A 1.6 for a 1.83/2gig/120 one yesterday (if you have that, go for it)
I did not get the 4 gig ram as I found even thou I can open more stuff the 1.83 would not keep up anyway and with an old 1.83 C2D Future proof this thing will never be.
2. not playing games on it for very long - bootcamp, windows 7 and Bad company 2 test ended after 20min with the fan sounding like it was going to explode (do not play games so not a big deal)
3. unlike the MBP - 2 or 4 gigs of ram is irrelevant - once you really start multitasking in a workflow with this thing the 1.83 starts to show its limitation.
4. If you need to have Parallels open with Windows to test your last update in IE stick with your MBP (see above)
5. best thing is not the SSD but the screen - no glass and the 1440X900 on 13inches is amazing - nice colors and decent contrast.
6. I rather have the button on my mouse pad of the old Air, but that just me
7. If all you have is the MBP 13 2.4 with 4 gigs of ram and work for a living stay with it.
10. If you have a decent imac or macpro and do not really ever go on "vacation" because the "we have a problem, see attachment" email from work always shows up - get a MBA as a road companion
11. if you think that multitasking is having 8 tabs open on your browser and polishing your blog post on Word as you finish putting final touches on your iWeb site the new Air is for you
12. batteries do not last 7hrs - 4:10 was what we got on the first cycle run actually working on a project at the office, so we all still packing our HyperMac batts.
13. The Radtech Sleevz from the old Air does not fit it
14. It does feel lighter and the Power adaptor also is smaller and lighter
15. boot up and restart is very fast even after fully installed application package
16. flash videos play fine for what we saw - fan does kick in. At work so did not see many for a long time - not used that way so not a big deal for me
17. no backlit keyboard - never used it before anyway
We found no reason to replace our 1.83 RevB SSD Air - I traded my Rev A 1.6 for a 1.83/2gig/120 one yesterday (if you have that, go for it)
I did not get the 4 gig ram as I found even thou I can open more stuff the 1.83 would not keep up anyway and with an old 1.83 C2D Future proof this thing will never be.
it's a macbookPRO ... not a macbookBASIC or just a macbook.
which "portable" machine in apple's line-up should be more feature-packed?
Not just flash storage. If you go look at the full tables that outline the components of the SpeedTest score you'll see that not only are some of them disk I/O intensive ( duplicating a file) some are also GPU specific ( e.g., CineBench GPU , a game , etc. ). That's an area where the new 1.8GHz gains lots of ground on the "old" 1.8 GHz in final total score also. ***
For the components that are CPU oriented the MBP 13" one does.
*** That thread originating speculation that somehow Apple "unlocked" the CPU in the new 1.8 and that is making a difference. Chuckle, well perhaps after the new GPU and drive gets you speed boosts there is some minor CPU bump. Just look at the data in the article.
Still doesn't mean they need to include every weird feature nor that the machine is less polished because of that.
Most people that care about Pro hardware do actually care about the computing power .. not so much about connectivity .. your supposed to take it to your clients, the office, home .. not out in the park.
T.
It's not that powerful. That's a MacPro. It's portable, so i'm still beside myself that they add connectivity to an iPad but not to MBP/MBA. At least with the iPad, it's unlocked for most people (finally!)
Well it is still a mobile computer .. and if you consider a decent size (not 17" with a desktop processor and 2"+ thick) than Apples MBPs are not a bad deal between power and mobility.
I agree for the MBA .. that is build for mobility and could use an "always connected" feature build in.
I just took umbrage with the expression polished ....
T.
Man, can't wait to get mine, unfortunately, it seems to have gotten loss.
The last update on UPS' site is it arriving in Louiseville :
LOUISVILLE, KY, US 25/10/2010 3:06 ARRIVAL SCAN
Nothing since then.
The last update on UPS' site is it arriving in Louiseville :
LOUISVILLE, KY, US 25/10/2010 3:06 ARRIVAL SCAN
Nothing since then.
I think this is one reason why the new MBA models have a second USB socket. It is much easier now to stick in a USB Cellular Data modem now. You can still plug in one more device (thumb drive, keyboard , security fob , etc. ) if you need to also. One USB slot was too restrictive.
With a USB modem you can have 4G , 3.5G , 3.9G , for any carrier you want. if you still have MBA in two years and switch carrier or technology gets way better ... just buy new USB dongle and get better radio.
Yeah it is another think to buy and drag with you... but it isn't that big of a deal.
That is going to make it hard to secure these.
They do... it is called the MBP. I don't think Apple is going to drop the 13" , 15" , 17" pro models. They may drop optical out of them also (minimally to boost iTunes video sales ) , but I suspect Apple will keep the additional sockets ( Ethernet, FW ) and HDD in the larger models. Many people are buying laptop to replace a desktop computer ( perhaps not a high end desktop or workstation but entry level iMac like or Mac mini performance in smaller package can move easily. ). It doesn't make any sense to blow away the ability to store lots of data ( HDD ) or connect to faster storage and I/O devices ( FW ) . Less than a inch thick and under 5 lbs is still a thin and relatively light laptop. (relative to whole spectrum of laptops out there.)
The problem with this apparent semi-custom mSATA Flash card that they have for the new MBA is that limited to 4 flash chips. That is going to cap both memory capacity and write speeds. Apple could drop the optical from the MBP models and put in one of these small capacity cards but still keep the HDD space. It is a little heavier but you get to take all your data with you. For many pro users not going to be able to take all the data with you if have small capacity for storage.
There is no new MBP because they just recently got updated. Next Spring (around their 10-12 month ) age will get new ones. And they too will be "magical" , "spectacular" , blah , blah best laptops every done.
But it's "feature challenged" to have a $1599 laptop without a 3G *option* - something that the Dell Mini 10 has on an under $500 netbook.
Yeah the realisation that there is no lock slot was the first thing that made me think the new Air anything less than perfect.
