New MacBook Air Slower Than Older Model?

[johnqh]

You are angry with MacWorld because they did not give you the results you wanted. How do you know that the 1.8 wasn't running spotlight in the background and isn't even faster than the benchmark says it is?

First, I don't even own a MBA, so I don't care either way.

However, forget about comparing to previous generation. Look at the result of the 2009 1.86G vs 2.13G.

If you still think that test is valid, I can only say you have lost it.

When the test doesn't make sense, it is up to the tester to investigate and find out what's causing it. It could be anything (OS, spotlight, or maybe as you said, heat). MacWorld did not do that. That's where it is lacking comparing to the other tech sites.

So, all we have here are guesses (good or bad). That's not what a publication like MacWorld should do with their testing.

 

[MysterMac]

the macbook air looks very much to me like a product which isnt yet in its final state. As an original unibody Macbook owner I know - soon itll have a better battery, more ports and surely - a glass trackpad. (yes I know the Mb has the glass trackpad) I won't buy one yet, once bitten twice shy, apple.

 

[nick9191]

Are you an imbecile or do you just play one on the Internet?

It's not hypothetical, Apple does not have quad-cores in their highest end $4,000 laptops. There is no quad-core option. This is not theory. This is fact.

The fastest, top-of-the-line Mac "pro" portable has no quad CPU, when quads are obviously available, and have been for some time. Even the newest 17" portable has no quad.

This being the case, your assertion that they would put quads in the Mac Book Air is patently absurd on it's face.




Then why doesn't one, single, solitary Mac laptop have one?

The only Quad Core mobile chips on the market consume a lot of power. This means that current Quad Core laptops need to be ridiculously thick, run ridiculously hot, and have ridiculously poor battery life. Apple doesn't want this, Apple will wait until Q4 when better mobile chips come out.

 

[gkarris]

If that's the case, shouldn't SL speed things back up?

 

[Eidorian]

The only Quad Core mobile chips on the market consume a lot of power. This means that current Quad Core laptops need to be ridiculously thick, run ridiculously hot, and have ridiculously poor battery life. Apple doesn't want this, Apple will wait until Q4 when better mobile chips come out.

Tell me more.

 

[50548]

laptops need to be ridiculously thick, run ridiculously hot, and have ridiculously poor battery life.

These laptops are also known as Windows PCs...Alienwares even more so...

 

[daddywags214]

Also, it's worth mentioning that I bought mine refurb for $1000, which I thought to be good value for money. Not sure if I'd have paid $1500 for one new. I usually buy refurb laptops, anyway.

 

[Eidorian]

These laptops are also known as Windows PCs...Alienwares even more so...

Apple only cares about two numbers for their notebooks.

Clock speed and battery life. There isn't much of a reason to diversify the lines if they can't slap on one more clock speed multiplier or show how many hours you could get in the proper test conditions.

The "most powerful/fastest MacBook (Pro) yet" is just going to be a new dual core sliding into the same price point that the old one did just a minute before. Arrandale is going to create a mess with the drop in clock speeds and IGP issues. Not to mention how Intel is handling the new Core naming scheme in addition to figuring out clock speed comparisons.

 

[DELLsFan]

Form over function laptop.

Yes, exactly.

The Air is a second computer.

Highly portable for web browsing and MS Word types of usage. It's the closest Apple will get to the netbook form. I don't think anyone should expect to do any photo/video/audio editing on it!

Hopefully, it's not the closest they'll get. The MBA is a niche product designed for a niche market. There should be no illusions though - the Air is NOT a netbook.

You don't get it. With the air, form IS the function.

No he got it right. No one should expect the MBA to FUNCTION like other Macs.

Why? It's a Windows box.

Yes ... and Win 7 probably runs beautifully on the Adamo. I've brought a couple old clunker gray boxes back to life with the Release Candidate! It's what Vista should have been. Don't get me wrong now ... I love my iMac and OS X, but now I am a superstar with the family - breathing new life into their old Windows machines.

 

[nick9191]

Tell me more.

Arrandale (Core i3). Due in Q4, based on Nehalem. I'd say Q4 09 or Q1 10 we will see them in a Mac notebook. Not sure on clock speeds, Tallest Skill will fill you in.

The iMac on the other hand might get Clarksfield. These chips draw more power, but since it's thicker and has no battery to worry about, it's not such an issue. These are due in Q3 2009, but they have the downfall of low clock speeds (1.6- 2.0ghz). They would probably be kept as BTO, if introduced at all, since the low clock speeds would be marketing suicide, despite of course being much faster.

 

[Eidorian]

Arrandale (Core i3). Due in Q4, based on Nehalem. I'd say Q4 09 or Q1 10 we will see them in a notebook.

The iMac on the other hand might get Clarksfield. These chips draw more power, but since it's thicker and has no battery to worry about, it's not such an issue. These are due in Q3 2009, but they have the downfall of low clock speeds (1.6- 2.0ghz). Not sure on clock speeds for Arrandale, Tallest Skill will fill you in.

Arrandale isn't a quad core. Clarksfield does fall into the same 45-55W that the iMac can handle.

You also run into what the heck you're going to use for an IGP solution as well unless Apple wants to graciously return us to an all discrete graphics hardware line. It might surprise you what discussion does go on around here. You're still looking at Q1 2010.

 

[50548]

Apple only cares about two numbers for their notebooks.

Clock speed and battery life. There isn't much of a reason to diversify the lines if they can't slap on one more clock speed multiplier or show how many hours you could get in the proper test conditions.

The "most powerful/fastest MacBook (Pro) yet" is just going to be a new dual core sliding into the same price point that the old one did just a minute before. Arrandale is going to create a mess with the drop in clock speeds and IGP issues. Not to mention how Intel is handling the new Core naming scheme in addition to figuring out clock speed comparisons.

Proper test conditions? You mean Walt's statement that MBPs have the best battery life EVER to grace a notebook of that size?

 

[Eidorian]

Proper test conditions? You mean Walt's statement that MBPs have the best battery life EVER to grace a notebook of that size?

Under the test conditions.

 

[nick9191]

Arrandale isn't a quad core. Clarksfield does fall into the same 45-55W that the iMac can handle.

You also run into what the heck you're going to use for an IGP solution as well unless Apple wants to graciously return us to an all discrete graphics hardware line. It might surprise you what discussion does go on around here. You're still looking at Q1 2010.

Fair enough. Although I hear the baseline Clarksfield is 35w, meaning we could see it as BTO for the MacBook Pro. If not then we'll be waiting for Sandy Bridge in 2010.

 

[djellison]

It boot up almost twice as fast as my early 2009 MacBook 13", and definitely WAY faster than my early 2008 MBAir.

Your MBAir has the HDD not a SDD, right? Boot up times are massively improved with SSD's - and you can bet your ass the ones in the shop are top spec, with SSD's.

 

[Eidorian]

Fair enough. Although I hear the baseline Clarksfield is 35w, meaning we could see it as BTO for the MacBook Pro. If not then we'll be waiting for Sandy Bridge in 2010.

It will be a surprise to see what Apple does finally turn out for Arrandale/Clarksfield.

For the lower wattage Clarksfield procesors you're going to be sacrificing hyperthreading, clock speed, PCI-Express speeds, and the supported memory controller speeds to meet those requirements. Then again you don't have to deal with a northbridge to cool.

Plenty of things are up in the air with DMI taking over on the PCI-Express controller hopping onto the processor. I'd like to see what solutions other vendors have before I make any more predictions.

 

[bigdaddyp]

Yes but

I must say, however, with the SSD, it is faster than my MBP, even with illustrator. Plays 1080p perfectly, don't get the rainbow cursor in illustrator. Just amazing speed.

Perhaps for RAW editing you need a MBP, but otherwise (iLife, iWork, Mac:Office, 1080, iTunes) I find the Air more than satisfying.

Can it play stuff from hulu without stuttering? Dang flash anyways.

 

[Victor Odin]

I think Apple is FAR more wrapped up in it's MP3 players to give much thought to bringing these new platforms to the computer hardware.

At this point, computers are Apple's second (or even third) tier concern after iPod's and iPhone's.

The latest iMac "upgrade" was kind of silly.

Dedicated graphics to on-board graphics in the middle. Sweet!

Unless you get the 4850 or stick 8Gb of RAM into your machine, there was really no point to any of it.

Perhaps Snow Leapord will take advantage of the "new" machines, but I wouldn't count on Apple putting all of this new tech to work as soon as it is released.

I had a quad core Dell at 2.93Ghz and an 8800GTX two years ago. I hated Windows, but the hardware was still better than what you could get from Apple in early 2009.

In many ways, it still crushes every Apple that doesn't have an ATI 48xx.

Apple is not about pushing the speed envelope. It's about software and looking pretty.

OS X is great, but I don't think they are stressing over hardware.

 

[winterspan]

So close to buying one, but this puts me off...why upgrade it, just to say you did?

I still have my doubts this will playback 720p mkv video without stutters.

MKV is only a container, it is not a codec. Considering the MB Air now has the nVidia 9400 chipset, it should play HD content just fine if you are using a codec that gets offloaded to the GPU like H264. Similar, a 1.6Ghz Core 2 Duo should be able to play regular MPEG-2 and DiVX video @ 720P as well. I'm sure there are millions of tests if you google...

 

[Eidorian]

MKV is only a container, it is not a codec. Considering the MB Air now has the nVidia 9400 chipset, it should play HD content just fine if you are using a codec that gets offloaded to the GPU like H264. Similar, a 1.6Ghz Core 2 Duo should be able to play regular MPEG-2 and DiVX video @ 720P as well. I'm sure there are millions of tests if you google...

Now if we could get hardware acceleration for h.264 in a MKV container in OS X.

Hell hardware accelerated DVD playback would be a nice start.

 

[gGGg]

Maybe the problem is caused by the excessive heat of the new MacBook Air, as others have said, but I think it is probaly not MacBook Air's fault: it's SUMMER's fault. The MacBook Air Rev B was introduced in October (cold) while the new one in June (hot). If macworld dind't repeat the tests for the old MacBook Air, the new one probably underclocked itself (even the first macbook air disabled a core when temperature was too hot) to avoid overheating
Just a theory

 

[50548]

Maybe the problem is caused by the excessive heat of the new MacBook Air, as others have said, but I think it is probaly not MacBook Air's fault: it's SUMMER's fault. The MacBook Air Rev B was introduced in October (cold) while the new one in June (hot). If macworld dind't repeat the tests for the old MacBook Air, the new one probably underclocked itself (even the first macbook air disabled a core when temperature was too hot) to avoid overheating
Just a theory

I would assume MW does its tests under the SAME environmental conditions...

 

[Victor Odin]

Maybe the problem is caused by the excessive heat of the new MacBook Air, as others have said, but I think it is probaly not MacBook Air's fault: it's SUMMER's fault.

Somebody please shoot me.

I want to tender my resignation from the human species.

 

[Victor Odin]

I am hereby taking up a collection to help buy air conditioning for MacWorld's San Francisco office.

It's the end of June, and the high is going to be a whopping 65 degrees in the Bay Area today, and I don't want to see mother nature further sabotaging Apple in this manner.

The guy does have a point, though. I think Autumn may have been the cause of the 4850/wi-fi lockups in the new iMacs. Ever since Steve Jobs started calling it "fall", that season has had it out for Apple.

 

[Eidorian]

I am hereby taking up a collection to help buy air conditioning for MacWorld's San Francisco office.

It's the end of June, and the high is going to be a whopping 65 degrees in the Bay Area today, and I don't want to see mother nature further sabotaging Apple in this manner.

You would hope that they would have mastered interior climate control at MacWorld's office by now.