No offense, but 11 inch has too many compromises.

[ReallyBigFeet]

you might have to I dont

the available battery meets my days worth of work requirements, the storage space meets my requirements with 30 gig to spare

I average 25 to 35 percent CPU loading on its daily tasks, all the higher spec processors would offer is more idle time

Might as well dig out a 17"MBP I'm sure by time you factored in an external monitor and a portable hard disk the 13" would start to get a bit bulky in comparison. And it would still be slower.

I think its pretty obvious which one of us is working and which one of us is playing with theirs.....

 

[dmelgar]

you might have to I dont

the available battery meets my days worth of work requirements with no need for me to carry a PSU. At most I'll have a notebook powered up for four or five hours during the day the remainder of the time Im carrying them around the sites Im visiting.

The storage space meets my requirements with 30 gig to spare, larger drive is just more spare space.

Likewise I average 25 to 35 percent CPU loading on its daily tasks, all the higher spec processors would offer is more idle time

Wether you consider both to be the same for hand carry, I dont. My response was based on what I know works for me and what Ive long found doesn't.

1 Kilo notebooks I've always been happy to hand carry all day

Heavier notebooks I find myself sticking in a backpack after a few days, then getting fed up with the hassle of lugging that around. Pretty soon after that I start leaving em sitting at home (relying on whatever the sites I'm visiting have got to offer instead).

Past experience tells me that for me personally the 13 MBA would go the same way.

As for Apples to Apples you might as well dig out a 17"MBP I'm sure by time you factored in an external monitor and a portable hard disk the 13" would start to get a bit bulky in comparison. And it would still be slower.

Agreed.
The 11 is significantly more portable. To me its not so much the weight as the footprint. It's easier to carry it around with you in more places than you'd consider taking the 13.

Battery life with the 11 is excellent. I got as much as 9 hours with light surfing, editing. Most folks don't purposely take their laptops away from power for an 11 hours day while hoping to be productive. For shorter times away from power, the battery does well. Load either one up keeping the CPU maxed out and both get poor battery life.

 

[foiden]

How in the world did you manage to get anywhere close to 9 hours out of a MBA 11 even doing light surfing? Did it spend most of its time sleeping? Just curious. I do notice that plenty of the tests I've seen, for battery life runs, work with 50% brightness.

 

[snorkelman]

I think its pretty obvious which one of us is working and which one of us is playing with theirs.....

My job doesnt involve me constantly sat in front of a computer, it requires me to travel from site to site ensuring the kit we've installed is working to the clients requirements. Its only when it doesnt, or they need additional kit configured, that I need to reach for the PC.

 

[dmelgar]

How in the world did you manage to get anywhere close to 9 hours out of a MBA 11 even doing light surfing? Did it spend most of its time sleeping? Just curious. I do notice that plenty of the tests I've seen, for battery life runs, work with 50% brightness.

The 11 has a tiny battery. Apple has come up with a design which can be extremely efficient on power. The end result is that if you minimize power consumption on the machine you get awesome battery life. If you stress it, the small battery capacity really shows and battery life drops like a rock.

In my case in was in a conference where I didn't want other people to see my screen. I think the screen on the 11 is amazingly bright. 50% on it seems extremely bright. I had it set at minimum display brightness. For part of the time I may have had wifi turned off until I realized there was wifi i could use. The 9 hours was awake time.

On the other had, max out the CPU running a video compression, or playing high def flash video with brightness turned up and you can easy go through a charge in under 2 hours.

 

[Abyssgh0st]

How in the world did you manage to get anywhere close to 9 hours out of a MBA 11 even doing light surfing? Did it spend most of its time sleeping? Just curious. I do notice that plenty of the tests I've seen, for battery life runs, work with 50% brightness.

Last week I got over 7.5 hours of browsing (Chrome), Word 2011, and Mail. At that point it had 20% of battery life left (1 hour and 39 minutes). I use brightness at 1 dot and I find it very easy to see anything over 5 brightness hurts my eyes.

 

[celo48]

Then don't buy it.

 

[a2applegirl]

My 11.6" air fits in my purse even with a padded sleeve on it. (Granted, its a big purse but still....) For me that is a game changer. I can now always have cs5 with me, and always have convenient web browsing with me. (Although I love my iphone, I never have found web browsing to be convenient on it.)

I am getting way more creative work done because I have this cool little machine with me at all times that can capture my thoughts, show me my photos, allow me to communicate in a myriad of ways with others, etc...

I never was this productive with my older (long gone) rev a air. The i/o bottleneck and super slow pata hard drive on that thing made it impossible to do much of anything.

 

[foiden]

Last week I got over 7.5 hours of browsing (Chrome), Word 2011, and Mail. At that point it had 20% of battery life left (1 hour and 39 minutes). I use brightness at 1 dot and I find it very easy to see anything over 5 brightness hurts my eyes.

I tend to 1 dot my MBP, but that's also because I use it indoors a lot, without a lot of light hitting it. The sun is the main thing that makes me push the brightness up, but it depends on how much sun, a location I sit at, gets.

It's nice to see that kind of performance with browsing at that brightness level. I get a little less than that doing something similar with my MBP 13" late 2009 model. Now given that I have a 7200RPM drive in there. If the brightness of the MBA 11" is technically the same as my MBP at the same setting, I think i'll get a decent battery run off of it since brightness does make a big difference.

 

[bcaslis]

...
The 11" isn't any more portable once you try to make them, well, Apples to Apples.

Why on earth do you have to make them Apples to Apples? Who said that YOU have to have the 11"? Why do you imply those with an 11" need a 13"?

I don't carry a hard drive because I've worked it so that when mobile I only need what fits on the flash. When home or work I can get to resources on the network. And the 13" isn't some huge data device. I can't fit my media library on either so why would the 13" be an advantage? It has more room but not enough to make a significant difference.

You've said many times that the power supply makes them equal in size. That's complete B.S.

1.) There's never any situation where the battery difference between the two is enough that I have to take the power supply for one or the other. I can drain the 13" battery close enough to the 11" when playing videos or other tasks that it doesn't matter. If it's for a short time I don't need the power supply for either or I need to take the power supply for both.

2.) You still act like you don't get the difference in width and depth, but I know you must since you have one. I can carry the 11" in an iPad bag. I can't carry the 13" in a bag anywhere near as small. This is a big deal at least to me. If you don't care, great. But stop pretending that the 11" has no size difference. It does.

3.) Lastly, all these points against the 11" are just some weird kind of justification. I could use the same points against the 13" versus say a 17" MBP. It's just silly. If the 13" is best for you that's fine. But nobody is trying to convince you to change to the 11". So stop treating the 11" as some sort of a retarded version of the 13". It's advantage is size, pure and simple. If that doesn't matter to you, great. But then why don't you just use a 17" MBP all the time?

 

[Shizzam]

First, Hackintoshes make my eyes glaze over. If you want to want to resort fo nerdy kludges to make a PC run OS X for you, best of luck. I went the other way. On my new 13 inch Ultimate MBA I run Windows 7 in VMware Fusion's Unity mode with a couple of Windows apps open on the OS X desktop all the time. Simultaneously I have at least 6 OS X apps open and running. The necessity of doing a reboot every time I change from running a Windows app to running an OS X app is of no interest to me.

Your claim that "the new 13" [MBA] models are still the same pretty ["pretty much the same?"] as the previous models except for a slightly better graphics processor," to put it gracefully, is not supported by the facts. In addition to better graphics the new 13 inch MBA (1) can have 4GB of RAM, not just 2GB, which the old MBA was limited to; (2) 256GB of flash storage are available on the new MBA but the old one was limited to a 128GB SSD; (3) the new 13 inch MBA is dramatically faster than the old one. The executive summary to all of this is that it costs a little more to go first class. Think about it.

ok, so I downgraded the new Macbook Air a little more then was fair. But I know what Apple is capable of and they could have done a much better job then they did with the new Macbook Air lineup. I wasn't expecting much better but just a little better for what they are charging there customers. After all its not like there products are made here in the U.S. which would explain the added premium, no there made in china by some china man. And like I said before I own a Black Macbook 2.4ghz 4GB RAM 250GB HD, Mac Mini 2.26 4GB RAM 160GB HD and a G4 Powermac 1ghz 1gb RAM Quicksilver silver door computer. So its not like I am a Mac hater or anything. I just did the Hackintosh computers for something to do as a project and learning tool. Its in no way something I would suggest as a replacement for a real Mac.

 

[potentpotable]

I made a few compromises with my 11" compared to my old "ultraportable" notebook, forgoing important things such as:

-Aching shoulders
-Burnt thighs
-Jet-engine fan
-Appreciating the virtue of patience while I wait ten years for a movie file to copy
-Windows

Unfortunately, I'm now severely crippled with a Mac that I can carry anywhere and use efficiently thanks to blazingly fast speeds - without needing to lug along my power cord, might I add.

 

[MikePA]

Why on earth do you have to make them Apples to Apples? Who said that YOU have to have the 11"? Why do you imply those with an 11" need a 13"?

Don't waste time with long replies. People like the OP and RBF think they are the only wise ones and believe their posts should be treated like encyclicals from Rome, albeit seasoned with sarcasm and arrogance.

 

[Fraaaa]

But, 300 dollars difference is not just for screen and those features you mentioned.

MBA 11 inch ultimate can go pretty close to how much 13 inch costs.

It's true it can get there, but doesn't have to.

For some people an 11" is preatty much enough to do some stuff, such as quick browsing, typing notes and other simple things.

The 11" is roughly the same format of the iPad, and a lot of people are happy with it.

I would like one for 'Java on the go' use, but I got the 13" because it replaced my main MacBook, otherwise I would have got that as my secondary laptop.

Not all people care of cpu speed, not all people need that for their use. Not all people need an SD card in-built and not of all of them need more than 64GB of storage(same as the iPad).

Don't try to justify it on your point of view, not all people think the same as you.

 

[Fraaaa]

(..)

-Jet-engine fan

(...)

Don't worry about the fan. The shouting, the bombs and shooting of COD4 cover the noise.

 

[dmelgar]

I tend to 1 dot my MBP, but that's also because I use it indoors a lot, without a lot of light hitting it. The sun is the main thing that makes me push the brightness up, but it depends on how much sun, a location I sit at, gets.

It's nice to see that kind of performance with browsing at that brightness level. I get a little less than that doing something similar with my MBP 13" late 2009 model. Now given that I have a 7200RPM drive in there. If the brightness of the MBA 11" is technically the same as my MBP at the same setting, I think i'll get a decent battery run off of it since brightness does make a big difference.

I'm POed at my 13" MBP mid 2009. Battery life has never been great. Coconut battery reports it's about 80% of original capacity. I tend to have to turn the brightness up much more than the MBA. I can only get maybe 4-5 hours max from my MBP, no where near the 9 hours with the 11" MBA.

 

[ukpetey]

I made a few compromises with my 11" compared to my old "ultraportable" notebook, forgoing important things such as:

-Aching shoulders
-Burnt thighs
-Jet-engine fan
-Appreciating the virtue of patience while I wait ten years for a movie file to copy
-Windows

Unfortunately, I'm now severely crippled with a Mac that I can carry anywhere and use efficiently thanks to blazingly fast speeds - without needing to lug along my power cord, might I add.

Brilliant!!

 

[a2applegirl]

I have not had to bring my power cord for my 11.6" air once. (except on the plane when it was with the rest of my luggage.)

To be able to carry around a light and portable computer that has a keyboard (unlike my now sold ipad), uses a full featured browser, and can run all my desktop apps, is really making me more productive, and is definitely making me happy.

 

[jaysire]

Another thing I always wonder about, when people say the 11" is too small. I've never (in 10 years) used a laptop with just the internal screen. I always hook it up to something big (right now I have one set of 24" LCD + bluetooth keyboard and mouse at home and another at work). If the screen is too small, then just hook it up to something that costs a fraction of what the computer itself does. Seems like a no-brainer.

I doubt most of us are doing a lot of work away from an office- or home desk. I go to my fair share of meetings, but that is probably no more than three meetings of three hours every week. I know some people travel a lot, but that can't be the norm, can it? And let's face it, most of our meetings aren't real work

So, perhaps naively, I always just disregard any thoughts about the 11" screen being too small, or the keyboard too cramped. I just need it to be a lightweight central unit for having all my stuff on. And I would lie if I didn't admit I wanted it to look sexy as well. Mission accomplished.

 

[dmelgar]

Another thing I always wonder about, when people say the 11" is too small. I've never (in 10 years) used a laptop with just the internal screen. I always hook it up to something big (right now I have one set of 24" LCD + bluetooth keyboard and mouse at home and another at work). If the screen is too small, then just hook it up to something that costs a fraction of what the computer itself does. Seems like a no-brainer.

I doubt most of us are doing a lot of work away from an office- or home desk. I go to my fair share of meetings, but that is probably no more than three meetings of three hours every week. I know some people travel a lot, but that can't be the norm, can it? And let's face it, most of our meetings aren't real work

So, perhaps naively, I always just disregard any thoughts about the 11" screen being too small, or the keyboard too cramped. I just need it to be a lightweight central unit for having all my stuff on. And I would lie if I didn't admit I wanted it to look sexy as well. Mission accomplished.

Depends on how you work. As an independent developer, i work from home and cafes. It is very nice to be able to work wherever, on the deck, in a cafe, at a clients office. Paradoxically, the smaller size of the 11" makes it more conducive to being used away from the desk. And yes, the screen size can be a challenge.

 

[gwsat]

ok, so I downgraded the new Macbook Air a little more then was fair. But I know what Apple is capable of and they could have done a much better job then they did with the new Macbook Air lineup. I wasn't expecting much better but just a little better for what they are charging there customers. After all its not like there products are made here in the U.S. which would explain the added premium, no there made in china by some china man. And like I said before I own a Black Macbook 2.4ghz 4GB RAM 250GB HD, Mac Mini 2.26 4GB RAM 160GB HD and a G4 Powermac 1ghz 1gb RAM Quicksilver silver door computer. So its not like I am a Mac hater or anything. I just did the Hackintosh computers for something to do as a project and learning tool. Its in no way something I would suggest as a replacement for a real Mac.

OK, fair enough, I understand where you were coming from.

With respect to the new MBAs just look at their benchmark test scores compared to other Macbooks. Only the 15 inch and larger models, which weigh twice as much or more, are faster. Also, consider the MBAs in light of Apple's motto, "It just works." The MBAs do just work. My 13 inch Ultimate does everything I had to put 6GB of RAM into my old MBP to do and does it with just as much speed and stability. The 11 inch models will perform essentially the same.

I have owned Mac laptops for 8 years and the new 13 inch Ultimate MBA is the best of the bunch. Don't worry about the C2D processor. The compromise Apple accepted with it allowed it to incorporate the outstanding NVIDIA 320M integrated GPU in the MBAs. Had Apple gone with an i series CPU, though, it would have been stuck with the particularly weak integrated GPU Intel builds in to its i series chips.

Finally, I do not consider the 13 inch Ultimate MBA's $1,799.00 price tag excessive. In fact, I paid far less for my new MBA that I paid for my old MBP 3 years ago, although the MBA has twice as much RAM and 50% more storage. I think the $999.00 entry level 11 inch MBA is a bargain, a real iPad killer. If I had had a choice between it and an iPad when I bought my iPad, I would have bought the $999.00 MBA, instead.

 

[n1tut]

Thanks Pete, it will be here on Tuesday but of course I have to wait till Xmas to use it.

tut

 

[ReallyBigFeet]

I have not had to bring my power cord for my 11.6" air once. (except on the plane when it was with the rest of my luggage.)

To be able to carry around a light and portable computer that has a keyboard (unlike my now sold ipad), uses a full featured browser, and can run all my desktop apps, is really making me more productive, and is definitely making me happy.

Absolutely zero argument from me that the 11" MBA netbook is WORLDS better than the iPad for doing any serious typing. If it had been out at the time and the 13" MBA wasn't available, I'd likely have gone that direction versus the iPad. I've since found some remarkably innovative uses for the iPad since then, but that's a different issue.

But I'm already having to make all sorts of compromises with the 11" already...now I need to either "not use it constantly" or something ridiculous like use it with the brightness set on 1 all day just to get a full days' use out of it? That may be OK for some but its not for me. If I wanted a dim, scrunched screen I'd just grab my Dell Mini.

Lets not denigrate the user experience of the 11" any further by adding in even more compromises please.

2.) You still act like you don't get the difference in width and depth, but I know you must since you have one. I can carry the 11" in an iPad bag. I can't carry the 13" in a bag anywhere near as small. This is a big deal at least to me. If you don't care, great. But stop pretending that the 11" has no size difference. It does.

You carry an "iPad bag?" Is that a murse of some kind? I carried my iPad inside a Yoobao leather folder thing...looks like a Padfolio. I carry my 13" MBA in a color matching leather Padfolio so that it matches when I sit down in front of a client. I carry both inside a padded compartment of a Briggs and Riley backpack when I'm traveling but thats because I enjoy having both hands free when dashing between flights or on the job site when I don't want to set something down. I also carry a change of clothes in there, a shaving kit, and other personal effects. But the 11" netbook model fits inside the SAME Padfolio as the 13" model, just with 1" more to spare. So again, I "get" the difference because it's ONLY 1 inch.

Why are you so insistent that 1" is a HUGE difference? Is it because you really have a deep seated need to recycle your iPad murse or is there something more personal involved in the comparison here?

 

[miggitymac]

Absolutely zero argument from me that the 11" MBA netbook is WORLDS better than the iPad for doing any serious typing. If it had been out at the time and the 13" MBA wasn't available, I'd likely have gone that direction versus the iPad. I've since found some remarkably innovative uses for the iPad since then, but that's a different issue.

But I'm already having to make all sorts of compromises with the 11" already...now I need to either "not use it constantly" or something ridiculous like use it with the brightness set on 1 all day just to get a full days' use out of it? That may be OK for some but its not for me. If I wanted a dim, scrunched screen I'd just grab my Dell Mini.

Lets not denigrate the user experience of the 11" any further by adding in even more compromises please.



You carry an "iPad bag?" Is that a murse of some kind? I carried my iPad inside a Yoobao leather folder thing...looks like a Padfolio. I carry my 13" MBA in a color matching leather Padfolio so that it matches when I sit down in front of a client. I carry both inside a padded compartment of a Briggs and Riley backpack when I'm traveling but thats because I enjoy having both hands free when dashing between flights or on the job site when I don't want to set something down. I also carry a change of clothes in there, a shaving kit, and other personal effects. But the 11" netbook model fits inside the SAME Padfolio as the 13" model, just with 1" more to spare. So again, I "get" the difference because it's ONLY 1 inch.

Why are you so insistent that 1" is a HUGE difference? Is it because you really have a deep seated need to recycle your iPad murse or is there something more personal involved in the comparison here?

Actually, it's not 1"...if you want to be technical, the 13" model has a footprint of 12.8" x 8.94" = 114.43 square inches. Meanwhile, the 11" model is 89.21 square inches. So, the difference is 25.22 square inches. Pretty big difference if you ask me.

My 2 cents on the rest of the thread..some people can get away with the 11" model. Probably the same people who could get away with using netbooks for their needs. The 13" model is for people who need a bit more...a bit more battery, a bit more power, a bit more storage, a bit more screen, a bit more adaptability (i.e. the SD card adaptor), etc...

I don't see why there's this huge debate over 11" v. 13". It's like the 15" MBP v. 17" MBP...some people love the power of the 17" and don't mind lugging it around, whereas others (myself included) would choose the cheaper and smaller 15" because I don't need all the power of the 17". People have different needs/wants...to each their own.

 

[a2applegirl]

Absolutely zero argument from me that the 11" MBA netbook is WORLDS better than the iPad for doing any serious typing. If it had been out at the time and the 13" MBA wasn't available, I'd likely have gone that direction versus the iPad. I've since found some remarkably innovative uses for the iPad since then, but that's a different issue.

But I'm already having to make all sorts of compromises with the 11" already...now I need to either "not use it constantly" or something ridiculous like use it with the brightness set on 1 all day just to get a full days' use out of it? That may be OK for some but its not for me. If I wanted a dim, scrunched screen I'd just grab my Dell Mini.

Lets not denigrate the user experience of the 11" any further by adding in even more compromises please.



You carry an "iPad bag?" Is that a murse of some kind? I carried my iPad inside a Yoobao leather folder thing...looks like a Padfolio. I carry my 13" MBA in a color matching leather Padfolio so that it matches when I sit down in front of a client. I carry both inside a padded compartment of a Briggs and Riley backpack when I'm traveling but thats because I enjoy having both hands free when dashing between flights or on the job site when I don't want to set something down. I also carry a change of clothes in there, a shaving kit, and other personal effects. But the 11" netbook model fits inside the SAME Padfolio as the 13" model, just with 1" more to spare. So again, I "get" the difference because it's ONLY 1 inch.

Why are you so insistent that 1" is a HUGE difference? Is it because you really have a deep seated need to recycle your iPad murse or is there something more personal involved in the comparison here?

Well for me, the 1" difference means that I can fit it in my purse. That may not seem like a big deal, but having one bag to carry is awesome. Also, I am a petite woman (5'2" with small hands, and a small lap to sit my laptop in if there isn't a table handy) so the proportions of the 11.6" are not a compromise for me. I can see why a man would find them a compromise though.