Hi All,
First post! I thought I'd share my experience. I am new to OS X since I bought my maxed out 27in iMac [toshiba 256GB ssd

] I purchased the 13in the day they came out in Arizona. I initially was going into it determined to get the 11in, but when I was in the store I thought it was too small. I was very satisfied with the 13in. samsung drive and display/128BG/1.7GHz/4GB but was turned on to the 11.6" from my friend who loves is 11.6" netbook. He's a pilot and suggested I should try it out. I went into the store and exchanged it for the 11.6"/128GB/1.6GHz. I couldn't be more happier. I love Lion on it and the screen size with the full screen apps and smart zoom is just wonderful. I told the sales rep into it that I would not be happy if I didn't get the faster Samsung drive and would return it if I didn't get it... so after I purchased it we opened it up and I had the Samsung drive and display. Everything is great and I have no complaints. It's plays 1080p mkv files flawlessly. At first I was worried about the smart zoom on a Facebook picture as it was laggy when I zoomed in and was scrolling around it viewing different parts of the image, but the next day I tried a high res photo off the net 1600p and it was just fine. I was reading macrumors constantly and stressed about not getting the Samsung drive for about 4 hours all over nothing! If you're trying to decide, the 1.6GHz/4GB/128GB 11" model is the winner!! I was concerned about the resolution as text looks a bit pixelated, but either I'm used to it or I was just trying to pick out something wrong with it. Anyways, this kills my friends netbook with an AMD, YES AMD processor that he paid $300 for LOL. Someone on here also turned me on to the 11" as they said, the 13in is just a thin laptop and the 11" is a truly mobile laptop. Go with the 11.6" especially if it is a secondary device or "toy." Battery life says about 5hrs with one notch on the backlight and 5 notches the display brightness with a few tabs in safari open and a XP VM in Fusion (I know-but I need 2 programs from windows that I'm simply used to).
Ask any questions you all would like!
-Law
Great to hear you're so happy with the 11in MBA. I also got the 11in (although I didn't get the 13in first - I knew I wanted the 11in) and I'm also brand new to Mac OS X, with the MBA being my very first mac. I initially bought the i5 model (with 4GB RAM and 128GB SSD - same as yours, it seems) but ended up exchanging for the 1.8GHz i7 and 256GB SSD (I mostly got the larger SSD as that was the only one they stocked in the retail store with the i7 and I didn't want to order online). The first one had a Samsung SSD, but my new i7 has the Toshiba. Now, looking more closely at the results of Anand's testing, I am a bit disappointed in this. If it was a slight difference, say, ~10% or so, I really wouldn't be worried, but the difference is enormous. I'm just not sure if this translates to actual benefits for the user in terms of more speed. As a separate issue, I also can't help but think that the 'gradient effect' at the very bottom of the screen that I have seen mentioned often is somewhat worse on this one than it was on the i5 - I really didn't notice it on the i5 unless I looked for it, but it is quite obvious on the new i7. The overall quality of the display just doesn't seem quite as good, either. It's not awful at all, but it really doesn't look as good to me, either.
Anyway, I'm wondering how they reacted when you told them you only wanted the Samsung SSD. Were they completely fine with that, or were they not so happy about it? Did it seem like they might have made a fuss if you hadn't been lucky with the Samsung SSD and wanted to exchange? Especially since I have already made one exchange, I really don't want to become "one of
those customers". Although, the first exchange was quite different since it was for a different model, and I had to pay $500 additional for it, so it wasn't really all that bad.
Also, does anyone know how the 14 day return / exchange works if you make an exchange? I mean, if you exchange something within that 14 days, does the 14 days start again from the date of the exchange, so you can then exchange or return that item within 14 days from the exchange, or do you still only have the 14 days from the date of the original purchase? When I made the exchange, I was given a new receipt (which also listed a couple of additional purchases made at the time of the exchange) and that new receipt lists a new return date of Aug 16, 2011 - 14 days after the date of the exchange. I wonder, though, if they will say something like it only says that because their system treats it like a new purchase, but you still only have the original 14 days. I'm still well within the 14 days from the original purchase - that expires next Wednesday, Aug 10. I'm just wondering if I really need to do it sooner rather than later, if I decide to do it, as well as just being curious.