The Macbook Air - the gold standard for all laptops

[Meister]

There a few reasons I didn't get the rMB: I needed the beefier processor on the Air, I've used those new keyboards and detest them, and the price is outrageous for a machine with low power, less than optimal battery for the size, and one stupid port that requires $$$ to patch into my current setup? I love the portability of it, but there's so many irksome qualities about it I'd never buy one. I love the portability, but $1500 for a laptop with several detractions and not much to recommend it (for my use) is just nuts... to me.

...plus that non-glowing Apple logo really irks me. It's just a little light that glows and I never see it, but it irritates me they don't glow anymore. I really hope Apple doesn't plan on making them all like that.



The price difference is actually greater than you seem to have led yourself to believe...

Once you negate the huge performance boost due to the display, and once you negate the display anyway because OMG WOW CAN'T BELIEVE IT not everyone needs or wants Retina, you have a laptop that costs at least $200 more, has at least two hours less battery life, and doesn't offer a huge boost in speed.

You're trying to be pedantic, but because you haven't done your research, it just looks argumentative.

The price difference in germany is a jawdropping €600.

I think the rMB is a beautiful and innovative little laptop, but as an allround machine the air is still miles ahead.

 

[dmitrivich]

This whole thread is fascinating. I find it particularly interesting that the single negative always come back to the display. There is still a large population out there (myself included), who doesn't see a difference looking at a retina screen and a nonretina screen. (My mother and I played that game when I had the iPad 2 and she got the 3 with retina...neither of us could see the difference.)

If you don't edit photos, and your idea of an audience is sharing photos on Facebook, retina is not such a big thing. Are the majority of business users (those who travel with their computers), doing things that require the r screen? Probably not. They are doing email, Word, spreadsheets, etc.

Personally, I find retina displays to be less noticeable for photo/video work and more noticeable for e-mail, Word, etc. Lower resolution is far more noticeable for text than images, because pixellation is more noticeable when you have straight lines on a high-contrast background.

 

[organic bond]

The MBA has better battery life, is cheaper and is lighter. The MBA nails price, portability, power and battery life in the one package. No other Apple laptop does that.

Exactly!

 

[organic bond]

The price difference in germany is a jawdropping €600.

I think the rMB is a beautiful and innovative little laptop, but as an allround machine the air is still miles ahead.

Absolutely!

 

[organic bond]

Well i do notice the difference in battery life and also the weight along with many people, those points plus the better price makes the MBA the better all round laptop imo. Too many people on these forums feel the need to defend their purchases.

Totally agree!

 

[newellj]

Too many people on these forums feel the need to defend their purchases.

You are completely right.

 

[newellj]

What does much crisper even mean lol?

I think that's the part of my refrigerator that makes my lettuce look better.

Boy anyone posting on this thread for buying an MBA better come prepared for some pretty condescending replies.

MR is like a circular firing squad. I actually think that there are no bad choices in the Apple notebook line, although I have some doubts about the 4/128 models personally.

 

[JBat]

Why do you say that? If you have specific criteria that the MBA is better at, go for it.

But for most people, unless you're going for the base model (which is a questionable choice in 2015 due to the 4 GB and only 128 GB flash being quite limiting), the value just isn't there any more. Once you bump the spec in any way, the cost difference to a pro is very small, and the weght/battery life differences aren't huge. The screen, however IS a massive improvement.

As I said, if the base model had 8 GB of RAM at the same cost, i'd be a lot less down on it. But it doesn't...


edit:
The 11" machine is a different story. That has a bit more of a purpose and fills a niche. The 13" Air though...

Why does someone say that? How about because this thread is full of your condescending posts. Yeah? Just because something works for you does not mean everyone else has your same criteria. 4 GB of RAM is nuts? Really? Drama queen much? The MBA is not the dog you're making it out to be. There's plenty of users here that will back that up.

 

[Meister]

I think that's the part of my refrigerator that makes my lettuce look better.


MR is like a circular firing squad. I actually think that there are no bad choices in the Apple notebook line, although I have some doubts about the 4/128 models personally.

Have you actually ever used the base model?

Unless your only criteria is weight (in which case the MBA loses out to the Macbook anyway) or absolute minimum cost for a portable OS X machine, I just don't know why you'd buy an MBA in 2015. The specs just aren't good enough any more for what you pay. If the base model had 8 GB of RAM in it expandable to 16 GB it might be a contender, but putting 4 GB in a machine in 2015 is just nuts.

Unless you are refering to macadamias or walnuts, I'd love to hear your explanation why you think that is nuts.

(Trivia: Microsoft is selling its surface with 2gb, running ****ing windows!)

 

[Melrose]

I actually think that there are no bad choices in the Apple notebook line, although I have some doubts about the 4/128 models personally.

I agree with you here. I'm sure it's a fine laptop, but 4GB in this day and age just seems low to me.

The 128 I can almost understand, given how more and more people are using cloud services.

 

[torana355]

I agree with you here. I'm sure it's a fine laptop, but 4GB in this day and age just seems low to me.

The 128 I can almost understand, given how more and more people are using cloud services.

Im still using my 2011 MBA with 128gb SSD and 4gb of ram and it runs like a dream, the ONLY reason im looking to upgrade is the poor battery life on the 2011 model. My music and movies are all in the cloud via Google play music and Netflix so i have no need for a 512gb SSD and 4GB of ram is more then enough for what i use the laptop for, 8gb of ram is a waste of money unless you are doing some serious Video/photo editing or running multiple VM's. Especially with PCIE SSD's that minimise the impact of page outs.

 

[Melrose]

Im still using my 2011 MBA with 128gb SSD and 4gb of ram and it runs like a dream, the ONLY reason im looking to upgrade is the poor battery life on the 2011 model. My music and movies are all in the cloud via Google play music and Netflix so i have no need for a 512gb SSD and 4GB of ram is more then enough for what i use the laptop for, 8gb of ram is a waste of money unless you are doing some serious Video/photo editing or running multiple VM's. Especially with PCIE SSD's that minimise the impact of page outs.

I run mine off either the cloud or an attached drive. I mean, I can use pretty much as much space as I have (it's like money, we have tendencies to always spend what we have, regardless of amount). I've lately been doing just fine on under 100GBs, so I can't justify the additional $200+ on 512 when realistically I can live with 256 if I simply learn not to pack rat files, store duplicates, and offload movies and music.

The price difference in germany is a jawdropping €600.

I think the rMB is a beautiful and innovative little laptop, but as an allround machine the air is still miles ahead.

Good grief... I love Germany, but "dayum"

 

[torana355]

I've lately been doing just fine on under 100GBs, so I can't justify the additional $200+ on 512 when realistically I can live with 256 if I simply learn not to pack rat files, store duplicates, and offload movies and music.

Yeah i just checked my MBA's free space and its at 90GB, in this day and age almost all my files are in the cloud lol. I would be literally throwing my money away if i got a 256GB SSD.

 

[Melrose]

Yeah i just checked my MBA's free space and its at 90GB, in this day and age almost all my files are in the cloud lol. I would be literally throwing my money away if i got a 256GB SSD.

I used to store two or three copies of certain files in certain places; that's gotta change. Plus, apps like Clusters - which saved me a tremendous amount of space on my 750GB HD, will be one of the first apps to go on the Air.

...which reminds me: I also have a ton of unused apps. I've taken to uploading small-medium sized apps I don't use into the cloud, and downloading/installing them for the one or two times a year I need them. I'll have to get into doing this more. :?

 

[motrek]

I agree with you here. I'm sure it's a fine laptop, but 4GB in this day and age just seems low to me.
...

So your ideas about RAM are based on feelings and not any sort of technical justification?

 

[Melrose]

So your ideas about RAM are based on feelings and not any sort of technical justification?

Drop it already.

 

[RUGGLES99]

i think the rmb is cool, but waaaaay overpriced. i recently bought a new base 2014 mba 11" at best buy for a very low $720 (plus tax0 with 12 months to pay off, a no-brainer, as an alternative to my android tablets that of course don't have OS X. it also compliments my mac mini desktop and 2010 mbp 15" i5. the mba is a truly great little laptop and practically the same size and weight of the rmb. all thats missing is the retina screen. when the rmb comes down to a more reasonable level i will buy one, mainly for the screen.

 

[redheeler]

I agree with you here. I'm sure it's a fine laptop, but 4GB in this day and age just seems low to me.

For some usage, 4 GB is more than enough. Even the 2 GB in my MacBook Air would be fine.

I'm not saying more memory in the baseline Air wouldn't be better (at a $999 price point it certainly should have more), but it's not needed by everyone.

When it comes to Apple selling a $1999 iMac with a slow HDD that affects the speed of nearly any task, to me that's a bit more concerning.

 

[Melrose]

For some usage, 4 GB is more than enough. Even the 2 GB in my MacBook Air would be fine.

I'm not saying more memory in the baseline Air wouldn't be better (at a $999 price point it certainly should have more), but it's not needed by everyone.

When it comes to Apple selling a $1999 iMac with a slow HDD that affects the speed of nearly any task, to me that's a bit more concerning.

I agree... if you spend that kind of money you should get better components. But if someone's spending that much on an HD they get what they deserve.

 

[newellj]

Have you actually ever used the base model?

Yes, three of them, and they run fine. I am not a pessimistic, buy a maxed out machine due to insecurity sort of person, but neither of these things can be fixed after the fact, hence my doubts about that configuration. I have similar doubts about 16gb iPhones, too, but Apple seems to think people won't have problems using those

 

[throAU]

Yes, three of them. They run fine, but I stand by my statement, especially with regard to fixed storage. I am not a RAM pessimist, but storage needs are not going down and cloud storage does not work well for many people. Neither of these things can be fixed after the fact.

Exactly. And given the life expectancy of Mac hardware, I would suggest that betting on 4 GB of RAM being sufficient for the life of the machine (i.e., 3-5 years out) is being a little optimistic.

The future is more application sandboxing, hardware virtualisation, higher resolution content, etc. All of that means more RAM and more storage. Going for 8 GB instead of 4 GB is likely to significantly extend the usable life of your machine - and remember RAM on these is NOT upgradable. There's a reason Apple are shipping 8 GB or more in every other laptop they make.

4 GB may be fine today with an SSD (just try using a machine with 4 GB vs. 8 GB with spinning disks though - your SSD is masking some of the RAM shortage, but that will be hammering your SSD and require more space on it for swap), but i couldn't suggest choosing 4 GB for a new machine.

Cloud storage is not a panacea. You still need to store a local copy of your content to work on it, and the less storage you have the less you can cache locally, which means hitting the internet connection more often to re-download it - which means increased bandwidth costs and more waiting for the transfers from the cloud.


edit:
and yes, the iMac should have a Fusion drive as a bare minimum. Spinning HDD to SSD is the biggest performance gain for general use there has been in decades.

 

[newellj]

Yes, three of them. They run fine, but I stand by my statement, especially with regard to fixed storage. I am not a RAM pessimist, but storage needs are not going down and cloud storage does not work well for many people. Neither of these things can be fixed after the fact.

Exactly. And given the life expectancy of Mac hardware, I would suggest that betting on 4 GB of RAM being sufficient for the life of the machine (i.e., 3-5 years out) is being a little optimistic.

The future is more application sandboxing, hardware virtualisation, higher resolution content, etc. All of that means more RAM and more storage. Going for 8 GB instead of 4 GB is likely to significantly extend the usable life of your machine - and remember RAM on these is NOT upgradable. There's a reason Apple are shipping 8 GB or more in every other laptop they make.

4 GB may be fine today with an SSD (just try using a machine with 4 GB vs. 8 GB with spinning disks though - your SSD is masking some of the RAM shortage, but that will be hammering your SSD and require more space on it for swap), but i couldn't suggest choosing 4 GB for a new machine.

Cloud storage is not a panacea. You still need to store a local copy of your content to work on it, and the less storage you have the less you can cache locally, which means hitting the internet connection more often to re-download it - which means increased bandwidth costs and more waiting for the transfers from the cloud.


edit:
and yes, the iMac should have a Fusion drive as a bare minimum. Spinning HDD to SSD is the biggest performance gain for general use there has been in decades.

I don't really feel I have a reliable basis for predicting OS and program RAM needs. I use a 2007 Dell XPS M1330 that runs better now on on 4GB of RAM than it ran on any preceding OS. On the other hand, some apps are more RAM hungry and, as you point out, if you're trying to run multiple VMs 4G is unlikely to be enough and even 8 GB may be tight or worse. This all comes back to my original post: I have doubts, not complaints and not recommendations that people avoid.

 

[throAU]

Ahh my point with virtualisation wasn't just running VMs as in with VMware.

But rather, you are likely to see some OS services being virtualized in future for security purposes.

 

[torana355]

Exactly. And given the life expectancy of Mac hardware, I would suggest that betting on 4 GB of RAM being sufficient for the life of the machine (i.e., 3-5 years out) is being a little optimistic.

I disagree. 4GB of ram (for light to medium usage) will be fine for the next 5 years, i would bet money on it. My old 2008 iMac is still running like a champ with 4GB of ram 7 years later (despite people telling me 4GB would not be enough in a few years lol), actually its running better then it did when it was released. The reason Apple is putting 8GB in more of their machines standard is because the competition is forcing it. If it were up to Apple i bet they would still have 2Gb on base machines.

 

[AFEPPL]

Yeah i just checked my MBA's free space and its at 90GB, in this day and age almost all my files are in the cloud lol. I would be literally throwing my money away if i got a 256GB SSD.

Throwing away money - In the same way as throwing away money on a cloud subscription model?
12$/month for 20GB seems a lot quicker way to throw away money

I agree with the principle in terms of you don't need local storage, but cloud based storage is certainly not cheaper nor is it good for certain usages.