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The ULTIMATE "The Macbook Air Is My Primary Machine" Thread

  • What MacBook Air do you have?
    Rev B 1.6GHz, 128GB SSD. Just got it yesterday.

  • What Applications are on your MacBook Air ?
    So far not much: MS Office 2008, uTorrent, R

  • What do you use your MacBook Air for?
    Internet, university work, light media playing (mostly music & streaming radio), some stats work.

  • Do you have any Issues using the Applications you mentioned? If so what? How often?
    No issues so far. I'm still getting used to the multitouch trackpad (my other machine is a Thinkpad with a trackpoint).

    The MBA does seem to get warm after an hour or so. Not sure if it will end up being a problem though. I also wish the battery lasted longer, I may have to invest in a hypermac battery, although that kind of kills the portability factor.

  • What do you think of your screen quality?
    Fantastic. The best I've of any I've used. I like that it isn't overly glossy also.

  • With the Applications you use, do you find the RAM & HD or SSD limiting?
    Not at all. In fact, despite the reputation of slowness my MBA is actually nearly as fast as my older Thinkpad T61 (which is a Core 2 duo 2GHz, 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD).

    I love OS X. Vista is garbage in comparison.

  • Do you Game on your MacBook Air? If so what kind of Games?
    Nah, no gaming
 
i just update my macbook air from rev A to rev B

What MacBook Air do you have?
1,6 rev b /apple 128ssd cto model/ 4 months old bargain

What Applications are on your MacBook Air ?
microsoft office 2008
perian
flip for mac
djay
air mouse server
team viewer
apple remote desktop
mac tubes
onxy
handrake
safari add block
safari add blocker
garage sale
ilife 2009
bump top
kismac
skype
messenger
firefox
opera
xbench
zdlan wireless

What do you use your MacBook Air for?
games
movies
email
web
i travel a lot


Do you have any Issues using the Applications you mentioned? If so what? How often?
zydas driver on snow leopard.

What do you think of your screen quality? (ie: Good/Bad/Okay)
okay

With the Applications you use, do you find the RAM & HD or SSD limiting?
no,it just works

Do you Game on your MacBook Air? If so what kind of Games?
yes, call of duty 4 ,word of goo , flatout2

How is the Game Play ?
now is great with nvidia 9400 :D

final note:i just sold my rev A and bought a rev B 1,6 cto with a apple 128gb ssd ,im loving it the xbench is 122 ,battery is 4,5 hours that seems enough. it still has more 8 months guarantee, the performance is top, still looking to update to a runcore ssd, but i will wait for apple the upadates.
 
What MacBook Air do you have?
Rev B, 1.86 GHz (120GB SSD GeForce 9400M, 2GB), Refurbished

What Applications are on your MacBook Air ?
Most notably:
Safari, Camino
Apple Mail
iCal, Taskpaper
Skype, Adium
Cyberduck
Scansnap Manager, Apple Preview, Skim, Adobe Reader
Microsoft Office 2004 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PPC-only versions), Apple iWork
Smultron, CSSEdit, Espresso
Pixelmator, Acorn
Google Earth
EyeTV
Zattoo
Genesis Plus
iPhoto
VLC Player, Perian, Quicktime, Flip4Mac
Transmission
Calibre, eBookLibrary
BlueJ
VMware Fusion

What do you use your MacBook Air for?
- heavy web browsing (10 - 30 Tabs)
- stock trading (Safari, with Java Applets)
- staying in touch with people (Mail, Skype, Adium)
- managing my daily schedule (iCal, Taskpaper)
- some Office work (not too long papers)
- scanning, OCRing, managing lots of PDFs (letters, receipts, lecture notes)
- importing and managing my digital photos (iPhoto)
- light photo editing
- web design
- listening to music (almost any time), watching TV, movies (Quicktime, VLC, EyeTV, Zattoo)
- managing content for eBook reader
- small programming tasks for my university studies (BlueJ)

Do you have any Issues using the Applications you mentioned? If so what? How often?
- OCR is not too fast because of CPU limitation (single-threaded). Not a big issue, but there are times when I have to wait for the OCR to complete on a document before I can continue with scanning the next document
- some performance problems and fans cranked up with multiple Flash/Java applets and or CPU-intensive video decoding (but then… what portable Mac does not exhibit these?)

What do you think of your screen quality? (ie: Good/Bad/Okay)
- original screen on refurbished model: okay (vertical lines, 1-2mm re dot on screen, not properly seated in casing)
- after replacement: good

With the Applications you use, do you find the RAM & HD or SSD limiting?
No. It's mostly CPU limitations, if any.
VMWare virtual machines run a bit slow though (rarely used), could use more RAM
I tried the non-SSD HD before purchasing and found it quite sluggish, so I got the SSD model.

Do you Game on your MacBook Air? If so what kind of Games?
Old Sega Genesis games, emulated (Genesis Plus).

How is the Game Play ?
Great.

Overall, remarks and advice
- Useing this machine for hours every day. I carry it with me almost everywhere on a normal work day. Great for (my) everyday use.
- I can easily get annoyed by slowdowns, interface lags and the like. Program startups and CoverFlow with PDFs (I have many!) work quite well on my machine. The standard mechanical HD however would probably drive me mad.
- I'd personally recommend the Air, though I'd NEVER try to persuade or convince anybody to buy one. Not everyone will be happy with the Air and its limitations.
 
I'll play. I don't use it as my primary, but I do use it for work.

* What MacBook Air do you have? Rev A 1.6ghz 80gb

* What Applications are on your MacBook Air ? Firefox, Chrome, MSFT, Lightroom, Pixelmator, Adium..... and the list goes on.

* What do you use your MacBook Air for?
Case 1) Just light web browsing and surfing the web and chatting on adium. Works great in this case, no lag or issues at all.

Case 2) Just Lightroom opened, once again works fine, but a tad slow at times.

Case 3) Work / Web dev => (Firefox, Rails, Skype, Dropbox, Terminal, mvim) Ehh, runs okay.... lags and freezes up every once in a blue moon. It's this that's making me want to get a new machine. The poor performance is very noticeable here. I basically can't open anything else.

Case 4) Xcode + firefox + adium. No issues here, runs pretty smoothly aside from when the project is being built.

* What do you think of your screen quality? (ie: Good/Bad/Okay)
Love my screen!

* With the Applications you use, do you find the RAM & HD or SSD limiting?
Read above, case 3

* Do you Game on your MacBook Air? If so what kind of Games?
N/A

* How is the Game Play ?
N/A

-- Basically my overview analysis is that it works fine if you just need it for light browsing / doing causal stuff. Anything more, it gets a bit crazy. Then again I have the first gen Rev A. From the specs, Rev C looks pretty amazing. I just wish it had 4gbs of ram.
 
What MacBook Air do you have?
Rev C Macbook Air (2.13 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 128GB SSD)
3 weeks old

What Applications are on your MacBook Air ?
iWork
iLife
Adobe Photoshop CS4
Adobe Flash CS4
Call of Duty
Flight Simulation Games (X-Plane, Flightgear)
Yahoo! Messenger
Final Cut Express
Safari
xPad
MarcoPolo
Transmission
Spark

What do you use your MacBook Air for?
Medium Web Surfing
Light to Medium Photoshop
Medium to Heavy Flash
Medium Student Stuff
(Word Processing, Heavy Numbers Use, Light Keynote)
Taking Notes in Class (<- best notebook for this ever.)
Frequent Torrent Download
Music Listening

Do you have any Issues using the Applications you mentioned? If so what? How often?
No issues whatsoever. No slowdown unless vents are blocked during heavy Flash use.

What do you think of your screen quality?
No issues with screen quality. IMO, beats MBP and MB screens (MBP too glossy, MB seems faded.

With the Applications you use, do you find the RAM & HD or SSD limiting?
No limiting factor at all, even gaming is excellent.

Do you Game on your MacBook Air? If so what kind of Games?
Flight Simulation Games
Call of Duty

How is the Game Play ?
Slower (just a little) to load than MBP but very good once the ball starts rolling.
 
What MacBook Air do you have?
Rev A, 1.6Ghz, 80GB HD

What Applications are on your MacBook Air ?
Photoshop Elements
VLC
OpenOffice
Adium
Coolbook
Second Life
Some bits and pieces....

What do you use your MacBook Air for?
Connected to 24" cinema, 2x external USB HDD, LG DVD-Rom (I think superdrive sucks), M-Audio DAC converter (Much better than internal DAC if you are even slightly audiophile)
I travel a lot :cool:
Email, web browsing, chat, movies, music, simple office tasks, some gaming and some bits and pieces...

Do you have any Issues using the Applications you mentioned? If so what? How often?
I cant run 1080p movies, 720p is okay.
Further, except for some sluggishness, no.

What do you think of your screen quality?
Good

With the Applications you use, do you find the RAM & HD or SSD limiting?
No, but at the limit atm.

Do you Game on your MacBook Air? If so what kind of Games?
Second LIfe

How is the Game Play ?
Runs sluggish, but just about acceptable for me with some tweaks

Having said all of the above a few additional comments.
Usage of Coolbook is a must for me. makes the MBA much more performing without getting too hot so quickly. Really made a huge difference for me!
For one who travels a lot and who doesnt want to run heavy applications I can not imagine a better laptop than the MBA. The ease of travel weighs heavy for me. It actually is my primary and only machine, but that might not be sufficient for many.
I will probably buy a high-end new one with the upcoming revision. (Please install a second USB port on it, there is space for it!)
 
# What MacBook Air do you have?

Originally the faster Rev A/80GB. Now a 1.86 Rev C with SSD.

# What Applications are on your MacBook Air ?

More important are what apps I *use*:

Safari
Chrome
Firefox
Word
Excel
Bento
TextWrangler
Mail
Address Book
Calendar
Skype
iPhoto
Preview
iTunes
TextEdit
and very occasionally Powerpoint

# What do you use your MacBook Air for?

Tons of Writing (mostly work stuff)
Tons of Web Surfing (mostly work stuff)
A bit of coding
Listening to Music
Video and audio conferencing with Skype
Rare Hulu watching
Rare video in iTunes
No games
No YouTube

# Do you have any Issues using the Applications you mentioned? If so what? How often?

The Mail app and firefox both seem to bog down on occasion. With Firefox I think it's Flash. With Mail, I think it's the volume of mail stored locally. I tossed one of the gmail accounts I barely use (has 100,000+ emails) and we'll see how if it improves.

# What do you think of your screen quality? (ie: Good/Bad/Okay)

EXCELLENT.

# With the Applications you use, do you find the RAM & HD or SSD limiting?

I wish I had more HD. (Or in this case, SSD). Not for use of any 1 app, but because it would make photo and video management easier.

# Do you Game on your MacBook Air? If so what kind of Games?

No. That's what my iPhone is for. ;-)

# How is the Game Play ?

N/A
 
Simply speaking I wish the MacAir to be like my 13" MBP but in the size and weight of the Air. The one USB is fine, the only problem is I already had Apogee Duet which needed firewire; but down the line I would just make purchases according to specs of the MBA which I hope to make my next primary machine in a few years.
 
What MacBook Air do you have?
Rev C Macbook Air (2.13 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 128GB SSD)

What Applications are on your MacBook Air ?
iWork 09
Safari
AppZapper
Firefox
Google Chrome
Google Notifier
jDownloader
LeoColorBar
Mahjong Epic
Bejeweled 2
Feeding Frenzy
Pixelmator
RAR
Rosetta Stone 3
Skitch
VCL
Xslimmer
Zuma
Flip4Mac
MathType 6
Microsoft office 2008
Stuffit
Toast 10 titanium

What do you use your MacBook Air for?
internet surfing
text editing
little gaming
video/movie watching

Do you have any Issues using the Applications you mentioned? If so what? How often?
No issues at all!

What do you think of your screen quality?
it's excellent - nothing to complain about

With the Applications you use, do you find the RAM & HD or SSD limiting?
well when I have several downloads going on and I want to swich internet sites quickly and watch youtube videos then it might be a little slow, but usually it isn't.

Do you Game on your MacBook Air? If so what kind of Games?
feeding frenzy, zuma and bejeweled :D nothing that requires alot from the machine

How is the Game Play ?
excellent
 
What MacBook Air do you have? rev C 2.13GHz with 128GB SSD

What Applications are on your MacBook Air ?
beside the default ones: Photoshop CS4, Eclipse, Xcode, Coolbook, Matlab, iWork, Adium, Skitch, Dropbox, Notational Velocity, BetterTouchTool, Cyberduck, Skype

What do you use your MacBook Air for? Programming, heavy internet browsing, light photo editing & web design, listening to music, taking notes, light word & spreadsheet processing. Oh and i rarely make some keynote's presentations.

Do you have any Issues using the Applications you mentioned? If so what? How often? no issues at all :D

What do you think of your screen quality? very good: not like a 27" imac (that I had before, but I bring it back to apple because I didn't use it so much) but way better than my previous "late 2007" macbook

With the Applications you use, do you find the RAM & HD or SSD limiting? Mac OS quite often use some swap memory, but my mac never gets sluggish.

Do you Game on your MacBook Air? If so what kind of Games?
no games
 
innominato5090 said:
What MacBook Air do you have? rev C 2.13GHz with 128GB SSD

What Applications are on your MacBook Air ?
beside the default ones: Photoshop CS4, Eclipse, Xcode, Coolbook, Matlab, iWork, Adium, Skitch, Dropbox, Notational Velocity, BetterTouchTool, Cyberduck, Skype

What do you use your MacBook Air for? Programming, heavy internet browsing, light photo editing & web design, listening to music, taking notes, light word & spreadsheet processing. Oh and i rarely make some keynote's presentations.

Do you have any Issues using the Applications you mentioned? If so what? How often? no issues at all :D

What do you think of your screen quality? very good: not like a 27" imac (that I had before, but I bring it back to apple because I didn't use it so much) but way better than my previous "late 2007" macbook

With the Applications you use, do you find the RAM & HD or SSD limiting? Mac OS quite often use some swap memory, but my mac never gets sluggish.

Do you Game on your MacBook Air? If so what kind of Games?
no games
Click to expand...


Nice post. This thread is a great reply to anyone who thinks the iPad is a great replacement for the MBA. Just look at the way this user uses the MBA... an iPhone OS cannot do these things!
 
Scottsdale said:
Nice post. This thread is a great reply to anyone who thinks the iPad is a great replacement for the MBA. Just look at the way this user uses the MBA... an iPhone OS cannot do these things!
Click to expand...

Who says that iPad is a replacement for a laptop hasn't really get the point of that device: an iPad is great for consuming media, while a Mac can creates them. That's the reason why ipad is a solution for who uses netbook, but can replace REAL computers (and a MBA is a real computer)
Sure that iPhone OS is pointing to the future computer of computer's OSes, but there's a long way to go before it (or a similar one) will replace Mac OS / Win 7 like operative system.

the only thing that MBA is missing is a bigger battery life. But is the only portable mac that is so thin and light: I carry that every day to the uni in my purse full of books. With my previous late 2007 macbook I used to leave some books at home (due to its thickness), now I no longer do that. For me it's the main reason why I get an Air
 
innominato5090 said:
Who says that iPad is a replacement for a laptop hasn't really get the point of that device: an iPad is great for consuming media, while a Mac can creates them. That's the reason why ipad is a solution for who uses netbook, but can replace REAL computers (and a MBA is a real computer)
Sure that iPhone OS is pointing to the future computer of computer's OSes, but there's a long way to go before it (or a similar one) will replace Mac OS / Win 7 like operative system.

the only thing that MBA is missing is a bigger battery life. But is the only portable mac that is so thin and light: I carry that every day to the uni in my purse full of books. With my previous late 2007 macbook I used to leave some books at home (due to its thickness), now I no longer do that. For me it's the main reason why I get an Air
Click to expand...
That's exactly right. I bought an iPad earlier this week and like it, primarily because I knew in advance that (1) it is not a real computer and (2) won't do nearly as much as an MBA, despite the MBA's current obsolescence. The iPad is a terrific Web browser and ebook and email reader. It also does a good job with video streamed from Netflix, Amazon, or the like. Beyond that, forget about it.

I was deeply disappointed when Apple did not refresh the MBA this week. I had hoped for a new version with a minimum of 4Gb of RAM so that I could run Fusion and Windows 7 in Unity mode, as I do on my MBP. Unfortunately, the MBA, limited as it is to 2Gb of RAM, can't do that. This led to having to decide to compromise and buy an iPad. It doesn't do what even the current MBA can do but, for my purposes at least, it does enough to justify its not unreasonable $499 price tag.
 
innominato5090 said:
Who says that iPad is a replacement for a laptop hasn't really get the point of that device: an iPad is great for consuming media, while a Mac can creates them. That's the reason why ipad is a solution for who uses netbook, but can replace REAL computers (and a MBA is a real computer)
Sure that iPhone OS is pointing to the future computer of computer's OSes, but there's a long way to go before it (or a similar one) will replace Mac OS / Win 7 like operative system.

the only thing that MBA is missing is a bigger battery life. But is the only portable mac that is so thin and light: I carry that every day to the uni in my purse full of books. With my previous late 2007 macbook I used to leave some books at home (due to its thickness), now I no longer do that. For me it's the main reason why I get an Air
Click to expand...

You have been reading too many of my posts... LMAO.
 
innominato5090 said:
actually no! even if I've joined macrumors nearly 6 months ago, I've started reading whole conversation/replying to discussion for 2 weeks :)
Click to expand...

Well, your post reads the exact same arguments I have been making... so complete coincidence if you have never read my posts in the MBA section before.
 
Come on Scottsdale, we know innominato it's just another of your nickname!
You use it only to support your ideas!
:p

This may actually be one of the few times two readers agree on something, I would say meticulously agree.
 
gimmi80 said:
Come on Scottsdale, we know innominato it's just another of your nickname!
You use it only to support your ideas!
:p

This may actually be one of the few times two readers agree on something, I would say meticulously agree.
Click to expand...

LMAO!! There is something fishy here, ha ha. Seriously, I looked up four of my posts and it's damn near word for word... but you're right, I just need to accept it as agreement, FINALLY!
 
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