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Thinking about a 13" MBA "Ultimate" - questions galore

G

GodWhomIsMike

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 24, 2007
580
2
Background:

I have about two months left with my Macbook before I need to return it. It's a white Macbook 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo, Nvidia 320M graphics, and I had it upgraded to 8GB DDR3 memory and a 500GB 7200rpm hard drive.

I use it for teaching, IT work, and personal use (iTunes, video - YouTube, CrunchyRoll, Hulu, Funimation, etc..) displayed onto a 42" TV.

Right now, I been without it for nearly a week now. I been getting gray screens asking for a reboot. Does not matter what hard drive I put in there, or ram I swap into it. It will do this running the Apple TechTools disk, attempting to run new installs of Lion or Snow Leopard on blank hard drives, etc.. Apple Store made me wait 5 days to drop it off to them, and they want 4 days to look into it.

I am getting antsy being stuck on a 4 year old 10" Atom netbook. The tiny keyboard is pissing me off, as well as the slow performance (even with this upgraded with 2GB ram and a 7200rpm hard drive). It's nearly impossible to get any work done on here.

Half of me is tempted to jump at a refurbished 13" Macbook Air (Core i7, 256GB, 4GB ram).

Questions:

Is there still the issue with Apple using two SSD modules in the MBA (one being significantly slower than the other)?

Is 4GB of RAM going to be painful having been using 8GB since 2010?

Will I notice issues with HD video being output to a 42" LCD in 1080p? The White Macbook does fairly well with its 320M graphics. I am hesitant of the Intel Graphics.

Is there any chance of a light refresh coming out for the Macbook Air in the near future?

Will the Core i7 Macbook Air feel a lot faster than what I am currently using?
 
GodWhomIsMike said:
Will the Core i7 Macbook Air feel a lot faster than what I am currently using?
Click to expand...

The new MBA will kill your old machine in pretty much all respects, expect for maybe large workloads where you are actually using your 8gb of RAM.

The intel GPU is good enough for me to leave my switchable GPU setup on my 15" on HD3000 for 99.9% of the time, including playing high def video.
 
Is there still the issue with Apple using two SSD modules in the MBA (one being significantly slower than the other)?
 
GodWhomIsMike said:
Is there still the issue with Apple using two SSD modules in the MBA (one being significantly slower than the other)?
Click to expand...

This "issue" has been hyped on the forums, though in fact you would need a benchmark program to measure and won't really notice the difference in normal use scenarios.
 
GodWhomIsMike said:
Is there still the issue with Apple using two SSD modules in the MBA (one being significantly slower than the other)?
Click to expand...

Not really, and 4GB with SSD'S speeds will blow what you currently have out of the water....I have the same 13" machine, and I love it. One caveat.... Storage space is 256 going to be enough? I still use my 17" MBP for studio work because of the space factor.
 
The Samurai said:
Heres a test video of the base MBA vs base MBP 13":

YouTube: *video*
Click to expand...

I am sure the MBP can be made even faster for the same cost by dropping in an SSD, and 8GB RAM.

Problem with that is what I am having now. Something breaks on the MBP, Apple is going to tell me to stuff it up my...

I have the last generation White Macbook (7,1) and I upgraded it to 8GB of RAM. The logic board has issues, but Apple Store told me I have the issues just because I put 8GB of RAM in it (which worked perfectly for 2 years) - and they won't fix it. :mad:
 
GodWhomIsMike said:
Is there still the issue with Apple using two SSD modules in the MBA (one being significantly slower than the other)?
Click to expand...

I had the Toshiba SSD in my 2010 MacBook Air and the Samsung in my 2011. Apart from benchmarks, I couldn't really tell the difference. Both will handily outperform a hard drive.

The 13" Ultimate is a good deal refurbished. I have the 11" Ultimate and it is noticeably faster than my mother's 2009 MacBook Pro (2.8GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM).
 
Looks like a pretty good deal to me.

Any idea what the downsides of getting a refurb over a new are? I haven't seen anyone comment on that for you but I also didn't see any when checking out the website. Warranty seems to be 1 year still and the option to buy the AppleCare is available with the refurb.
 
eric/ said:
Get the i5. Better battery life, not really a huge increase in performance.
Click to expand...

I ran the crap out of my 2.4 GHz Macbook with 8GB RAM and its 7200rpm HD. The more I could get, the better.

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gentlefury said:
The "ultimate" was a model from like 3 years ago...there is nothing called ultimate that they sell. I don't know why people keep calling the highest upgraded version ultimate. It sounds so windows.
Click to expand...

I figured it was just slang for the i7 model with all of the options.
 
almsot

I am almost positive there will be either a new model by then or at least concrete information about a new model. It will be awesome!
 
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