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This stopped me from buying a MBA...

J

joec1101

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 29, 2010
509
44
So Cal, USA
Anyone else notice this?

I went into the Apple store yesterday all ready to buy a 13" 256GB/4GB MBA and I started playing with the demo units. The screen scrolling is *really* choppy in Safari and iTunes. I downloaded and installed Chrome and still it was really choppy scrolling. I tried this on a couple different demo units.

This is polar opposite of my MBP where the scrolling is very smooth and fluid.

Could this be just a problem with Lion and hopefully it will get fixed with the next Lion update? Or is this an actual hardware problem?

I'm really disappointed...I really was looking forward to one of these, but I just can't live with that issue. :(
 
Some people have noticed this. Others haven't. It appears to be a Lion-related issue that, presumably, will be fixed in a point update. It certainly isn't the hardware, since the 2010 models didn't exhibit this.
 
I haven't noticed choppy scrolling in Lion on my iMac.

It could have something to do with the individual unit. Did you check with one of the Specialists in the store or try another one of the demo units?
 
I think it is a RAM usage issue. I notice very choppy scrolling in Safari. Emptying the cache always remedies it. Safari has been utilizing a lot of my RAM. I was hoping an update to Safari would fix things, but you mentioned you noticed the problem in iTunes. I still see the problem mainly in Safari. The main OS processes are OK. Full disclosure, I disabled animations. People with animations say they aren't as fluid.
 
treestar said:
I think it is a RAM usage issue. I notice very choppy scrolling in Safari. Emptying the cache always remedies it. Safari has been utilizing a lot of my RAM. I was hoping an update to Safari would fix things, but you mentioned you noticed the problem in iTunes. I still see the problem mainly in Safari. The main OS processes are OK. Full disclosure, I disabled animations. People with animations say they aren't as fluid.
Click to expand...

This. Safari 5.1 is a RAM hog. I don't know about Chrome, but I have used Chrome Canary a bit and it seems better.
 
Mine is very smooth. I would guess that the demo machines are running with dozens of open apps, Apple store onsite apps, and filled with customer garbage.
 
Everything used to be miserably choppy for me. But on 10.7.1 everything is perfectly smooth. It's actually surprising how amazingly smooth it is! Buy an Air
 
I had that issue and it was maddening. Took it to the Apple Store and the tech and I figured out that it was AirDisplay. I assume they don't have that installed on demo units though, so that wouldn't be it. Mine scrolls beautifully now, Safari 5.1 or not.
 
Try MenuMeters

I also had AirDisplay use up cpu for no apparent reason -- discovered that using MenuMeters cpu graph.
Uninstalled and cpu usage went back to normal.
This is on MBA 2010
 
No issues here, and I've had mine for 3 weeks now. Smooth scrolling in all browsers, Word, Pages, Excel, Dreamweaver and Photoshop. No issues at all.
 
No issues here either, my MBA13 is smokin' even with Parallels running. Blows away my 2010 MBP13.

I'm puzzled why the OP didn't ask the Apple employees about it?
 
I had this problem on my first air - it turned out to be a bad DisplayLink driver. As soon as that Beta driver was removed, it was smooth as silk again.
 
My safari on my i7 Air is choppy in both lion and windows 7 so I think it's a safari problem and not a lion problem? Could also be the trackpad driver because it is smooth with a usb mouse.
 
deeddawg said:
No issues here either, my MBA13 is smokin' even with Parallels running. Blows away my 2010 MBP13.

I'm puzzled why the OP didn't ask the Apple employees about it?
Click to expand...

The store was really busy (as they all are) and everyone was busy and I had to leave to be somewhere else. I am going to return when I have a little more time and talk to someone there.

I'm glad to hear that most are not experiencing this - maybe it was just those demo units loaded down with high CPU usage.

OK, well I think I'll get one and give it a try. I guess I can always return it if really necessary.

Thanks for all the input...:)
 
The only time I had any sort of lagging problems was when I had DisplayPad (or AirDisplay) installed. After the system resumed from sleep it was horribly choppy. Removing the software fixed that issue. Other than that one hiccup it's buttery smooth.
 
It sometimes get laggy while its loading a page, but for the most part its buttery smooth.
 
In front of me, I have the 11" and the 13" airs (I'm selling one, very soon). Neither the 11" nor the 13" exhibit any lag. Both are 2011 models, obviously running Lion (11" 10.7.1 - 13" 10.7).
 
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