What do MBP owners/users think of the Macbook Air? Ever used one?

[lamadude]

I would really like one, because the RAM, HD, optical drive, usb ports etc don't bother me. I have a 15" mbp, but it also only has 2GB of ram, and I never need more.
The main problem for me is the heat, I hate laptops that get hot, and I think my macbook pro is bad enough already in that respect. Also I occasionally boot into windows for some light gaming (usually a couple of hours of guild wars) and while I'm sure that would work on an air, it wouldn't be as smooth.
Another problem is the price, if the 13" mbp and the air had the same price I think I would go for the air, but I can't justify paying much more to have a slightly thinner laptop.

As a secondary computer the MBA would be great, but way too expensive, I would much rather go for an 11 inch eeepc with ubuntu on it for 350 euros, that can do everything I need and has a longer battery life as well.

 

[maflynn]

The more I use my MBP and the more I think about it, I wouldn't mind if apple gave the optical drive the heave ho on the MBP's like the MBA.

As stated, I do like the design of the MBA, but given the price point, and performance sacrifices, I think the current crop of 13" MBPs offer a better bang for your buck

 

[kasakka]

I don't like the trackpad with a button on the Air. I guess they couldn't fit the buttonless version in there or something, but it's noticeably harder to use because the wide button is narrow in the other direction.

The single USB port is a bother because you'll have to carry a small hub with you, thus having yet another thing to haul around.

The Air itself isn't small either, it's just thin and lightweight. I'll take small over light, that's why the 13" MBP is more to my liking - not too big, not too heavy, but still full featured.

 

[MacModMachine]

No need to get personal and say I haven't done my research. I just can't justify spending that kind of money on a machine with integrated graphics because gaming is out of the question.

Yeah, I'm sure Photoshop runs on it, but Photoshop runs on almost anything, unless you're working with really huge images (in which case, you are probably a designer/photographer on a Mac Pro).

For its slim and light form factor I understand that there are trade-offs, but for that price, it's not for me.

im not getting personal at all,

all over the internet is people downing the air who havent even touched the unit....its getting nuts.

the unit is very fast for almost every daily task.

thats that.

 

[Harmless Abuse]

For me, I need to run VMWare on my MacBook, there are some things for school I need.

Also, I can't really justify the price. The MacBook Pro 13in, is cheaper, and has a minimal difference. The 1.5lb difference is negligible to me, and I have a really bad hip and lower back. You can upgrade the machine later in the future too, which is very helpful.

To a lot of people, it really seems worth it. I almost considered one for college, but I couldn't see myself using it comfortably. But it's still a great machine, just not good as a main one in my opinion. It's too limiting for me, so I'll stick with my MacBook, but if you feel you can get by with it, get one, and love it.

 

[pnyc]

im not getting personal at all,

all over the internet is people downing the air who havent even touched the unit....its getting nuts.

the unit is very fast for almost every daily task.

thats that.

I wouldn't say that the Air is very fast for almost every daily task, that kind of depends on what your daily tasks are. It is fast enough for basic tasks, internet, email, word processing, spreadsheets, etc. and with an SSD I'm sure it seams very "snappy".

It's definitely a very capable system as long as you don't expect to do pro level work on it i.e. edit 50GB FC HD files or 50MB PS images. The price is really the only thing I don't like about the Air.

 

[MRU]

I was one of the first in Ireland to get a Rev 1.1 MBA - before the aluminum Macbooks and now the 13" MBP.

Whilst a lovely machine, it does run very hot. It's resale value is far lower than other macs. The lack of optical drive puts off people when it comes to resale.

Also the battery in mine had to be replaced, meaning it was 2 weeks away at the repair centre as we don't have apple stores/genius bars here.

To me the lightness of the MBA and it's unquestionably beautiful aesthetic - soon became a novelty.

I eventually sold the machine but got less money than I wanted, especially after years of upgrading and reselling other mac hardware.

With the new 13" MBP unibody now available, I see even less value in the MBA and 'if' the Tablet does appear - even less.

I rarely regret buying Apple hardware, but the MBA was the rare instance.

 

[hellfire88]

I had one of the new 13" Macbook Pros (2.26GHz mode) and unfortunately it was one of the units that suffered from the "Firmware 1.7 issue" (basically the unit would randomly freeze for 5sec or so which made watching videos frustrating and unusable. This was with a stock Apple 128GB SSD drive, not some 3rd-party after market HDD). I was pretty ticked about it so when someone offered to trade me their Macbook Air Rev. B 1.86GHz/128GB SSD I went for it.

I had a Rev.A 1.6GHz/80GB HDD Macbook Air last year and although I loved the form-factor and weight of it, I couldn't even watch youtube videos on it without stuttering on my particular unit (I've heard others did not have this problem) so I sold it. I've heard the Rev.B SSD model is much improved so I went for the trade.

Indeed it was much improved. Everything was quite snappy when I was first testing it out. The specs on paper seems quite in line with my Macbook Unibody 2.4GHz 13" (same 128GB Apple SSD and 9400M nVidia graphics) so I had high hopes. Unfortunately, although I dont do traditional "computer intensive tasks" like hardcore photoshop/video editting etc. I do like to open a ton of tabs in Firefox (sometimes around 70) and this caused the MBA Rev.B to make the fan spin at 6200RPM about 99% of the time. It was pretty loud and could get annoying. Not only this but the same usage patterns on the uMB 2.4 and MBA 1.86 (lotsa tabs open in Firefox, iChat); the experience was much smoother on the uMB 2.4GHz. Everything would stutter and just lag on the MBA 1.86. The uMB 2.4 I have does indeed have 4GB of RAM so perhaps that helped. Its unfortunate that the MBA's max out at 2GB currently.

Also, although both my Macbook Unibody 2.4GHz (from Late 2008) and this MBA Rev.B have the same nVidia 9400m graphics and similar Apple 128GB SSD drives, playing World of Warcraft was vastly different performance wise. On the uMB 2.4GHz I could play at almost maxed settings at 1280x800 and still get about 38FPS or higher most of the time. On the MBA 1.86GHz I got like 12-18FPS most of the time, same settings and 1280x800 res. Either the 2.4GHz -> 1.86GHz change made that big of a difference or perhaps what I've heard that the 9400m of the MBA is "scaled down a bit" as compared to the uMB / uMBPs is true.

Based on my experienced discussed above and the fact that there's only 1 USB port (as another posted commented above you can get away with it most of the time but when you need to use an external DVD drive and USB HDD/Flash drive at the same time, it really stinks to have to juggle the data between CD, internal HDD, and then external HDD) led me to discover that the current iteration of the Macbook Air, although great in form-factor and weight, is not for me just yet. When it gets upgraded to at least 4GB of RAM, better cooling system, and all-glass buttonless trackpad I'll give it a go again. For now I've traded it with a family member for her 15" Macbook Pro Unibody and I'm liking it thus far!

 

[klee1987]

I find it hard to justify purchasing a MBA when the current 13" MBP is already one of the thinnest laptops available.

And of course, you get better performance/price ratio with the MBP (and that extra USB port!!!)

 

[entatlrg]

True, but going the other way if I was going to replace my MBA with a MBP why not go with the 15" then you have the option to add the power, plus the high res and screen real estate .... you're adding 1.5 pounds with the 13" why not add another pound and have something to show for it ...

Going back to the OP then .... if price wasn't a concern and you owned a 15" MBP and wanted a 'sidekick' the MBA would have noticeable benefit being half the weight! But to have a 13" MBP and buy a MBP for a side kick kind of makes less sense.

Agree?

Plus then you've got two computers to juggle data back and forth ....

 

[Bill Gates]

If I could afford to do so, I would love to have an iMac or a 17" MacBook Pro as my primary computer, resigned to desk-duty, and a MacBook Air for the road. I don't need the extra power offered by a MacBook Pro or iMac 95% of the time, but it's the 5% that results in my dependency on my MacBook Pro versus a lesser-equipped machine. I like to run Windows in a virtual machine sometimes, and 4GB of RAM is much more comfortable for that purpose than 2GB, as is the faster hard drive and processor offered by my MacBook Pro. I also intensely dislike the fact that the MacBook Air doesn't have a FireWire port, 400 or 800. USB is not well suited to external storage or other bandwith-intensive applications such as Blu-Ray drives and high-speed networking.

 

[toxictrix]

The Air is a very very sexy computer. I still prefer the MBP 13" though. The MBP just works much better for me as my main computer in college...