The MacBook Air has no clothes
blogs.zdnet.com
The MacBook Air has no clothes
1–10 of 22 posts
Re: The MacBook Air has no clothes
#2A couple people I know and whose opinions on such matters I trust say that the MBA does just fine performance-wise. Obviously this guy has a different feel, but honestly--an Intel Core 2 Duo and 2GB is quite a bit of computing horsepower. About what my MacBook Pro has and I've never seen it get sluggish. A bit puzzled by this.
Re: The MacBook Air has no clothes
#3A couple people I know and whose opinions on such matters I trust say that the MBA does just fine performance-wise. Obviously this guy has a different feel, but honestly--an Intel Core 2 Duo and 2GB is quite a bit of computing horsepower. About what my MacBook Pro has and I've never seen it get sluggish. A bit puzzled by this.
The processor is the MacBook Air is different (lower voltage, lower clock speed, lower performance). Add in a slower hard drive (only 4200 RPM) and the difference in performance between it and your MacBook Pro is no surprise.
Re: The MacBook Air has no clothes
#4A couple people I know and whose opinions on such matters I trust say that the MBA does just fine performance-wise. Obviously this guy has a different feel, but honestly--an Intel Core 2 Duo and 2GB is quite a bit of computing horsepower. About what my MacBook Pro has and I've never seen it get sluggish. A bit puzzled by this.
The processor is the MacBook Air is different (lower voltage, lower clock speed, lower performance). Add in a slower hard drive (only 4200 RPM) and the difference in performance between it and your MacBook Pro is no surprise.
Add the Solid State disk though, and from what I hear, compiling code is extremely fast.
Of course, I could never justify the cost of the SSD today.
Re: The MacBook Air has no clothes
#5The MacBook Air is wonderful for some people.
If you travel a lot, you care about size and weight more than normal people. If you're like me and 95% of your time is spent in vim and Firefox, you probably don't care about speed all that much.
Every product does not have to be all things to all people and the MacBook Air is a niche product.
Re: The MacBook Air has no clothes
#6I was one of the first people to buy a MBA and I love it for what I use it for. If I was doing video editing or intensive photoshop work it would definitely not be my choice, but its absolutely perfect for what I need - a truly portable machine that is powerful enough to let me do my job. Indeed, I have been pleasantly surprised with how I've not missed the multiple ports and have only needed to use the DVD drive twice (I purchased the external). After using this machine I've gone back to my MacBook Pro (15") a couple of times and I know that I made the right choice now for a PORTABLE machine.
Re: The MacBook Air has no clothes
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
The processor is the MacBook Air is different (lower voltage, lower clock speed, lower performance). Add in a slower hard drive (only 4200 RPM) and the difference in performance between it and your MacBook Pro is no surprise.
Add the Solid State disk though, and from what I hear, compiling code is extremely fast. Of course, I could never justify the cost of the SSD today.
I didn't go for the SSD and the performance is fine for me.
Re: The MacBook Air has no clothes
#8Yeah, talk about an inflammatory title...
Now, if he had said that "The MacBook Air Is Wearing Those Awful Low Slung Jeans That I Hate", rather than claiming that it is actually naked, maybe he would have a point.
Jason, maaaate, let me explain something to you: with your needs, the MacBook Air is not a good choice. Apple makes a machine for you, it's called a MacBook Pro. Three types of spaghetti sauce and all that good stuff...
Re: The MacBook Air has no clothes
#9A couple people I know and whose opinions on such matters I trust say that the MBA does just fine performance-wise. Obviously this guy has a different feel, but honestly--an Intel Core 2 Duo and 2GB is quite a bit of computing horsepower. About what my MacBook Pro has and I've never seen it get sluggish. A bit puzzled by this.
The processor is the MacBook Air is different (lower voltage, lower clock speed, lower performance). Add in a slower hard drive (only 4200 RPM) and the difference in performance between it and your MacBook Pro is no surprise.
Yes. It's the same with every portable device: Customers complain if the thing weighs too much, they complain if the thing runs too slowly, and they complain if the battery life is too short. Unfortunately, since it is nigh-impossible to improve all three of these factors at once without fundamentally improving battery technology [1] -- a glacially slow process compared to Moore's Law -- to build a portable device is to sign up for a torrent of customer complaints.
I'm sure that various aspects of the Air's performance have been deliberately throttled to ensure that its cute little credit-card-thin battery doesn't crap out after half an hour. One thing to try is simply plugging it in. There's no mention here of whether that made a difference.
And Parallels? Geez. How many computers worth of computer does this guy expect to fit in a manila envelope?
[1] You would think that each generation of improved processor designs would improve performance. And it does. But every time processors speed up, our desktop-wielding developers dream up an incredibly fun, more-processor-intensive thing to do with all those new cycles, like render more polygons or playback multiple Flash videos or use IMAP or do real-time JOINs between your friends' friends' Facebooks, and these two factors roughly cancel out.
Re: The MacBook Air has no clothes
#10A couple people I know and whose opinions on such matters I trust say that the MBA does just fine performance-wise. Obviously this guy has a different feel, but honestly--an Intel Core 2 Duo and 2GB is quite a bit of computing horsepower. About what my MacBook Pro has and I've never seen it get sluggish. A bit puzzled by this.
The processor is the MacBook Air is different (lower voltage, lower clock speed, lower performance). Add in a slower hard drive (only 4200 RPM) and the difference in performance between it and your MacBook Pro is no surprise.
I suspect the 4200 RPM drive to be the culprit of most performance woes on the MBA.