Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New MacBook Air Now Available on Apple Store

store.apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 197 posts

Re: New MacBook Air Now Available on Apple Store

#171

Post by moe »

palehose wrote: post #158
Udo wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least you can custom order the MBP a with non-glossy hi-res display (I'm quite happy with mine now). I don't think that option exists for the MBA.

MBA is not nearly as glossy as the MBP.

I don't think we should be making excuses here.

I recently bought a $200 samsung netbook that is perfectly usable in bright sunlight with sun-glasses on. Try it in a store with a sunny corner if you don't believe me, it's the NF310 and I'm not making it up.

I haven't seen the latest MBA yet, but the prev generation turns into a perfect mirror under the same lighting conditions.

Re: New MacBook Air Now Available on Apple Store

#172

Post by colin_jack »

srgseg wrote: post #131
colin_jack wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, to be honest I had a spell of checking the difference for products before buying them and if it was too high I'd give the product a bad review on Amazon. Felt good :P Out of interest are you aware of a site that does this sort of comparison?

No but it only takes about 30 seconds in a spreadsheet :)

Sure but it seems like there should be a site, enter product details and it works out premium being paid in your country.

Re: New MacBook Air Now Available on Apple Store

#173

Post by kelnos »

ot wrote: post #68
lemming wrote: post #2

While I'm sure this is nice, I don't have a compelling reason to upgrade from my existing MBA (and I really wanted to!). I'd have loved to have seen 8GB RAM as an option.

Sandy Bridge is way faster than Core 2. If you are doing any computationally intensive stuff, it may be worth the upgrade (I had postponed the purchase of a MBA for this reason, and I am definitely going to buy this one).

Yeah, I have a 2010 11" MBA, and I'm thinking about the upgrade. I really wish they'd bumped the max RAM up to 8GB; Eclipse for Android development is cramped in 4GB with other stuff running. I'm a little worried about the Intel graphics as well.

The upgrade is also a little more expensive, too. I think I paid $1500 for the maxed-out 11" last year, but maxing out the new 11" costs $1650.

But the Core i7 and 256GB SSD are very tempting. I dual-boot OSX and Linux, and 128GB is starting to feel a bit cramped. I was looking around at aftermarket SSD upgrades for my existing Air, and an off-the-shelf upgrade to 240GB would cost me $520, which is a third of the cost of the laptop! I could probably sell my current one for $800-$1k, and get the new one for $1650 without breaking the bank.

Re: New MacBook Air Now Available on Apple Store

#174

Post by chopsueyar »

blinkingled wrote: post #170
tgood wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last part isn't true. I've got the bottom priced 11" and being an entrepreneur I use it heavily for design. My only issue is the memory. After CS5 and a couple other programs I was down to 10gb.I'm 80% in front of a big cinema display but even working on the go its great. Photoshop too. My usual is itunes, mail, 5-10 safari windows, Photoshop, Illustrator and no spinning wheel of death. My experience of Apple is…

Are you sure you do that all at once without slowing down on a MBA with 2GB RAM? I just tried my regular use case - Mail, Firefox, MS Word and Excel plus Adium and it was 350Mb into swap and switching apps wasn't all that instantaneous. What does your swap usage show (Activity Monitor - page outs with all that workload? However with 4GB it shouldn't be that much of an issue for this workload. So I might just bite the…

Especially $100 bucks more for an i7 chip.

Re: New MacBook Air Now Available on Apple Store

#175

Post by tortilla »

Lewisham wrote: post #162
tortilla wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use the maxed out 11" as my primary computer. My usage is about 60% at desk, plugged into external, keyboard, closed clamshell, and 40% portable. The only complaint is the smaller 128 ssd, but it just forced me to get rid of stuff I really didn't need. The less glossy screen is great and the smaller size when I'm portable forces me to focus more. My typical software usage is Photoshop, Illustrator, TextMate, Termin…

re: Flash content: I was playing with an last-gen 11" MBA in the Apple Store a couple months ago, and saw that it wasn't capable of playing the YouTube video of All of the Lights http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAfFfqiYLp0&#62 ; at 1080p without dropping frames. Obviously this is completely arbitrary because the MBA can't display 1080p , but I was a little concerned about it. Have you had problems with HD Flash/Netfli…

No problems. I actually have an HDMI to display port adapter from monoprice and I use it to watch Netflix on my LCD TV every now and then. Plays it fine with no stutter or dropping frames. The fans do kick on though.

Re: New MacBook Air Now Available on Apple Store

#176

Post by mattdk »

blinkingled wrote: post #99
chopsueyar wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting point. Anybody?

I had a 2GB 11" Air that was swapping out around 350Mb with my workload and it was noticeable although not a deal breaker - think slight switching delays and rare mouse freezes for split second - obviously much better than if the swap was on 5400RPM rotating disk. I ended up returning it anyway - 2GB isn't nearly enough for anything other than just browsing.

>> 2GB isn't nearly enough for anything other than just browsing.

This makes me sad.

Re: New MacBook Air Now Available on Apple Store

#177

Post by chrisbolt »

Udo wrote: post #159
palehose wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MBA is not nearly as glossy as the MBP.

Is it just because of the screen size or is the material different somehow? I'm actually toying with the idea of buying one to take with me on the road where the 15" colossus is just impractical...

I think the MBA glossy display is plastic and the MBP glossy display is glass.

Re: New MacBook Air Now Available on Apple Store

#178

Post by wyclif »

jolan wrote: post #143
wyclif wrote: post #124

Any good recommendations for a sleeve or messenger bag that is good for the 13" MBA and is form fitting so it doesn't slide around inside the bag/sleeve?

http://www.booqbags.com/13-inch-macbook-air-bags

That "Viper Hardcase 13" looks ideal. Thanks.

Re: New MacBook Air Now Available on Apple Store

#179

Post by LetBinding »

I am about to embark on a 18-month long data mining project, where I'll be developing Python NLP software for recognizing patterns in textual data.

Will the MBA be a good machine for this? Ideally I should get something with more horsepower, but if the MBA suffices, then I feel its portability will really increase my productivity.

Re: New MacBook Air Now Available on Apple Store

#180

Post by Locke1689 »

markbao wrote: post #168
joeguilmette wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i bought the maxed out 13" last year as well. pulling out my credit card...

Don't do it! You really don't have more important things to spend $2000 on? Fight the power :)

To be fair, 2k isn't much more than my weekly salary and I'm an intern.
Post reply on HN