So spent 45 minutes at the Apple store and still am MacBook-less. I am convinced the knowledge that people say the people there possess is just relative to the person doing the evaluating. I am baffled why I had to spend 10 minutes talking to someone telling them that they come prebuilt with the ram soldered in and there is no “customization” they should be doing to an Air and wondering why I need to go online to buy the RAM upgrade for them to configure in store.
After coming home, I built the same one online, called and now they say they have it there. I swear to god.
The VPU in the new MBA is quite a bit superior to the old 9400M, which even then was adequate.
However, I hate they screw you into getting the 256GB SSD now to get the 2.13 Core 2…
4GB of ram is a MUST. The 1.86 Core 2 Is adequate, 2.13 is noticeably faster. These machines are quite a bit speedier than you might expect. I owned several, and with a SSD the only thing it left me wanting was more RAM. They are great.
Order the thing online, you should be able to find it from a authorized dealer without paying tax… Good savings right there.
Oh, and you know that refurb unit is a old REV C, correct? The new ones have higher res displays, higher cap batts, SD Card reader, 2 USB ports, and a 4GB RAM option. However, at that price the refurb 2.13 SSD REV C is a great machine. Depends how powerful you want your mobility rig to be…
Awesome thanks. It will be a primary laptop but it wont be for heavy gaming but after watching a guy who did a range of reviews, the MBA is pretty solid all around. He was playing COD Black Ops, Photoshop CS5, etc and comparing them to the MB Pro. Obviously the pro scored better over all and has some features but I am really impressed with the speed and how much of a change the flash memory speeds up the computer. Also, for the .3Ghz increase, most people are saying its not worth the $100 but def get the 4GB RAM.
I would go with the new 1.86 128GB 13" model with 4GB of ram. Same res display as the 15" base MBP, and it will handle CS5 just dandy. It bogs with a dozen high MP RAW images open, but it will do one at a time just fine.
Honestly, you shouldn’t have a issue playing light games in windows on that machine. Which is really great for how portable it is. People always bash the MBA since they say its overpriced, slow, and stupid. How many people need to carry a optical drive with them at all times? Besides that, its really quite reasonably powerful. 1.86 ghz does not sound impressive at all, but they’re good chips and perform well while sipping down juice.
If you can get $100 off retail and don’t pay shipping/tax, you shouldn’t have a issue selling it for 80-90% of what you paid in a year… Resale is insane, making the device fairly inexpensive if you buy a new one yearly. You keep up with the latest tech, and get a new 1year epic warranty. Its honestly the way to go…
Sweet. Found a place online that sells it for 1399, free shipping and no tax which is awesome.
I was looking around too and these things are like the honda civics of computers when it comes to resale values. Just need something more portable since I am doing more and more work remotley.
Just sucks that the Apple store is full of retards so I cant use my $300 in gift cards as part of the purchase.
I finally got the MBA and holy shit. This thing is awesome. I am still a PC guy and have my work laptop and Parallels installed if I ever need to do some Windows only work but over all the hardware in this thing is pretty sweet. What a difference a SSD/Flash drive makes.
Most people that think they know everything about computer just blindly hate Apple, assuming they’re junk for idiots… Really, about the ONLY thing that any Apple product can be bashed on is cost. Initially they can be very costly. However, resale, even for non functional damaged products, is insane. Add that into well engineered products, and you have a winner.
People say you are paying for a glowing apple, and the hardware is the same. Not quite. Apple really does design the stuff well… It really does suck how terrible the experience is at the Apple store for a knowledgeable consumer. Every time I go there I never want to go back again…
In case you don’t know, you should calibrate your display…
Prefs->Displays->Color->Calibrate->ExpertMode…
Its fairly easy to do, you should get the hang of making the apple look like the surroundings as best you can.
And you can change the system wide gamma to suit your preferences, if you wanted to increase dynamic range.
I hate their log reporting…I don’t know if there is a better way to get more in depth results but the logs are terrible. Their customer support however I do like (over the phone not the apple retards geniuses), good hold music too. The products themselves are excellently built, but most are made for one time use, not really upgrading or replacing.
Was on the fence between getting a new MBA or sticking with my current MBP. While I love the size I just couldn’t justify $1800 for it when I have a 13" MBP with 2.26, 8GB ram, and a SSD and HDD on board. Maybe soon enough I’ll make the plunge if I get a good offer on my current MBP.
I can say one thing that SSD makes all the world of difference for sure. :tup: to another Mac owner.
Mac hardware Not the actual OS. Still not a fan of it. Haha. Good news is im forced to use it for a while and see if I can eventually get used to it. I am giving it till the 31st of January until I reformat it and put on Linux. Maybe I am not sure how to search and what to look for yet but it seems that everything that gets installed that is useful you have to pay for and costs money unless I take the effort to have to find the cracks.
For almost all popular software, you can steal it if you’re not into paying for it…
OS X is a fairly good OS. Linux is just a pain in the ass if you ask me. I don’t know why you would want your OS to be hard to use, difficult to find software for, and stupid slow to boot and shut down.
Plus, im sure OS X will be your best bet for reducing power consumption…
---------- Post added at 06:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:07 PM ----------
I know a beta version exists that works on the 2010 MBA’s, but I don’t know if this is the final revision…
This is a great app, which allows you to undervolt the processor. Generally you can set it to the lowest voltage at the highest speed and its stable. This of course reduces power consumption, increasing run times, reducing core temps, reducing the need for the fan speed to increase… And its fairly easy to steal it, get a K’d older version and follow the instructions exactly.
More openness. It seems there is a lot of rules that Apple developers follow in general and Linux will still give me the UNIX backend and more flexible for what I think I need to do. There is some more software support on OSX so I guess I may suck it up for a month and see if I can get into this.
I will have to check it out. It looks pretty cool and with moderate use, I get 5-6 hours usually from the MBA which is pretty solid.
Not the actual OS. Still not a fan of it. Haha. Good news is im forced to use it for a while and see if I can eventually get used to it. I am giving it till the 31st of January until I reformat it and put on Linux. Maybe I am not sure how to search and what to look for yet but it seems that everything that gets installed that is useful you have to pay for and costs money unless I take the effort to have to find the cracks.