REQ: Reviews of current MacBook Air

[MtnMan]

^ No. That decision is still a ways off. As of today, money is way too tight.

I am mostly looking at this discussion to help me down the road if/when my parents decide to replace their aging white first-generation MacBook. I am currently on a 2.33 GHz MacBook Pro (pre-Unibody). For me to retool my situation for using an Air as my laptop, I'd probably have to replace my current desktop (G4 iMac) with a newer, much more powerful desktop (I do lots of video editing, photo editing, and DTP work, among other things) before I could address my laptop solution. I use Final Cut Studio and I have edited many hours of video (DV and HDV) on my MBP. I would prefer to have a better desktop solution for editing before I could buy an Air for myself.

[MtnMan]

For those Ristretto owners who are interested: I posted a thread in the "Pictures & Video" forum on this site to solicit photos from Ristretto owners. I would like to see current-generation Ristretto-for-Air photos to see what an Air and a Ristretto look like together. Also: if any of you own a MacBook Pro or an iMac, I'd like to see what an Air looks like next to these larger machines. You can post in the same thread.

[marbenais]

For me, I already have a 13" Macbook Al, so the form factor and weight between the 13" MBA was not significant, the 11" was.

I also forgot to mention, that a previous favorite of mine was the 12" powerbook, which I used to lug everywhere with me. The 11" model seemed more closely related to that old friend.



Agreed, forgot about that.

My current laptop is STILL the 12" PowerBook. I've been using it for many years now, and I'm tempted to not continue to upgrade it (I keep getting the biggest ATA hard drive as they make them bigger, and getting new batteries -- I'm on the 4th one!) and save money for the 11" MBA. I've been using my iPhone 4 for everything I can't do on my laptop (Netflix!) but it would be nice to watch things on a bigger, better screen.

However, my 12" PB has been my only computer for . . . erm . . . five? years now, and I haven't heard of anyone using the 11" MBA as their main/only computer. In an ideal world, I would get an iMac and the little MBA (well, okay, if it were REALLY ideal, I would get one of the 20" G4 iMacs -- I had the first set of the "desk lamp" ones as soon as it was released in 2002 -- and put a Mac Mini in the dome!), but I'm not in a place to be able to afford TWO computers. Besides, the 11" MBA is wider than the 12" PB due to the widescreen format, and I really like having my laptop be the same dimensions as a paper notebook.

I love my 12" PB dearly, but it's not going to last forever. I just need to be able to have only one computer, and no one has been able to say the 11" MBA can do that.

[MtnMan]

The two major holdouts for me acquiring a MacBook Air for my parents right now are (1: money, which is currently in short supply, and (2: the recent introduction of MacBook Pro line of computers, which now come with even faster processors, and, more importantly, the new "ThunderBolt" (aka LightPeak) technology.

I don't think I need to explain what it means when money is tight, so we'll skip the whole Recession / Depression thing. When money comes available, we'll probably replace my parents' aging white MacBook with a newer Apple laptop. It will most likely be an Air.

The thing that makes me glad I don't have the money right now is that this new Thunderbolt bus technology (MacRumors article with embedded Engadget video; MACWORLD magazine web-article about Thunderbolt; Another MacRumors article with embedded video, this time a promo from Intel) really promises to help current computer connection technology take a significant leap forward. This is what FireWire was supposed to become. I'm thinking that maybe I should wait until Thunderbolt makes its way to the Air, so there's no hurry.

[JohnDel]

ThunderBolt Pros and Cons

Interesting article with ThunderBolt pros and cons.

http://www.slate.com/id/2286406/

[MtnMan]

The Slate article makes a legitimate point about the "fad" nature of wired connections from a consumer/TV standpoint.

From a computer / I.T. standpoint, Thunderbolt has the potential to blow away USB and FireWire. In the case of a MacBook Air and other sub-notebooks, Thunderbolt can replace the Air's display port and open new doors by using an adaptor to hook USB and FireWire peripherals to a Thunderbolt cable as well as an external monitor through daisy-chaining. This could really expand the functionality of sub-notebooks by leaps and bounds.

[misterN]

Well.. I know this is a bit of an old thread, but I was just sold on the 11 inch macbook air. I had been going between the 11 and 13 inch airs. I have a friend who works at apple, and his apple discount can be applied to their refurbed computers. So it looks like I'll be able to get a maxed out 11 inch air for around 1075!

Thanks for the insight!