12 ms·

MacBook Air is enough for a work machine

196 points by bergie 16y ago

dr_ 16y ago
I've owned the 11.6" MBA for a couple of months now and it works great. It's portability is fantastic because I have to take it with me to several locations where I don't have a lot of work space. It's fast and the battery life is decent enough so that during the day I really don't require a power cord (but I don't go online much with it during the workday). The only time I see it slow down a little is when I'm accessing my Yahoo email in Outlook.
ScottBurson 16y ago
Interesting that I seem to be the only 17-inch fan here. I can see the attraction of an MBA, but I prefer having a screen big enough that I can do everything on it without an external monitor, and I don't mind lugging it around at all.
- veyron 16y ago
  There's a difference between "I dont mind lugging it around" and "I lug it around a lot". I had a 17 inch once and realized that, even though I could move it, the weight and size made it inconvenient. It ended up sitting on the desk all day. Needless to say I replaced it with a 27" iMac.
- larrywright 16y ago
  I'm 3.5 years into owning a 17" MB Pro, and my next laptop will be the 13" Air. I wanted the screen real estate when I bought it (coming from a Toshiba that could only do 1024x768). While I love the performance and all the pixels, it's just not portable. The higher resolution on the Air is good enough, and the weight is very appealing.
- _delirium 16y ago
  For me it's less the lugging (though that's a factor), but more the easier ability to use the machine in cramped quarters, like at some coffee shops, and in economy-class plane seating.
- dstein 16y ago
  17"MBP here too, and after 2 years its been a great machine, still decent specs by today's standards. But the size is starting to wear on me. I've entertained the option of upgrading to a new 15"MBP but it doesn't seem like a big enough jump to justify the cost. I hope Apple has a 15" Air in the works because that would feel like an upgrade in multiple dimensions - cpu, ram, display, weight, thickness, portability.
- icco 16y ago
  I travel between three offices every day on foot / bike. I tried the 13" MBP on my back for a while, but in the end it caused more pain than it was worth. I can only imagine the 17" being far worse. For now I use a Lenovo x200, but it's about the same as the MBA 13". So while sure I could "lug" the 17" around, I'd much rather loose some screen space and save my back. But I will say, I am quite jealous when traveling of the screen space the 17" provides.
  - MrFoof 16y ago
    The difference in weight is much more than it sounds. Work had issued me a Lenovo Thinkpad T61p with a large extended battery pack to make it last closer to 4 hours. It weighed about 7.5 pounds. After just 15 minutes, my shoulder would become sore from lugging my bag around. I handed them their laptop back and bought a 15" MacBook Pro with my own money. Just that 2 pound difference means that instead of my shoulder being sore after 15 minutes, it takes about an hour for it to become sore. If I didn't need the memory and the CPU (I do data warehousing work, and need to run VMs almost all the time) I would certainly have gotten a 13" MacBook Air to shave off another 2.5 pounds. Heck, I'd probably get an even smaller bag just to shave off another 1/2 a pound. It's absolutely worth doing.
bergie 16y ago
Also my personal notes on the same, running Ubuntu instead of OS X: http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/11-macbook_air-the_best_computer_i-ve_ever_had/ http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/11-macbook_air-the_best_computer_i...
- JCB_K 16y ago
  Simply put, the 11" MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever had. I've always appreciated small and light laptops as I travel quite a bit, but this one takes portability to a completely new level. The laptop weights only a kilogram, and is small enough to fit pretty much any bag. I also hate the display adapters Apple forces us to buy and carry around. I give a lot of presentations, and this is another piece of equipment to accidentally leave home. Why not just go VGA or HDMI? That wouldn't really go together :)
  - bergie 16y ago
    HDMI is almost the same size as the Mini DisplayPort. Apple just loves their own connectors, unfortunately. I was shocked when I noticed the VGA adapter wasn't included in the package. Luckily I realized this before my first conference presentation with the new computer ;-)
    - runjake 16y ago
      If by "almost" you mean "over twice as big", sure. (I happen to have an HDMI connector sitting next to my MBP's Thunderbolt (nee Mini-DisplayPort) port. Edit: They have "mini-HDMI" out, which is an entirely different beast than the mini-HDMI adapters included on many Android smartphones. A mini-HDMI port would require similar adapters to connect to anything useful. A normal "type-A" HDMI port is a sizeable connector, larger than a USB port.
      - bergie 16y ago
        Several mobile phones have HDMI out. For me that is "small enough". I think HDMI would even make the ports on different sides more balanced, as the size is more similar to the magsafe adapter
JCB_K 16y ago
Playing back a 1080p h.264 video using the 24″ Cinema Display (in full screen), the computer drops a lot of frames doing this. That was the only thing that really surprised me.
- elithrar 16y ago
  My 11" Air plays lower bit-rate 1080p stuff fine (ie. Apple's movie trailers site), even on an external display. Of course, with a sub-2.13Ghz C2D it will definitely struggle on higher bit-rate content, so I wouldn't be surprised at all.
- dzuc 16y ago
  I've had it struggle quite a bit with fullscreen Netflix Instant or Hulu when played back on an external monitor, as well.
- hexley 16y ago
  Yeah, this sounds like a bug; I'm pretty sure that should be GPU accelerated.
- kooshball 16y ago
  I was really surprised here as well. Does any one else have any data points here? How does it handle 720p contents?
dadro 16y ago
I concur with authors opinion of MBA. The 13in MBA is the best computer I've ever owned. My current Mac Lineup consists of: * Latest gen 13in MBA * 17in MBP (~1yr) work paid for it * 13in Black Macbook (loved this one too!) * Mac Pro (totally pimped out) work paid for it * 3rd gen mac mini The only machine I use now is the MBA. It is everything a Web Dev needs, great resolution, fast, travels well. It even plays Minecraft quite well. The only thing I'd ask for in the 3rd gen models is a back-lit keyboard. Love this machine. Edit: Best accessory I've purchased http://www.luxurylapdesk.com/index.php http://www.luxurylapdesk.com/index.php
- bergie 16y ago
  Yep. I use the 11" MBA for work, and a tablet for browsing at home or reading in the plane
- masnick 16y ago
  +1 for the backlit keyboard. I'm surprised how much I miss it -- I've had backlighting since my PowerBook G4 and always thought it was fluff.
- Volscio 16y ago
  Same here, 13" 4GB MBA, bought after my neighbor's apartment fire forced me to get a new system for the 4.5mos without my old computers. Got it all back eventually. I use my MBA constantly, at work and home (hooked up to a 24" at home). I have a W7 quadcore w/ 3 monitors that I only use for Photoshop/server stuff. Best purchase I've made in a long time, that MBA.
- ernestipark 16y ago
  I don't understand this obsession for backlit keyboards I've been reading about a lot lately on forums. It definitely looks nice but its just a battery drain and I assume most HN people don't look at their keys. I always keep mine off for the sake of my battery.
  - rowaway1 16y ago
    backlit keyboard aren't just for looking nice. they're for working at night in dark rooms. before touch typing you need to glance quickly at your hand's position above the keys, to make sure your hand position isn't transposed slightly up, down, left, right--which happens easily when you're blinded by a monitor in the dark, and the key bed is pitch black. yes, you can fold down your monitor till the light illuminates the keys, squint while you orient your hand, then raise the monitor to eye-level...but that is a distraction to workflow when hacking at night. way too much effort just for checking hand orientation. backlit keys solve that problem, which is one of the most serious 1st world problems facing rich people with nice computers today.
_Fil_ 16y ago
The only thing that stops me from buying one is the 10/100 lan adapter. I transfer every day large files between my mac and my pc or NAS and the transfer rate would kill me.
- jonknee 16y ago
  802.11n can be pretty fast and I doubt you'd notice a difference vs a 10/100 network. Many gigabytes of video files get transfered OTA every day in my office.
- elithrar 16y ago
  Rumors abound of a Sandy Bridge- based Air hitting later this year, along with Thunderbolt — if a Thunderbolt to GigE adapter comes out, it will remedy this issue.
- baudehlo 16y ago
  This. In a corporate environment wifi just isn't allowed. We have it in our office but it is stunted beyond reproach. You need to be plugged in to access stuff.
  - bergie 16y ago
    Makes me happy not to work for a large corporation. Our company has been WiFi-only since 2001
    - stuff4ben 16y ago
      Not all large corporations are like that. Here at Cisco most employees are given only laptops (Thinkpad or MBP) and the wireless here is usually fantastic as one would expect. Now if only I could get my hands on a Cius...
  - pohl 16y ago
    It doesn't make any sense to mod this down. It's a real issue.
beck5 16y ago
The bigest complement about my MBA is I love(d) my iPad, I took it everywhere, but I gave it to my mum at the weekend because I don't use it anymore since I getting a base 13" Air.
chime 16y ago
I use MBA (4GB RAM upgrade, 128GB SSD) for doing a lot of XCode development. XCode4 runs very smoothly and I've never had any speed issues with running the iOS Simulator. It's light, doesn't heat up, and is very stable. I gave up my http://chir.ag/stuff/5lcd.jpg http://chir.ag/stuff/5lcd.jpg setup for a single MBA and I couldn't be happier (my electric bill went down by $125/month). From personal experience I know that I'm more productive on 5 LCD than on 3 LCD or 2 LCD setup. However, I spend a lot more time working on my MBA than I ever did on my desktop and though I work slower, the end result is that I'm overall producing more.
- bergie 16y ago
  I'm the only one in our company not using any external monitors. The added screen real estate would be nice, but the downside is that then you have a different setup in the office and on the road. I rather get used to a single screen I always have with me.
  - jonhohle 16y ago
    You can plug in an external screen into your laptop. Sometimes I use just an external display with my laptop; sometimes I use it as a second (primary) monitor.
    - bergie 16y ago
      I know I can, but I want to keep the working setup exactly same regardless of whether I'm at my desk or in a train
  - devinfoley 16y ago
    I've thought of ditching my monitor for this reason many times.
  - Braxo 16y ago
    I also do not use an external monitor for this reason. I like being able to work from anywhere with the same setup. I wanted my productivity to be identical wherever I am. Not using a monitor, I also don't use an external keyboard or mouse. I have an unused monitor on my desk at work I do no plug into.
jimwise 16y ago
Pretty much exactly my experience, except that I'm running a lot more compiles and a lot less photoshop on this 13" MBA. In particular, if you're upgrading from a machine without SSD, the speed advantages you'll see for things like emacs or compiles of large projects -- things which access lots of small files -- are huge. This machine replaced a MacBook Pro which was technically its equal in processor speed, but it feels faster in every way (and is a heck of a lot more usable on the train).
- dedward 16y ago
  You could always just chuck an SSD into a macbook pro on your own - my aging late-2009 macbook pro got a fantastic speed boost when I dropped an Intel x25m G2 SSD in - a bit short on space compared to before (which forces me to keep things backed up and synched, which is a good thing) and the speed difference is night and day.
thenduks 16y ago
'Enough'? Understatement. It's practically perfect. Sure it's not your gaming rig or fit for Final Cut Pro, so that could change things if this sounds like you... but as a developer it easily trumps every machine I've ever owned.
mark_l_watson 16y ago
My MBA is my favorite computer also: for running IntelliJ, Emacs+Lisp, Rails development, etc., it is great to use. I do still use a MBP for one customer's work because I need a ton of services running during development.
nwomack 16y ago
It's really too bad there is not a matte option for it. I agonized over the MBA vs MBP decision for about a year, and finally got the High-End 15" 2011 MBP model with the matte screen upgrade. Couldn't be happier. Yeah, it's a big hulking beast, but the extra real estate and matte screen are really nice. I don't think I can go back to glossy ever again...
- tortilla 16y ago
  I had a glossy 15" and now the semi-glossy 11". It's really not very glossy at all. I barely ever notice my ugly mug staring back at me. Really, the best of both worlds.
calebhicks 16y ago
I use a 13" MBP with 8GB RAM and an Intel SSD. I could have gone with the MBA, but didn't like the thought of another Core 2 Duo. I have a 24" monitor at my office, and a 27" iMac (my wife's) that I use as a second display for my MBP. Best of both worlds. Speed, mobility, and big screens when I need 'em.
- achompas 16y ago
  Which Intel SSD are you using? I'm about to make the same purchase myself.
  - calebhicks 16y ago
    X-25M. It's not the latest and greatest, but I got it for $170 after a sale and mail-in rebate. If you've got more cash to spend, you may want to look at the new 310, or 510. There are other great SSD makers, but I chose Intel based on the price and general high reviews.
    - achompas 16y ago
      Wow, that's apparently a great deal on the X-25M--they were retailing for $220 at NewEgg. I'm waiting to see what comes out in the next few months, as apparently OCZ and Intel are building drives with the new SandForce chipset. Don't know if the improvements will be significant, though...
      - spicyj 16y ago
        The Intel 320 Series is very similar to the X25-M (just the next generation; practically the same controller) and is cheaper as well.
- SkyMarshal 16y ago
  I'm in the process of abandoning my desktop and switching to laptop full time, and after weeks of figuring out the best laptop setup, I've come to the same conclusion - 13" MBP i5, 8GB, SSD = best of all worlds. Only left is to make sure I can dual boot some linux distro on it without issues (the HD3000 gfx drivers for linux may be an issue, but appear solved in Ubuntu 11.04).
dmauro 16y ago
I'm using my MBA (no upgrades, lowest end model) for my daily routine as a designer, and it's holding up perfectly well. I am mostly just running Photoshop, Illustrator, Textmate, and a few browsers. Hell, I was even able to play Portal 2 on this thing. It's definitely the best $1,000 I've ever spent on tech, and I'm a Windows guy. The only downsides are if I have a bunch of large files open in Photoshop and Illustrator, I might have to save and close some to keep things running smooth. When I'm plugged into a 27" display, some things are not quite as smooth. So yeah, I'd rather be working on a faster desktop system (though the benefits would be minimal), but I can close this, bring it home, and continue working with the same workspace. And the monitor is better than my Dell 22" I have at home.
daimyoyo 16y ago
I suppose if money were no object I'd probably get a MBA but the fact is that the 13" MBP I ended up getting is more than enough for what I use it for and was 25% cheaper. And when every dollar counts, that's important.
chopsueyar 16y ago
I know MBA stand for MacBook Air, but reading some of these comments is a bit difficult/funny.
sidwyn 16y ago
I own a MBA as well. What can I say? I've never looked back.
JonLim 16y ago
I've been slugging it out at work with my 5 year old Macbook at work with an external display and I will continue to until it dies. When it does go though, I intend to make a choice between a Macbook Air and a Macbook Pro. I already have an iPad 2, but the lightness and mobility of the MBA might make it the better machine for me.
kayoone 16y ago
I got the early 2011 MBP 15" because i wanted a single machine i work on in the office and at home. I am using it with an external screen though, mostly for ergonomical reason. Working Laptop-only hurts you, dont do it all day! But the most annoying thing currently is that its fans speed up so quickly during work. Because of this i regret buying it and not going for a MBA11 + iMac.
- tvon 16y ago
  I've never attempted this myself, but you might want to google around for ways to underclock your MBP to keep it cool. I'm guessing it's either impossible due to firmware restrictions, or there are tools out there that make it crazy simple.
achompas 16y ago
My MacBook Air was $1,799 and the equivalent MacBook Pro (top of the line 15″, because why would you buy the 13″?) would cost me just over $3,200 (adding 3rd party SSD, Apple 8GB RAM and the Hi-Res screen). Man, this is disingenuous. 8GB RAM? As if you can't get it cheaper (or the MBA even offered 8GB RAM as an option)? Or as if the 15" MBP doesn't blow the Air out of the water in every other aspect? I bought a 13" Pro because (a) it's smaller and lighter than the 15" and (b) I don't play PC games. When we run THAT comparison, well: 13" MBP with 256GB Crucial SSD [0], 4GB RAM, 2.3GHz Core i5 -- $1699 13" MBA with 256GB SSD, 4GB RAM, 2.13 GHz C2D -- $1799 Sure, I don't have a Hi-Res screen (the one Pro feature I wanted on the 13"), but I can actually upgrade my computer in 3 years when 4GB RAM becomes a bottleneck. Now that's a low year-over-year computing cost. The MacBook Air is an awesome machine, to be sure, but it's awesome because of the built-in SSD--not because of the value it provides. [0] http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148349 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148...
- pyre 16y ago
  I think that point is that if he were buying a MBP that it would not be able to justify the purchase to himself without maxing everything out. So that price comparison is really only applicable to him.
  - achompas 16y ago
    Right, but even then that's not a clear comparison. Maxing out a 15" MBP makes no sense for him--he bought a 13" MBA, so he clearly believed that 256 GB SSD + 4GB RAM would cover his needs. Does he have to always max out his Apple equipment purchases?
    - pyre 16y ago
      In the article, he was justifying maxing out the laptop with 'future-proofing' it so that he could go longer before needing to buy a new one.
    - sjs 16y ago
      I feel that it makes sense. When weighing the options I came to the exact same conclusion as the author, except my notebook is < 1 year old so I'm not actually upgrading soon, though I would like to shed weight. If I were to buy a Pro it'd be the 15" for its resolution, and I definitely want 8GB of memory. However the 13" Air is compelling because of the size & weight. If it were available with 8GB of memory that would be the way to go, but it's not. Personally I'm holding out for the 15" Air. Ideally with a faster CPU (Core i3 or i5 is fine), up to 8GB or 16GB of memory, and a resolution of 1680x1050. While I'm wishing it should also have a matte option. The Air is nice but it's not a portable workstation replacement, yet.
guictx 16y ago
Frank Chimero, illustrator and designer, wrote about his experience using a MBA as primary machine: http://blog.frankchimero.com/post/2799470127/the-setup http://blog.frankchimero.com/post/2799470127/the-setup
ascendant 16y ago
I was seriously entertaining the idea of getting a top-end MBA earlier this year (refurbed for $200 off) but then the new MBP's came out and I couldn't justify a 13 inch screen and a Core 2 duo when for almost the same price I could have the 15 inch screen and a Sandy Bridge Core I7. I got the MBP and truly love it. I imagine the lightness of the air goes a long way towards what makes it so popular but I don't really travel that much, I just carry my MBP to coffee shops and tech events so it's not that big of a deal to me.
- r00fus 16y ago
  Glad you like the MBP, but if you don't have an SSD you're missing out. If you do, the prices are a lot more equivalent (ie, MBP+SSD is not cheap).
  - wyclif 16y ago
    IMO the SSD is what puts the MBA over the MBP when deciding between the two. The big benefit is the battery life. The MBA is the first laptop I've ever seen where a programmer can work for what amounts to a full day on a single charge without any qualification.
  - ascendant 16y ago
    I agree to a point. All of my regular-use apps (Eclipse, Xcode, Textmate, Chrome, Terminal, Echofon) all start up really quickly. I don't really ever find myself sitting around waiting for things on it.
ben1040 16y ago
I've owned the original 12" Powerbook G4, and the first-gen MacBook Air (no SSD). With both of those I ended up with some buyers remorse about six months later, feeling like I was making some huge performance tradeoffs for the portability that ended up biting me later on. The 12" G4 was just plain slow, while the first-gen Air was hamstrung with crappy GMA950 graphics and a really slow disk. From what I've read the SSD on the original Air was on an IDE interface and wouldn't have made much of a difference anyway. I bought the new 13" Air the week after launch and absolutely love it for a dev environment. XCode runs nice and smooth and it now seems to me that an SSD is nearly essential to make Eclipse feel usable. We're coming up to the 6 month point where with those older laptops I would think "oh God why did I spend $1800 on this," and I still think this is the best computer I've ever owned.
quinndupont 16y ago
Tangential question: I've got a MacBook Air and a first gen (of the current design) white plastic MacBook that stores all my music/video (300GB music, 100GB video, with a bunch more video on external USB drive). My issue is that it is very slow these days, and I feel like it is IO bound with my big, kinda slow HD. I'm considering replacing the optical drive with the OWC SSD hack. Then, the OS & apps can live on the SSD, music and video on slow HD. Thoughts on performance? Anyone else try this?
grandalf 16y ago
I've been using an 11" macbook air for the past few months as a development machine and it works just fine. I use emacs and ruby 1.9 mostly.
japherwocky 16y ago
Dell made a laptop with similar specs called the 'Adamo' for a while. It's small, light and sexy, costs about half as much as an MBA, and Ubuntu worked out of the box. A good alternative if you'd like to avoid the Apple flavored kool-aid.
- Tiomaidh 16y ago
  Lenovo's about to release the ThinkPad X1, with relatively beefy specs and the MBA's form factor. Do want. It's freakishly expensive though (almost $3K). http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/23/lenovo-thinkpad-x1-shows-up-online-looks-freakishly-thin/ http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/23/lenovo-thinkpad-x1-shows-...
- tomkinstinch 16y ago
  I couldn't find the "Adamo" listed on Dell's US website, but it is listed on Amazon[1] for ~$1261. That's only a touch less than a MacBook Air. Where did you find it for "half as much?" 1. http://www.amazon.com/Dell-Adamo-A13-6349PWH-13-4-Inch-Laptop/dp/B0030T17HS http://www.amazon.com/Dell-Adamo-A13-6349PWH-13-4-Inch-Lapto...
  - japherwocky 16y ago
    I bought mine last fall for $900, and I guess I'm not up on the latest MacBook pricing. Sincerest apologies.
pdenya 16y ago
MBAs look nice for on the go but I definitely wouldn't give up my 27" imac at home (1 20" attached to the imac too) setup at home. I have a company MBP that I use for whenever i'm out and about. I definitely don't haul it everywhere but it's no trouble to take on even an afternoon trip if there's a chance I could use it. I'm also not sure what the problem is with switching to a different workflow on a laptop vs a desktop. I'm fine alt-tabbing between chrome and coda or xcode and ios sim but I'd prefer to not have to. All of my content stays in sync with a combination of git and dropbox so no issues there either.
jorisw 16y ago
The SSD. It's fast, fast, fast. I use an 11.6" MBA for everything I do. At my desk, I hook up a 24" monitor. At a client or a meeting, the 1366x768 resolution is just fine.
mahyarm 16y ago
I'm waiting until the MBA gets thunderbolt and solves it's biggest problem, a lack of a fast data transfer method. Sandy Bridge CPUs and maybe maybe USB3 would be good bonuses. Otherwise I'm sticking with the Pro with gigabit ethernet and firewire 800. If the MBA could also get a 1080p screen like the sony vaio Z does, it would get rid of the biggest reason I want to get a vaio Z.
tomlin 16y ago
While the previous MBA might have felt like a compromise, I find the current MBA a top-tier contender for development, personally. I use a BookArc Air from TwelveSouth[1], LED Cinema[2] display. I find it beats having 2 Macs. I love disconnecting my MBA, taking it to work and opening it up at the exact place I was when I last used it. The BookArc makes it aesthetically pleasing and organized and the MBA handles the Cinema display without effort. I also like syncing my iTunes library with my iPhone on one Mac. [1]: http://www.twelvesouth.com/products/BookArc_for_Air/ http://www.twelvesouth.com/products/BookArc_for_Air/ [2]: http://www.apple.com/displays/ http://www.apple.com/displays/
jrockway 16y ago
As a developer, I can always use as much CPU time as I have available. A good example is the Moose test suite: on my laptop, it takes 3 minutes (there are a lot of tests). On my desktop with -j8, it takes 10 seconds. (This setup was a lot less than $1799, and I have 6G of RAM, an SSD, and 3TB of slower storage. But I am big on ergonomics, so a laptop doesn't work for me anyway.)
greg_gti 16y ago
If you currently use a 13" MBP wait until the next revision of the MBA and buy because right now, the differences don't justify the expense
zmitri 16y ago
I got the top of the line MacBook Air. It was my first Apple product ever. After tax was 1900 ish, which I do admit is super expensive. It does everything I need, and is SUPER portable -- I can carry it like a piece of paper. Everything is super responsive, and compilation is fast enough. I run Photoshop from time to time, and its not a problem whatsoever. Also tried out Portal 2, no problems at all.
tchock23 16y ago
Not to sound like a fanboy (I believe I posted something about my Air a while back on HN), but I'm a big fan of my 13" MacBook Air after a few months of using it. I agree with the original poster that it is more than sufficient for an everyday work machine. As an aside, it's a pretty decent gaming machine as well... We recently started playing Borderlands GOTY edition LAN games at the office and my MBA ran the game much smoother than another a ~1.5 year old 17" Macbook Pro in the office. He had to downgrade the video to get it working nicely, while my MBA hummed along without much of a sweat.
stcredzero 16y ago
I am currently using an original 2008 Macbook Unibody as my work machine. I bought a 2011 i5 Macbook Pro last weekend, but I ended up returning it. Instead, I bought a 2010 Macbook Pro. It will support my 256GB Crucial SSD and two 1920x1080 27" monitors and will be my new work machine.
highpass 16y ago
In case anyone is wondering, Brooks uses the 2.13ghz model.
wedtm 16y ago
This changed my mind from a MBP to a MBA. Thank you.
xbryanx 16y ago
I know it sounds trivial but the lack of a optical (CD/DVD) drive is my biggest barrier. In my work place, I still get all kinds of files and media on CDs and DVDs.
- markkanof 16y ago
  That's an interesting data point. I recently got a Macbook Air and before doing so I was thinking about the optical drive. I realized that for the way I use a laptop, it's been 8+ years since I've used an optical drive on my laptops for anything other than installing software. And now with more and more software being distributed via download even that is becoming less of an issue.
benologist 16y ago
I use my maxed out 13" for all my work now with an external monitor. It's an interesting change, the only problem I really have is I live in a hot country so the laptop runs hot and kernal_task screws around trying to get the temperature under control.
- mcculley 16y ago
  I live in Florida and was amused when I got my most recent 15"MBP that the technical specifications state the the max operating environment temperature is 95F.
MatthewB 16y ago
I bought my MBA (top of the line) last week, it is amazing. It does everything I need it to do. When I take out my MBP 15inch now...it feels like a huge brick.
matthew-wegner 16y ago
Not MBA-related, but for MBP machines you can use an OptiBay bracket to pull out the optical drive and replace it with an SSD or HD. Couple notes on that: - The OptiBay is $80, but includes a USB enclosure for your SuperDrive to turn it into an external drive: http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/ http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/ - Cheap clone brackets are ~$20 on eBay, work just as well. - The original HD bay includes a sudden motion sensor to park the heads on a drop. Ideal setup is to put an SSD in the optical bay and a HD in the internal. - Battery life doesn't seem affected by two drives. I suspect cpu/video/display power significantly outweighs power from an SSD. - The optical bay is 3 Gbps, the HD bay is 6 Gbps. Don't bother with the extra cost of new 6 Gbps SSDs if you put it in the optical position. - If you do this on a new machine, do your boot camp install before you remove the drive. MacBook Pros have some kind of hard-wired device order that makes it impossible to install Windows from an external USB/FireWire optical drive. I run a 250 GB SandForce SSD + 500 GB 7200rpm drive. SandForce does on-device garbage collection, which helps since OS X has no general-use TRIM support, and I do photo editing on the road so the faster HD is great.
- danilocampos 16y ago
  I have almost the exact same setup, save for a 120 GB SSD. But everything you've said is correct. I would add that the setup is surprisingly straightforward and that the OptiBay product comes with great installation docs. Unlike 2007 and earlier Apple portables, this generation is pretty easy to crack open. I love my 15" MBP configured as described. No, it's not especially light or sleek compared to a MacBook Air. But it's the fastest, most responsive machine I've ever used in my life. And the processor is a smidge fresher, so I feel better about obsolescence. One tip if you're going to go the two drive route: You can symlink heavy files that apps expect to be on your startup disk to your HDD. So in my case, I've symlinked my iTunes movies, iTunes U, iPhoto library, and a couple of other things and store them on the HDD. I don't touch these often and when I do, time isn't of the essence, so there's no point consuming my precious SSD capacity.
- SkyMarshal 16y ago
  Awesome info, thanks! I'm looking at doing exactly this soon. A few questions: How do you have your OSX directories partitioned across the drives? Can you move, say /, to the SSD while keeping /home/media on the larger platter drive? I only know how to do this with Linux, not very familiar with OSX despite it being BSD-based.
dasil003 16y ago
Every time I get on a plane I wish I had an Air, but it's just not justifiable. Not only do I have and use my 8GB RAM (Photoshop, Parallels, browsers, Rails + large test suite), but the peripheral ports are critical. I don't think my Time Machine backup would ever get off the ground without the initial Ethernet plugin, not to mention the times when the DSL goes out at the office I can just plug into the hardline normally reserved for our Mac Pros. Also Firewire is another thing that may not be needed every day, but hurts bad when you don't have it (need to transfer a couple GBs between Macs quickly? Compare to wifi to Firewire Target Disk Mode). Even the SD card reader is quite handy. I'll leave the optical drive out because honestly that would be fine as a peripheral (although I do salivate at the thought of a top-tier 64GB SSD boot drive + 1TB data drive in optical drive bay). I do have a bit of Air envy from time to time, but then I count my blessings that I live in a time where I have a portable workstation that I can use as my primary machine and carry from home to work every day. That is amazing in and of itself.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- onedognight 16y ago
  > my Time Machine backup would ever get off the ground without the initial Ethernet plugin For this one time usage the tiny USB/Ethernet adapter seems like a fine compromise. > Even the SD card reader is quite handy. The MacBook Air has an SD card reader.
  - dasil003 16y ago
    > For this one time usage the tiny USB/Ethernet adapter seems like a fine compromise. How's the speed on that? > The MacBook Air has an SD card reader. Ah, I was looking at the 11" oops
    - alsocasey 16y ago
      Well, USB2.0 maxes out at what, 480Mbps? So about half what a Gigabit ethernet would give you. In practice, it probably depends on your GigE hardware - NIC, cable type, etc...
kenjackson 16y ago
Computing power-wise there are few machines that can't do the job for most people. I recently had a friend get the ASUS 1015B[1] for $289. For everything he does (he's not a developer, rather a policy wonk) it works just fine. He loves the form factor for travel, weight, everything. But the problem with MBA, netbooks, and laptops in general is that they're less productive for some classes of work. Generally due to the display size/resolution. I find that even a 24" dislay is not adequate to really work at full steam. I need at least 2x24" when doing serious dev work. I can work on my laptop in a pinch, but its like writing a long email with T9. Sure, you can do it, but its not the way you like to operate. [1] http://www.asus.com/Eee/Eee_PC/Eee_PC_1015B/ http://www.asus.com/Eee/Eee_PC/Eee_PC_1015B/
anr 16y ago
MBAs have glossy displays too, right? That would be a turn off for me.
- Glide 16y ago
  Glossy like the new MBPs? No, they don't. The glossy MBPs have a sheet of glass and my current gen MBA doesn't have that. Of course, I would recommend trying it out for yourself at an Apple Store before deciding anything. Even if it wasn't glossy you still might not like the screen.
6ren 16y ago
He mentions a useful life of three years - but within three years, I'd expect ARM laptops to have largely replaced intel laptops, and be lighter, slimmer, have longer battery life, etc. Dual-core machines are out this year and are already fast enough for non-intensive tasks. Quad-core are expected next year. As a guide, in three years (2014) Tegra (Stark) is expected, which 100 times faster than Tegra 2. Apple's internal cpu could well be faster. Three years is a long time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Tegra#Tegra_2_series http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Tegra#Tegra_2_series
ethank 16y ago
I went from having a 17" Mac Book Pro core i5 and a Mac Pro 8 core, both with maxed RAM to my MBA 13" top of line. While I love the SSD, and I love the form factor, when working at a desk I really really pine for more RAM and a faster chip. I push the machine super hard on a normal day, not even when doing development. Now as a portable, nothing can beat the thing, and when working on its 13" screen, it forces you to edit your multitasking so you really don't push it as bad. But when hooked at a 27" screen, you are tempted to multitask more and it gets bogged down. Next week when the new iMacs come out I'm going to probably get one of those to use as a desktop machine and use the MBA as a portable. With Dropbox and MobileMe and Google sync, this is an easy proposition.
veidr 16y ago
Workflows vary, of course. And yeah, for non-programmers, I think the Air is a great machine--good enough to be the primary machine for most people. But for full-time programming work, I think it is absolutely fucking batshit insane to use anything less than a modern 12-core Mac Pro with 32 GB RAM and an SSD RAID boot volume (at which point multiple 2560 x something monitors are de rigueur). That's certainly true for [Obj-]C[++] development, where large compiles still take minutes, even on such hardware--and can take an entire lunch break on the Air. Obj-C coding is my primary background, so buying the fastest possible machine every year has always made sense in that way; perhaps I have a leftover cognitive bias toward buying the fastest possible machine. But, for the past year or so, I've been working mainly with Ruby and Objective-J, which don't have these burdensome compiles. Yet buying the fastest mainstream hardware still makes tons of sense to me. Running a few hundred unit tests, one second is way better than eight seconds. Running a bunch of convoluted RSpec integration specs, 34 seconds is way, way better than seven minutes. And although I mainly use simple editors like MacVim and BBEdit, I also really like the psychotron-dynamic-heuristic CodeSense-style introspection-based context-aware autocompletion features of RubyMine--a heavyweight Java-based IDE that eats 800MB of RAM and can barely even launch on a MacBook Air, and certainly isn't usable on it. And of course the modern Pro can run Win7, WinXP, and Linux in VMWare in the background without breaking a sweat (that's why 16GB RAM doesn't really suffice). Don't get me wrong; I think the recent MacBook Air is awesome. I have one, that I use for... well basically for word processing on airplanes (haha). And whatever else on airplanes. But for working programmers, I think computers are still not nearly 'powerful enough'--there are still huge gains to be had by getting the fastest machine that it is reasonably possible to buy. For roughly the price of one decently tricked-out Mac Pro, you can buy ten MacBook Airs. And for roughly the price of ten decently tricked-out Mac Pros, you can hire one additional developer. That notwithstanding, I still think it makes business sense. Sometimes, in my dreams, an AI built by an alien race visits my house, from the future in another galaxy, and explains to me the precise opportunity cost of a dozen human developers waiting three or four extra seconds, a hundred times a day for a year... and it's more than the ten grand that an appropriately provisioned Mac Pro costs P.S. A bootstrapped startup where money is really tight is the obvious exception--the exception that proves the rule!
- Shamiq 16y ago
tomwans 16y ago
My 2008 (Core 2 Duo) MBP died last week and I figured I'd upgrade rather than repair it (I felt the Core 2 Duo was aging fast). I borrowed my mother's low-end MBA for the time being and Fell In Love. It was great for Xcode development/tricked-out Emacs for remote dev. (pretty much all you need). However, I ended up with a tricked-out MBP 15" w/ SSD & Hi-Res screen - the reason is I need the peripherals &etc. for heavy apps like Logic. But let me tell you, if you're going MBP 15" - cough up for an SSD, but also ... get the Hi-Res screen. It's only $100 extra and you will feel as if you have an absurd amount of screen real estate.
lightoverhead 16y ago
I'm really not a fun for Mac stuff. It's just a fashion thing, not for work. For the money you spent on Mac, you can definitely buy a cheap powerful machine with free reliable Linux system. No matter to say its monopoly of market, even an adapter to projector need its own. I have seen so many times someone using a Mac but forgot bringing that stupid adapter for projector, she/he had to change to PC to do the presentation. Still don't understand why people like such pricey not comparably useful machine.
- laut 16y ago
  Macs "just work" for things where Linux doesn't. Photoshop doesn't run natively on Linux, that's alone is enough for many to choose OS X over Linux. For many people the price difference (if it's there) doesn't matter.
  - lightoverhead 16y ago
    that's the software not the machine. Can pc run photoshop?
    - laut 16y ago
      Mac OS X is the only unix based OS that runs Photoshop natively. Macs are the only way to run Mac OS X except if you make a "hackintosh". Linux is not as user friendly and integrated with the hardware as Macs. There are certain apps that are only available for Mac. Those are some of the reasons.
- starpilot 16y ago
  In this case, the Mac might actually be the better buy if you're just talking hardware. From one review of the most comparable PC, the Samsung Series 9: "The 13-inch MacBook Air delivers longer battery life, better graphics, and a higher-res display for $350 less, and you can get a 256GB SSD inside for $50 less than the Series 9." http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/samsung-series-9.aspx?page=all http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/samsung-series-9.asp...
oemera 16y ago
I think I'm really late into this and nobody will read my comment but I will give it a try. Six months ago I had a iMac 24" and a MacBook Pro 13" for studying and portability. I noticed after I bought my MBP that I didn't use my iMac as I thought to be using. Not because it was slow or bad or something. No it was just horrible to synchronize both devices with my work and study related stuff (Yeah I know now better that it is a charm with Dropbox). While I was deciding if I should sell my iMac I decided to sell both iMac AND my MBP. Why, you ask? My MBP was just fine but sometimes I had to carry a heavy books plus MBP with me and this was why my back was hurting. So I decided to switch to something lighter and faster (and yes my MBA is way faster than my MBP ever was). After selling both devices I bought a MBA with 128GB SSD and 4GB Ram and happier than ever before. This was one of the best decisions I made in my environment. And if anything happens to my MBA I will order a new one with thinking a moment about it. Pro's: * It is very fast, * it is light as nothing else, * I have instant-on (something which is really important to me), * I have 5-6 hours of battery life, * Eclipse runs really really smooth, * XCode runs even smother, * and every other development related works just fine (and sometimes I think even better as on my MBP) Con's: * No glass display (I loved it cause it was way easier to clean than a "plastic" display) * No keyboard backlight (while this was bothering me at the very beginning, I have to admit that I don't care anymore) At the bottom-line I want to say that unless you are working on really high computation stuff (like 3D rendering or something) a MBA will do it smoothly. I never encountered anything which I had performance problems with. (If you ask me I would wait a second longer in exchange to carry much less weight with me) Disclaimer: I don't play any games and try to escape Flash everywhere possible (cause it lets the fan freak out).
- alsocasey 16y ago
  All these pros, except weight, is really just down to the SSD - which you can get in any MBP trivially. 1. With an SSD, any current MBP would feel just as snappy. 2. Can't get around that - though I seldom feel my 4lb MBP is too heavy. 3. I've always had this, I call it Sleep. 4. My 13" i5 gets me >7Hrs. 5. Eclipse/XCode - will run just as fast with an SSD. Compile times - no contest, i5 beats the crap out of a 1.3-1.86Ghz C2D. The i5 in the current 13" MBP is nearly twice as fast as the C2D in the model it replaced - e.g. even faster when compared with the lower clocked MBA processor. Most things in day to day operation are HDD limited. Anything CPU limited will fly on a MBP compared to an MBA - I'm thinking compiling mostly for developers... I suppose web dev doesn't require compiling much - except when using GWT (which i what I use most often...)
dlaw 16y ago
Recently I was looking for a new laptop. The new MacBook Airs arguably have the best-designed hardware of any laptop on the market, but I object to certain hacker-unfriendly steps Apple has taken: namely, the use of pentalobular and triwing screws to make disassembly difficult. I cannot in good faith buy a computer from a company that so actively dissuades tinkering. I've decided to go with the ThinkPad X220 instead. Although it's not quite as svelte as the Air, it is designed to be user serviceable. Hell, Lenovo publishes a manual with instructions on how to replace the system board (including details such as the torque each screw should be tightened to). And, although the X220 has a removable battery, its battery life is just as good as (if not better than) that of the Air. (Oh, and the OS difference does not affect me because I will run Arch Linux either way.)
- pearle 16y ago
  I made the same choice last week after the aluminum bezel on my out of warranty MBP cracked (Wtf!). Nothing in the current Macbook stable meets my criteria. The Pros are all too heavy and the MBA is currently underpowered. The X220 seemed like a much better fit for me and I have one on order as a result. The fact that my MBP has been the absolute worst laptop I have ever owned didn't do Apple any favors.
Tycho 16y ago
It's by far the most appealing laptop on the market I think. One question I have though is can you get an anti-glare screen on it?

196 points by bergie 16y ago

dr_ 16y ago

I've owned the 11.6" MBA for a couple of months now and it works great. It's portability is fantastic because I have to take it with me to several locations where I don't have a lot of work space. It's fast and the battery life is decent enough so that during the day I really don't require a power cord (but I don't go online much with it during the workday). The only time I see it slow down a little is when I'm accessing my Yahoo email in Outlook.

ScottBurson 16y ago

Interesting that I seem to be the only 17-inch fan here. I can see the attraction of an MBA, but I prefer having a screen big enough that I can do everything on it without an external monitor, and I don't mind lugging it around at all.

veyron 16y ago
There's a difference between "I dont mind lugging it around" and "I lug it around a lot". I had a 17 inch once and realized that, even though I could move it, the weight and size made it inconvenient. It ended up sitting on the desk all day. Needless to say I replaced it with a 27" iMac.
larrywright 16y ago
I'm 3.5 years into owning a 17" MB Pro, and my next laptop will be the 13" Air. I wanted the screen real estate when I bought it (coming from a Toshiba that could only do 1024x768). While I love the performance and all the pixels, it's just not portable. The higher resolution on the Air is good enough, and the weight is very appealing.
_delirium 16y ago
For me it's less the lugging (though that's a factor), but more the easier ability to use the machine in cramped quarters, like at some coffee shops, and in economy-class plane seating.
dstein 16y ago
17"MBP here too, and after 2 years its been a great machine, still decent specs by today's standards. But the size is starting to wear on me. I've entertained the option of upgrading to a new 15"MBP but it doesn't seem like a big enough jump to justify the cost. I hope Apple has a 15" Air in the works because that would feel like an upgrade in multiple dimensions - cpu, ram, display, weight, thickness, portability.
icco 16y ago
I travel between three offices every day on foot / bike. I tried the 13" MBP on my back for a while, but in the end it caused more pain than it was worth. I can only imagine the 17" being far worse. For now I use a Lenovo x200, but it's about the same as the MBA 13". So while sure I could "lug" the 17" around, I'd much rather loose some screen space and save my back. But I will say, I am quite jealous when traveling of the screen space the 17" provides.
- MrFoof 16y ago
  The difference in weight is much more than it sounds. Work had issued me a Lenovo Thinkpad T61p with a large extended battery pack to make it last closer to 4 hours. It weighed about 7.5 pounds. After just 15 minutes, my shoulder would become sore from lugging my bag around. I handed them their laptop back and bought a 15" MacBook Pro with my own money. Just that 2 pound difference means that instead of my shoulder being sore after 15 minutes, it takes about an hour for it to become sore. If I didn't need the memory and the CPU (I do data warehousing work, and need to run VMs almost all the time) I would certainly have gotten a 13" MacBook Air to shave off another 2.5 pounds. Heck, I'd probably get an even smaller bag just to shave off another 1/2 a pound. It's absolutely worth doing.

bergie 16y ago

Also my personal notes on the same, running Ubuntu instead of OS X: http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/11-macbook_air-the_best_computer_i-ve_ever_had/ http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/11-macbook_air-the_best_computer_i...

JCB_K 16y ago
Simply put, the 11" MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever had. I've always appreciated small and light laptops as I travel quite a bit, but this one takes portability to a completely new level. The laptop weights only a kilogram, and is small enough to fit pretty much any bag. I also hate the display adapters Apple forces us to buy and carry around. I give a lot of presentations, and this is another piece of equipment to accidentally leave home. Why not just go VGA or HDMI? That wouldn't really go together :)
- bergie 16y ago
  HDMI is almost the same size as the Mini DisplayPort. Apple just loves their own connectors, unfortunately. I was shocked when I noticed the VGA adapter wasn't included in the package. Luckily I realized this before my first conference presentation with the new computer ;-)
  - runjake 16y ago
    If by "almost" you mean "over twice as big", sure. (I happen to have an HDMI connector sitting next to my MBP's Thunderbolt (nee Mini-DisplayPort) port. Edit: They have "mini-HDMI" out, which is an entirely different beast than the mini-HDMI adapters included on many Android smartphones. A mini-HDMI port would require similar adapters to connect to anything useful. A normal "type-A" HDMI port is a sizeable connector, larger than a USB port.
    - bergie 16y ago
      Several mobile phones have HDMI out. For me that is "small enough". I think HDMI would even make the ports on different sides more balanced, as the size is more similar to the magsafe adapter

JCB_K 16y ago

Playing back a 1080p h.264 video using the 24″ Cinema Display (in full screen), the computer drops a lot of frames doing this. That was the only thing that really surprised me.

elithrar 16y ago
My 11" Air plays lower bit-rate 1080p stuff fine (ie. Apple's movie trailers site), even on an external display. Of course, with a sub-2.13Ghz C2D it will definitely struggle on higher bit-rate content, so I wouldn't be surprised at all.
dzuc 16y ago
I've had it struggle quite a bit with fullscreen Netflix Instant or Hulu when played back on an external monitor, as well.
hexley 16y ago
Yeah, this sounds like a bug; I'm pretty sure that should be GPU accelerated.
kooshball 16y ago
I was really surprised here as well. Does any one else have any data points here? How does it handle 720p contents?

dadro 16y ago

I concur with authors opinion of MBA. The 13in MBA is the best computer I've ever owned. My current Mac Lineup consists of: * Latest gen 13in MBA * 17in MBP (~1yr) work paid for it * 13in Black Macbook (loved this one too!) * Mac Pro (totally pimped out) work paid for it * 3rd gen mac mini The only machine I use now is the MBA. It is everything a Web Dev needs, great resolution, fast, travels well. It even plays Minecraft quite well. The only thing I'd ask for in the 3rd gen models is a back-lit keyboard. Love this machine. Edit: Best accessory I've purchased http://www.luxurylapdesk.com/index.php http://www.luxurylapdesk.com/index.php

bergie 16y ago
Yep. I use the 11" MBA for work, and a tablet for browsing at home or reading in the plane
masnick 16y ago
+1 for the backlit keyboard. I'm surprised how much I miss it -- I've had backlighting since my PowerBook G4 and always thought it was fluff.
Volscio 16y ago
Same here, 13" 4GB MBA, bought after my neighbor's apartment fire forced me to get a new system for the 4.5mos without my old computers. Got it all back eventually. I use my MBA constantly, at work and home (hooked up to a 24" at home). I have a W7 quadcore w/ 3 monitors that I only use for Photoshop/server stuff. Best purchase I've made in a long time, that MBA.
ernestipark 16y ago
I don't understand this obsession for backlit keyboards I've been reading about a lot lately on forums. It definitely looks nice but its just a battery drain and I assume most HN people don't look at their keys. I always keep mine off for the sake of my battery.
- rowaway1 16y ago
  backlit keyboard aren't just for looking nice. they're for working at night in dark rooms. before touch typing you need to glance quickly at your hand's position above the keys, to make sure your hand position isn't transposed slightly up, down, left, right--which happens easily when you're blinded by a monitor in the dark, and the key bed is pitch black. yes, you can fold down your monitor till the light illuminates the keys, squint while you orient your hand, then raise the monitor to eye-level...but that is a distraction to workflow when hacking at night. way too much effort just for checking hand orientation. backlit keys solve that problem, which is one of the most serious 1st world problems facing rich people with nice computers today.

_Fil_ 16y ago

The only thing that stops me from buying one is the 10/100 lan adapter. I transfer every day large files between my mac and my pc or NAS and the transfer rate would kill me.

jonknee 16y ago
802.11n can be pretty fast and I doubt you'd notice a difference vs a 10/100 network. Many gigabytes of video files get transfered OTA every day in my office.
elithrar 16y ago
Rumors abound of a Sandy Bridge- based Air hitting later this year, along with Thunderbolt — if a Thunderbolt to GigE adapter comes out, it will remedy this issue.
baudehlo 16y ago
This. In a corporate environment wifi just isn't allowed. We have it in our office but it is stunted beyond reproach. You need to be plugged in to access stuff.
- bergie 16y ago
  Makes me happy not to work for a large corporation. Our company has been WiFi-only since 2001
  - stuff4ben 16y ago
    Not all large corporations are like that. Here at Cisco most employees are given only laptops (Thinkpad or MBP) and the wireless here is usually fantastic as one would expect. Now if only I could get my hands on a Cius...
- pohl 16y ago
  It doesn't make any sense to mod this down. It's a real issue.

beck5 16y ago

The bigest complement about my MBA is I love(d) my iPad, I took it everywhere, but I gave it to my mum at the weekend because I don't use it anymore since I getting a base 13" Air.

chime 16y ago

I use MBA (4GB RAM upgrade, 128GB SSD) for doing a lot of XCode development. XCode4 runs very smoothly and I've never had any speed issues with running the iOS Simulator. It's light, doesn't heat up, and is very stable. I gave up my http://chir.ag/stuff/5lcd.jpg http://chir.ag/stuff/5lcd.jpg setup for a single MBA and I couldn't be happier (my electric bill went down by $125/month). From personal experience I know that I'm more productive on 5 LCD than on 3 LCD or 2 LCD setup. However, I spend a lot more time working on my MBA than I ever did on my desktop and though I work slower, the end result is that I'm overall producing more.

bergie 16y ago
I'm the only one in our company not using any external monitors. The added screen real estate would be nice, but the downside is that then you have a different setup in the office and on the road. I rather get used to a single screen I always have with me.
- jonhohle 16y ago
  You can plug in an external screen into your laptop. Sometimes I use just an external display with my laptop; sometimes I use it as a second (primary) monitor.
  - bergie 16y ago
    I know I can, but I want to keep the working setup exactly same regardless of whether I'm at my desk or in a train
- devinfoley 16y ago
  I've thought of ditching my monitor for this reason many times.
- Braxo 16y ago
  I also do not use an external monitor for this reason. I like being able to work from anywhere with the same setup. I wanted my productivity to be identical wherever I am. Not using a monitor, I also don't use an external keyboard or mouse. I have an unused monitor on my desk at work I do no plug into.

jimwise 16y ago

Pretty much exactly my experience, except that I'm running a lot more compiles and a lot less photoshop on this 13" MBA. In particular, if you're upgrading from a machine without SSD, the speed advantages you'll see for things like emacs or compiles of large projects -- things which access lots of small files -- are huge. This machine replaced a MacBook Pro which was technically its equal in processor speed, but it feels faster in every way (and is a heck of a lot more usable on the train).

dedward 16y ago
You could always just chuck an SSD into a macbook pro on your own - my aging late-2009 macbook pro got a fantastic speed boost when I dropped an Intel x25m G2 SSD in - a bit short on space compared to before (which forces me to keep things backed up and synched, which is a good thing) and the speed difference is night and day.

thenduks 16y ago

'Enough'? Understatement. It's practically perfect. Sure it's not your gaming rig or fit for Final Cut Pro, so that could change things if this sounds like you... but as a developer it easily trumps every machine I've ever owned.

mark_l_watson 16y ago

My MBA is my favorite computer also: for running IntelliJ, Emacs+Lisp, Rails development, etc., it is great to use. I do still use a MBP for one customer's work because I need a ton of services running during development.

nwomack 16y ago

It's really too bad there is not a matte option for it. I agonized over the MBA vs MBP decision for about a year, and finally got the High-End 15" 2011 MBP model with the matte screen upgrade. Couldn't be happier. Yeah, it's a big hulking beast, but the extra real estate and matte screen are really nice. I don't think I can go back to glossy ever again...

tortilla 16y ago
I had a glossy 15" and now the semi-glossy 11". It's really not very glossy at all. I barely ever notice my ugly mug staring back at me. Really, the best of both worlds.

calebhicks 16y ago

I use a 13" MBP with 8GB RAM and an Intel SSD. I could have gone with the MBA, but didn't like the thought of another Core 2 Duo. I have a 24" monitor at my office, and a 27" iMac (my wife's) that I use as a second display for my MBP. Best of both worlds. Speed, mobility, and big screens when I need 'em.

achompas 16y ago
Which Intel SSD are you using? I'm about to make the same purchase myself.
- calebhicks 16y ago
  X-25M. It's not the latest and greatest, but I got it for $170 after a sale and mail-in rebate. If you've got more cash to spend, you may want to look at the new 310, or 510. There are other great SSD makers, but I chose Intel based on the price and general high reviews.
  - achompas 16y ago
    Wow, that's apparently a great deal on the X-25M--they were retailing for $220 at NewEgg. I'm waiting to see what comes out in the next few months, as apparently OCZ and Intel are building drives with the new SandForce chipset. Don't know if the improvements will be significant, though...
    - spicyj 16y ago
      The Intel 320 Series is very similar to the X25-M (just the next generation; practically the same controller) and is cheaper as well.
SkyMarshal 16y ago
I'm in the process of abandoning my desktop and switching to laptop full time, and after weeks of figuring out the best laptop setup, I've come to the same conclusion - 13" MBP i5, 8GB, SSD = best of all worlds. Only left is to make sure I can dual boot some linux distro on it without issues (the HD3000 gfx drivers for linux may be an issue, but appear solved in Ubuntu 11.04).

dmauro 16y ago

I'm using my MBA (no upgrades, lowest end model) for my daily routine as a designer, and it's holding up perfectly well. I am mostly just running Photoshop, Illustrator, Textmate, and a few browsers. Hell, I was even able to play Portal 2 on this thing. It's definitely the best $1,000 I've ever spent on tech, and I'm a Windows guy. The only downsides are if I have a bunch of large files open in Photoshop and Illustrator, I might have to save and close some to keep things running smooth. When I'm plugged into a 27" display, some things are not quite as smooth. So yeah, I'd rather be working on a faster desktop system (though the benefits would be minimal), but I can close this, bring it home, and continue working with the same workspace. And the monitor is better than my Dell 22" I have at home.

daimyoyo 16y ago

I suppose if money were no object I'd probably get a MBA but the fact is that the 13" MBP I ended up getting is more than enough for what I use it for and was 25% cheaper. And when every dollar counts, that's important.

chopsueyar 16y ago

I know MBA stand for MacBook Air, but reading some of these comments is a bit difficult/funny.

sidwyn 16y ago

I own a MBA as well. What can I say? I've never looked back.

JonLim 16y ago

I've been slugging it out at work with my 5 year old Macbook at work with an external display and I will continue to until it dies. When it does go though, I intend to make a choice between a Macbook Air and a Macbook Pro. I already have an iPad 2, but the lightness and mobility of the MBA might make it the better machine for me.

kayoone 16y ago

I got the early 2011 MBP 15" because i wanted a single machine i work on in the office and at home. I am using it with an external screen though, mostly for ergonomical reason. Working Laptop-only hurts you, dont do it all day! But the most annoying thing currently is that its fans speed up so quickly during work. Because of this i regret buying it and not going for a MBA11 + iMac.

tvon 16y ago
I've never attempted this myself, but you might want to google around for ways to underclock your MBP to keep it cool. I'm guessing it's either impossible due to firmware restrictions, or there are tools out there that make it crazy simple.

achompas 16y ago

My MacBook Air was $1,799 and the equivalent MacBook Pro (top of the line 15″, because why would you buy the 13″?) would cost me just over $3,200 (adding 3rd party SSD, Apple 8GB RAM and the Hi-Res screen). Man, this is disingenuous. 8GB RAM? As if you can't get it cheaper (or the MBA even offered 8GB RAM as an option)? Or as if the 15" MBP doesn't blow the Air out of the water in every other aspect? I bought a 13" Pro because (a) it's smaller and lighter than the 15" and (b) I don't play PC games. When we run THAT comparison, well: 13" MBP with 256GB Crucial SSD [0], 4GB RAM, 2.3GHz Core i5 -- $1699 13" MBA with 256GB SSD, 4GB RAM, 2.13 GHz C2D -- $1799 Sure, I don't have a Hi-Res screen (the one Pro feature I wanted on the 13"), but I can actually upgrade my computer in 3 years when 4GB RAM becomes a bottleneck. Now that's a low year-over-year computing cost. The MacBook Air is an awesome machine, to be sure, but it's awesome because of the built-in SSD--not because of the value it provides. [0] http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148349 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148...

pyre 16y ago
I think that point is that if he were buying a MBP that it would not be able to justify the purchase to himself without maxing everything out. So that price comparison is really only applicable to him.
- achompas 16y ago
  Right, but even then that's not a clear comparison. Maxing out a 15" MBP makes no sense for him--he bought a 13" MBA, so he clearly believed that 256 GB SSD + 4GB RAM would cover his needs. Does he have to always max out his Apple equipment purchases?
  - pyre 16y ago
    In the article, he was justifying maxing out the laptop with 'future-proofing' it so that he could go longer before needing to buy a new one.
  - sjs 16y ago
    I feel that it makes sense. When weighing the options I came to the exact same conclusion as the author, except my notebook is < 1 year old so I'm not actually upgrading soon, though I would like to shed weight. If I were to buy a Pro it'd be the 15" for its resolution, and I definitely want 8GB of memory. However the 13" Air is compelling because of the size & weight. If it were available with 8GB of memory that would be the way to go, but it's not. Personally I'm holding out for the 15" Air. Ideally with a faster CPU (Core i3 or i5 is fine), up to 8GB or 16GB of memory, and a resolution of 1680x1050. While I'm wishing it should also have a matte option. The Air is nice but it's not a portable workstation replacement, yet.

guictx 16y ago

Frank Chimero, illustrator and designer, wrote about his experience using a MBA as primary machine: http://blog.frankchimero.com/post/2799470127/the-setup http://blog.frankchimero.com/post/2799470127/the-setup

ascendant 16y ago

I was seriously entertaining the idea of getting a top-end MBA earlier this year (refurbed for $200 off) but then the new MBP's came out and I couldn't justify a 13 inch screen and a Core 2 duo when for almost the same price I could have the 15 inch screen and a Sandy Bridge Core I7. I got the MBP and truly love it. I imagine the lightness of the air goes a long way towards what makes it so popular but I don't really travel that much, I just carry my MBP to coffee shops and tech events so it's not that big of a deal to me.

r00fus 16y ago
Glad you like the MBP, but if you don't have an SSD you're missing out. If you do, the prices are a lot more equivalent (ie, MBP+SSD is not cheap).
- wyclif 16y ago
  IMO the SSD is what puts the MBA over the MBP when deciding between the two. The big benefit is the battery life. The MBA is the first laptop I've ever seen where a programmer can work for what amounts to a full day on a single charge without any qualification.
- ascendant 16y ago
  I agree to a point. All of my regular-use apps (Eclipse, Xcode, Textmate, Chrome, Terminal, Echofon) all start up really quickly. I don't really ever find myself sitting around waiting for things on it.

ben1040 16y ago

I've owned the original 12" Powerbook G4, and the first-gen MacBook Air (no SSD). With both of those I ended up with some buyers remorse about six months later, feeling like I was making some huge performance tradeoffs for the portability that ended up biting me later on. The 12" G4 was just plain slow, while the first-gen Air was hamstrung with crappy GMA950 graphics and a really slow disk. From what I've read the SSD on the original Air was on an IDE interface and wouldn't have made much of a difference anyway. I bought the new 13" Air the week after launch and absolutely love it for a dev environment. XCode runs nice and smooth and it now seems to me that an SSD is nearly essential to make Eclipse feel usable. We're coming up to the 6 month point where with those older laptops I would think "oh God why did I spend $1800 on this," and I still think this is the best computer I've ever owned.

quinndupont 16y ago

Tangential question: I've got a MacBook Air and a first gen (of the current design) white plastic MacBook that stores all my music/video (300GB music, 100GB video, with a bunch more video on external USB drive). My issue is that it is very slow these days, and I feel like it is IO bound with my big, kinda slow HD. I'm considering replacing the optical drive with the OWC SSD hack. Then, the OS & apps can live on the SSD, music and video on slow HD. Thoughts on performance? Anyone else try this?

grandalf 16y ago

I've been using an 11" macbook air for the past few months as a development machine and it works just fine. I use emacs and ruby 1.9 mostly.

japherwocky 16y ago

Dell made a laptop with similar specs called the 'Adamo' for a while. It's small, light and sexy, costs about half as much as an MBA, and Ubuntu worked out of the box. A good alternative if you'd like to avoid the Apple flavored kool-aid.

Tiomaidh 16y ago
Lenovo's about to release the ThinkPad X1, with relatively beefy specs and the MBA's form factor. Do want. It's freakishly expensive though (almost $3K). http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/23/lenovo-thinkpad-x1-shows-up-online-looks-freakishly-thin/ http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/23/lenovo-thinkpad-x1-shows-...
tomkinstinch 16y ago
I couldn't find the "Adamo" listed on Dell's US website, but it is listed on Amazon[1] for ~$1261. That's only a touch less than a MacBook Air. Where did you find it for "half as much?" 1. http://www.amazon.com/Dell-Adamo-A13-6349PWH-13-4-Inch-Laptop/dp/B0030T17HS http://www.amazon.com/Dell-Adamo-A13-6349PWH-13-4-Inch-Lapto...
- japherwocky 16y ago
  I bought mine last fall for $900, and I guess I'm not up on the latest MacBook pricing. Sincerest apologies.

pdenya 16y ago

MBAs look nice for on the go but I definitely wouldn't give up my 27" imac at home (1 20" attached to the imac too) setup at home. I have a company MBP that I use for whenever i'm out and about. I definitely don't haul it everywhere but it's no trouble to take on even an afternoon trip if there's a chance I could use it. I'm also not sure what the problem is with switching to a different workflow on a laptop vs a desktop. I'm fine alt-tabbing between chrome and coda or xcode and ios sim but I'd prefer to not have to. All of my content stays in sync with a combination of git and dropbox so no issues there either.

jorisw 16y ago

The SSD. It's fast, fast, fast. I use an 11.6" MBA for everything I do. At my desk, I hook up a 24" monitor. At a client or a meeting, the 1366x768 resolution is just fine.

mahyarm 16y ago

I'm waiting until the MBA gets thunderbolt and solves it's biggest problem, a lack of a fast data transfer method. Sandy Bridge CPUs and maybe maybe USB3 would be good bonuses. Otherwise I'm sticking with the Pro with gigabit ethernet and firewire 800. If the MBA could also get a 1080p screen like the sony vaio Z does, it would get rid of the biggest reason I want to get a vaio Z.

tomlin 16y ago

While the previous MBA might have felt like a compromise, I find the current MBA a top-tier contender for development, personally. I use a BookArc Air from TwelveSouth[1], LED Cinema[2] display. I find it beats having 2 Macs. I love disconnecting my MBA, taking it to work and opening it up at the exact place I was when I last used it. The BookArc makes it aesthetically pleasing and organized and the MBA handles the Cinema display without effort. I also like syncing my iTunes library with my iPhone on one Mac. [1]: http://www.twelvesouth.com/products/BookArc_for_Air/ http://www.twelvesouth.com/products/BookArc_for_Air/ [2]: http://www.apple.com/displays/ http://www.apple.com/displays/

jrockway 16y ago

As a developer, I can always use as much CPU time as I have available. A good example is the Moose test suite: on my laptop, it takes 3 minutes (there are a lot of tests). On my desktop with -j8, it takes 10 seconds. (This setup was a lot less than $1799, and I have 6G of RAM, an SSD, and 3TB of slower storage. But I am big on ergonomics, so a laptop doesn't work for me anyway.)

greg_gti 16y ago

If you currently use a 13" MBP wait until the next revision of the MBA and buy because right now, the differences don't justify the expense

zmitri 16y ago

I got the top of the line MacBook Air. It was my first Apple product ever. After tax was 1900 ish, which I do admit is super expensive. It does everything I need, and is SUPER portable -- I can carry it like a piece of paper. Everything is super responsive, and compilation is fast enough. I run Photoshop from time to time, and its not a problem whatsoever. Also tried out Portal 2, no problems at all.

tchock23 16y ago

Not to sound like a fanboy (I believe I posted something about my Air a while back on HN), but I'm a big fan of my 13" MacBook Air after a few months of using it. I agree with the original poster that it is more than sufficient for an everyday work machine. As an aside, it's a pretty decent gaming machine as well... We recently started playing Borderlands GOTY edition LAN games at the office and my MBA ran the game much smoother than another a ~1.5 year old 17" Macbook Pro in the office. He had to downgrade the video to get it working nicely, while my MBA hummed along without much of a sweat.

stcredzero 16y ago

I am currently using an original 2008 Macbook Unibody as my work machine. I bought a 2011 i5 Macbook Pro last weekend, but I ended up returning it. Instead, I bought a 2010 Macbook Pro. It will support my 256GB Crucial SSD and two 1920x1080 27" monitors and will be my new work machine.

highpass 16y ago

In case anyone is wondering, Brooks uses the 2.13ghz model.

wedtm 16y ago

This changed my mind from a MBP to a MBA. Thank you.

xbryanx 16y ago

I know it sounds trivial but the lack of a optical (CD/DVD) drive is my biggest barrier. In my work place, I still get all kinds of files and media on CDs and DVDs.

markkanof 16y ago
That's an interesting data point. I recently got a Macbook Air and before doing so I was thinking about the optical drive. I realized that for the way I use a laptop, it's been 8+ years since I've used an optical drive on my laptops for anything other than installing software. And now with more and more software being distributed via download even that is becoming less of an issue.

benologist 16y ago

I use my maxed out 13" for all my work now with an external monitor. It's an interesting change, the only problem I really have is I live in a hot country so the laptop runs hot and kernal_task screws around trying to get the temperature under control.

mcculley 16y ago
I live in Florida and was amused when I got my most recent 15"MBP that the technical specifications state the the max operating environment temperature is 95F.

MatthewB 16y ago

I bought my MBA (top of the line) last week, it is amazing. It does everything I need it to do. When I take out my MBP 15inch now...it feels like a huge brick.

matthew-wegner 16y ago

Not MBA-related, but for MBP machines you can use an OptiBay bracket to pull out the optical drive and replace it with an SSD or HD. Couple notes on that: - The OptiBay is $80, but includes a USB enclosure for your SuperDrive to turn it into an external drive: http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/ http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/ - Cheap clone brackets are ~$20 on eBay, work just as well. - The original HD bay includes a sudden motion sensor to park the heads on a drop. Ideal setup is to put an SSD in the optical bay and a HD in the internal. - Battery life doesn't seem affected by two drives. I suspect cpu/video/display power significantly outweighs power from an SSD. - The optical bay is 3 Gbps, the HD bay is 6 Gbps. Don't bother with the extra cost of new 6 Gbps SSDs if you put it in the optical position. - If you do this on a new machine, do your boot camp install before you remove the drive. MacBook Pros have some kind of hard-wired device order that makes it impossible to install Windows from an external USB/FireWire optical drive. I run a 250 GB SandForce SSD + 500 GB 7200rpm drive. SandForce does on-device garbage collection, which helps since OS X has no general-use TRIM support, and I do photo editing on the road so the faster HD is great.

danilocampos 16y ago
I have almost the exact same setup, save for a 120 GB SSD. But everything you've said is correct. I would add that the setup is surprisingly straightforward and that the OptiBay product comes with great installation docs. Unlike 2007 and earlier Apple portables, this generation is pretty easy to crack open. I love my 15" MBP configured as described. No, it's not especially light or sleek compared to a MacBook Air. But it's the fastest, most responsive machine I've ever used in my life. And the processor is a smidge fresher, so I feel better about obsolescence. One tip if you're going to go the two drive route: You can symlink heavy files that apps expect to be on your startup disk to your HDD. So in my case, I've symlinked my iTunes movies, iTunes U, iPhoto library, and a couple of other things and store them on the HDD. I don't touch these often and when I do, time isn't of the essence, so there's no point consuming my precious SSD capacity.
SkyMarshal 16y ago
Awesome info, thanks! I'm looking at doing exactly this soon. A few questions: How do you have your OSX directories partitioned across the drives? Can you move, say /, to the SSD while keeping /home/media on the larger platter drive? I only know how to do this with Linux, not very familiar with OSX despite it being BSD-based.

dasil003 16y ago

Every time I get on a plane I wish I had an Air, but it's just not justifiable. Not only do I have and use my 8GB RAM (Photoshop, Parallels, browsers, Rails + large test suite), but the peripheral ports are critical. I don't think my Time Machine backup would ever get off the ground without the initial Ethernet plugin, not to mention the times when the DSL goes out at the office I can just plug into the hardline normally reserved for our Mac Pros. Also Firewire is another thing that may not be needed every day, but hurts bad when you don't have it (need to transfer a couple GBs between Macs quickly? Compare to wifi to Firewire Target Disk Mode). Even the SD card reader is quite handy. I'll leave the optical drive out because honestly that would be fine as a peripheral (although I do salivate at the thought of a top-tier 64GB SSD boot drive + 1TB data drive in optical drive bay). I do have a bit of Air envy from time to time, but then I count my blessings that I live in a time where I have a portable workstation that I can use as my primary machine and carry from home to work every day. That is amazing in and of itself.

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onedognight 16y ago
> my Time Machine backup would ever get off the ground without the initial Ethernet plugin For this one time usage the tiny USB/Ethernet adapter seems like a fine compromise. > Even the SD card reader is quite handy. The MacBook Air has an SD card reader.
- dasil003 16y ago
  > For this one time usage the tiny USB/Ethernet adapter seems like a fine compromise. How's the speed on that? > The MacBook Air has an SD card reader. Ah, I was looking at the 11" oops
  - alsocasey 16y ago
    Well, USB2.0 maxes out at what, 480Mbps? So about half what a Gigabit ethernet would give you. In practice, it probably depends on your GigE hardware - NIC, cable type, etc...

kenjackson 16y ago

Computing power-wise there are few machines that can't do the job for most people. I recently had a friend get the ASUS 1015B[1] for $289. For everything he does (he's not a developer, rather a policy wonk) it works just fine. He loves the form factor for travel, weight, everything. But the problem with MBA, netbooks, and laptops in general is that they're less productive for some classes of work. Generally due to the display size/resolution. I find that even a 24" dislay is not adequate to really work at full steam. I need at least 2x24" when doing serious dev work. I can work on my laptop in a pinch, but its like writing a long email with T9. Sure, you can do it, but its not the way you like to operate. [1] http://www.asus.com/Eee/Eee_PC/Eee_PC_1015B/ http://www.asus.com/Eee/Eee_PC/Eee_PC_1015B/

anr 16y ago

MBAs have glossy displays too, right? That would be a turn off for me.

Glide 16y ago
Glossy like the new MBPs? No, they don't. The glossy MBPs have a sheet of glass and my current gen MBA doesn't have that. Of course, I would recommend trying it out for yourself at an Apple Store before deciding anything. Even if it wasn't glossy you still might not like the screen.

6ren 16y ago

He mentions a useful life of three years - but within three years, I'd expect ARM laptops to have largely replaced intel laptops, and be lighter, slimmer, have longer battery life, etc. Dual-core machines are out this year and are already fast enough for non-intensive tasks. Quad-core are expected next year. As a guide, in three years (2014) Tegra (Stark) is expected, which 100 times faster than Tegra 2. Apple's internal cpu could well be faster. Three years is a long time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Tegra#Tegra_2_series http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Tegra#Tegra_2_series

ethank 16y ago

I went from having a 17" Mac Book Pro core i5 and a Mac Pro 8 core, both with maxed RAM to my MBA 13" top of line. While I love the SSD, and I love the form factor, when working at a desk I really really pine for more RAM and a faster chip. I push the machine super hard on a normal day, not even when doing development. Now as a portable, nothing can beat the thing, and when working on its 13" screen, it forces you to edit your multitasking so you really don't push it as bad. But when hooked at a 27" screen, you are tempted to multitask more and it gets bogged down. Next week when the new iMacs come out I'm going to probably get one of those to use as a desktop machine and use the MBA as a portable. With Dropbox and MobileMe and Google sync, this is an easy proposition.

veidr 16y ago

Workflows vary, of course. And yeah, for non-programmers, I think the Air is a great machine--good enough to be the primary machine for most people. But for full-time programming work, I think it is absolutely fucking batshit insane to use anything less than a modern 12-core Mac Pro with 32 GB RAM and an SSD RAID boot volume (at which point multiple 2560 x something monitors are de rigueur). That's certainly true for [Obj-]C[++] development, where large compiles still take minutes, even on such hardware--and can take an entire lunch break on the Air. Obj-C coding is my primary background, so buying the fastest possible machine every year has always made sense in that way; perhaps I have a leftover cognitive bias toward buying the fastest possible machine. But, for the past year or so, I've been working mainly with Ruby and Objective-J, which don't have these burdensome compiles. Yet buying the fastest mainstream hardware still makes tons of sense to me. Running a few hundred unit tests, one second is way better than eight seconds. Running a bunch of convoluted RSpec integration specs, 34 seconds is way, way better than seven minutes. And although I mainly use simple editors like MacVim and BBEdit, I also really like the psychotron-dynamic-heuristic CodeSense-style introspection-based context-aware autocompletion features of RubyMine--a heavyweight Java-based IDE that eats 800MB of RAM and can barely even launch on a MacBook Air, and certainly isn't usable on it. And of course the modern Pro can run Win7, WinXP, and Linux in VMWare in the background without breaking a sweat (that's why 16GB RAM doesn't really suffice). Don't get me wrong; I think the recent MacBook Air is awesome. I have one, that I use for... well basically for word processing on airplanes (haha). And whatever else on airplanes. But for working programmers, I think computers are still not nearly 'powerful enough'--there are still huge gains to be had by getting the fastest machine that it is reasonably possible to buy. For roughly the price of one decently tricked-out Mac Pro, you can buy ten MacBook Airs. And for roughly the price of ten decently tricked-out Mac Pros, you can hire one additional developer. That notwithstanding, I still think it makes business sense. Sometimes, in my dreams, an AI built by an alien race visits my house, from the future in another galaxy, and explains to me the precise opportunity cost of a dozen human developers waiting three or four extra seconds, a hundred times a day for a year... and it's more than the ten grand that an appropriately provisioned Mac Pro costs P.S. A bootstrapped startup where money is really tight is the obvious exception--the exception that proves the rule!

Shamiq 16y ago

tomwans 16y ago

My 2008 (Core 2 Duo) MBP died last week and I figured I'd upgrade rather than repair it (I felt the Core 2 Duo was aging fast). I borrowed my mother's low-end MBA for the time being and Fell In Love. It was great for Xcode development/tricked-out Emacs for remote dev. (pretty much all you need). However, I ended up with a tricked-out MBP 15" w/ SSD & Hi-Res screen - the reason is I need the peripherals &etc. for heavy apps like Logic. But let me tell you, if you're going MBP 15" - cough up for an SSD, but also ... get the Hi-Res screen. It's only $100 extra and you will feel as if you have an absurd amount of screen real estate.

lightoverhead 16y ago

I'm really not a fun for Mac stuff. It's just a fashion thing, not for work. For the money you spent on Mac, you can definitely buy a cheap powerful machine with free reliable Linux system. No matter to say its monopoly of market, even an adapter to projector need its own. I have seen so many times someone using a Mac but forgot bringing that stupid adapter for projector, she/he had to change to PC to do the presentation. Still don't understand why people like such pricey not comparably useful machine.

laut 16y ago
Macs "just work" for things where Linux doesn't. Photoshop doesn't run natively on Linux, that's alone is enough for many to choose OS X over Linux. For many people the price difference (if it's there) doesn't matter.
- lightoverhead 16y ago
  that's the software not the machine. Can pc run photoshop?
  - laut 16y ago
    Mac OS X is the only unix based OS that runs Photoshop natively. Macs are the only way to run Mac OS X except if you make a "hackintosh". Linux is not as user friendly and integrated with the hardware as Macs. There are certain apps that are only available for Mac. Those are some of the reasons.
starpilot 16y ago
In this case, the Mac might actually be the better buy if you're just talking hardware. From one review of the most comparable PC, the Samsung Series 9: "The 13-inch MacBook Air delivers longer battery life, better graphics, and a higher-res display for $350 less, and you can get a 256GB SSD inside for $50 less than the Series 9." http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/samsung-series-9.aspx?page=all http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/samsung-series-9.asp...

oemera 16y ago

I think I'm really late into this and nobody will read my comment but I will give it a try. Six months ago I had a iMac 24" and a MacBook Pro 13" for studying and portability. I noticed after I bought my MBP that I didn't use my iMac as I thought to be using. Not because it was slow or bad or something. No it was just horrible to synchronize both devices with my work and study related stuff (Yeah I know now better that it is a charm with Dropbox). While I was deciding if I should sell my iMac I decided to sell both iMac AND my MBP. Why, you ask? My MBP was just fine but sometimes I had to carry a heavy books plus MBP with me and this was why my back was hurting. So I decided to switch to something lighter and faster (and yes my MBA is way faster than my MBP ever was). After selling both devices I bought a MBA with 128GB SSD and 4GB Ram and happier than ever before. This was one of the best decisions I made in my environment. And if anything happens to my MBA I will order a new one with thinking a moment about it. Pro's: * It is very fast, * it is light as nothing else, * I have instant-on (something which is really important to me), * I have 5-6 hours of battery life, * Eclipse runs really really smooth, * XCode runs even smother, * and every other development related works just fine (and sometimes I think even better as on my MBP) Con's: * No glass display (I loved it cause it was way easier to clean than a "plastic" display) * No keyboard backlight (while this was bothering me at the very beginning, I have to admit that I don't care anymore) At the bottom-line I want to say that unless you are working on really high computation stuff (like 3D rendering or something) a MBA will do it smoothly. I never encountered anything which I had performance problems with. (If you ask me I would wait a second longer in exchange to carry much less weight with me) Disclaimer: I don't play any games and try to escape Flash everywhere possible (cause it lets the fan freak out).

alsocasey 16y ago
All these pros, except weight, is really just down to the SSD - which you can get in any MBP trivially. 1. With an SSD, any current MBP would feel just as snappy. 2. Can't get around that - though I seldom feel my 4lb MBP is too heavy. 3. I've always had this, I call it Sleep. 4. My 13" i5 gets me >7Hrs. 5. Eclipse/XCode - will run just as fast with an SSD. Compile times - no contest, i5 beats the crap out of a 1.3-1.86Ghz C2D. The i5 in the current 13" MBP is nearly twice as fast as the C2D in the model it replaced - e.g. even faster when compared with the lower clocked MBA processor. Most things in day to day operation are HDD limited. Anything CPU limited will fly on a MBP compared to an MBA - I'm thinking compiling mostly for developers... I suppose web dev doesn't require compiling much - except when using GWT (which i what I use most often...)

dlaw 16y ago

Recently I was looking for a new laptop. The new MacBook Airs arguably have the best-designed hardware of any laptop on the market, but I object to certain hacker-unfriendly steps Apple has taken: namely, the use of pentalobular and triwing screws to make disassembly difficult. I cannot in good faith buy a computer from a company that so actively dissuades tinkering. I've decided to go with the ThinkPad X220 instead. Although it's not quite as svelte as the Air, it is designed to be user serviceable. Hell, Lenovo publishes a manual with instructions on how to replace the system board (including details such as the torque each screw should be tightened to). And, although the X220 has a removable battery, its battery life is just as good as (if not better than) that of the Air. (Oh, and the OS difference does not affect me because I will run Arch Linux either way.)

pearle 16y ago
I made the same choice last week after the aluminum bezel on my out of warranty MBP cracked (Wtf!). Nothing in the current Macbook stable meets my criteria. The Pros are all too heavy and the MBA is currently underpowered. The X220 seemed like a much better fit for me and I have one on order as a result. The fact that my MBP has been the absolute worst laptop I have ever owned didn't do Apple any favors.

Tycho 16y ago

It's by far the most appealing laptop on the market I think. One question I have though is can you get an anti-glare screen on it?