I was actually curious to see if this new unveiling would reveal a dual-boot device -- a small laptop with flash memory and a regular processor that would run OSX, but also have an A4 processor and could boot up instantly with iOS. And have 3G. A true hybrid of both a Macbook and an iPad. And it could share some documents back and forth between the 2 OS's.
The main reason? The iPad cannot exist without a computer. It is not an autonomous device. I am going to need a computer to transfer to and from the iPad. If Apple would not limit the device as such...it would do just fine so SO many people as a basic computer.
Agreed, if only it could...I would be very tempted to pare down my digital lifestyle to an iPad 3Gs and an iPhone 4....
I don't want to have to shelve, store, charge, update, remember to take, all these gadgets! Uggh!
I have a son-in-law...(Masters in Finance) and absolutely hates "tech."
He has an old TV that looks like the cab of the Space Shuttle and flip phone that looks like it's from the late 90's.
He says, ALL his emails will be on his desktop at work in the morning when he gets there!
I asked him to put it away, b/c it was embarrassing. He said, "I've been told that, before!"
I had the white 3Gs when it first came out....with a Mophie white battery "case." Which essentially, doubled its size. Yep, little blue flashing lights on the back-thought I was cool!
He said, "it looked like something a Star Wars Storm Trooper would carry!" And he was exactly right...It looked really stupid! so I sold it and got the iPhone 4!
Exactly! I questioned SJ's description of the MBA at the Keynote. He said, 'what would happen if the Macbook hooked up with the iPad'? Really Steve? This is what you get? I say hogwash! This is a mini Macbook, nothing more. The Hardware may have been inspired by the economy of how the iPad was built but that's where the comparisons end, my friend. I'd rather have an iOS/OSX hybrid machine. Well, that's probably what Steve is talking about with Lion. Now that Lion has apps and a lot more multi-touch components, the OS is what's going to make the new MBA more like the iPad. Let's hope that's what he means.
Quote:
Originally Posted by axual
"... and may be more appropriately categorized as a larger, faster iPad".
Except that the Macbook Air not a tablet, has no touch interface, can't be held like a tablet, doesn't operate like a tablet, doesn't look like a tablet and is not an iPad. Other than that, it's a faster iPad I guess.
Because the iPad is much better at being a multi-touch viewer than an input device. doing heavy emailing, blogging, or anything that requires more than a single tap or multi-touch swipe, is just tedious. try using this forum on an iPad for more than a twitter-like response and get back to me when you're arm falls off.
Quote:
Originally Posted by leesure
But if you're looking for "The rest? email, web browsing, music, videos, etc. It works just fine." then why not an iPad?
as much as i giggle from these quotes, they are kind of missing the point. It's not that the tests are telling us anything we didn't already know...they're trying to show us HOW MUCH faster or slower they are. And I'm quite impressed at how much faster the 11" is to the iPad. Kind of convinces me that I'd rather get an 11" air over and iPad hands down on performance. And with Lion, it's going to be a pretty powerful little portable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rider
Title should be Apple's new 11" MacBook Air a "much faster iPad" or "much slower MacBook Pro ... Duh!!" ..
AI Seriously ? things should be really slow today huh ?
agreed! 100% My mom would love this, but doesn't own a computer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lamewing
The main reason? The iPad cannot exist without a computer. It is not an autonomous device. I am going to need a computer to transfer to and from the iPad. If Apple would not limit the device as such...it would do just fine so SO many people as a basic computer.
excellent point! Why not do this? I totally agree! Trackpad input on iOS just doesn't seem as unnatural as everyone else seems to think.
Quote:
Originally Posted by frugality
I was actually curious to see if this new unveiling would reveal a dual-boot device -- a small laptop with flash memory and a regular processor that would run OSX, but also have an A4 processor and could boot up instantly with iOS. And have 3G. A true hybrid of both a Macbook and an iPad. And it could share some documents back and forth between the 2 OS's.
It should be noted that Poole did not include scores for Late 2010 1.6GHz or 2.13GHz MacBook Airs, which are $100 build-to-order options for the 11.6- and 13.3-inch models, respectively, through Apple's online store.
I don't understand that. If somebody cares about raw performance, they likely would buy the faster processor. Why wasn't that one considered?
Despite the fact that new 13" Air is more powerful than good old 11", I would prefer latter. Both have two-core processors, and the main difference is core frequency. 11" Air have 1.4GHz on each core, and I consider that as fast enough for regular work.
And yes, comparing Air and iPad is pretty stupid - that's two different devices for two different uses.
The reality is no one cares about that geeky sh** such as benchmarks. They are going to use the baby air to surf, blog, watch movies ect. Give it a rest and stop over analyzing everything!
The slowest MBA is 60% of the speed of the MBP, but more than 4x faster than an iPad. Not to mention the fact it can run full blown OS X, dual boot to Windows and for all intent and purpose, is nothing like an iPad.
I doubt this performance is a shock to anyone. The thing that sells the Air is the size/portability of the device - not performance. There has always been a performance gap but it is acceptable to those with this need.
I personally would take the extra weight for performance and display size but I think what they have squeezed into these small pkgs is amazing.
I have the first week (2/08) MBA, 1.6, 2G, 80G HDD. I don't use spreadsheets or PowerPoints or PhotoShop or even Aperture and I've switched to iWork from Word for word processing and while I'd like some additional speed I'm a happy chappy. My wife has the Summer 2009 MBA 2.13, 128 SSD and it's blazing fast and makes me jealous.
Today at my Apple Store I played with the 11" and I love it. I'm going to try the slightly faster processor with 4G and see how it fares. I'm sorry the 11" doesn't come with a SD slot, but otherwise I'm pretty excited about it. Odd that the 11" with the minimally faster processor and 4G RAM is the same price ($1400) as the 13" standard processor, 4G and 128G SSD ($1400). Paying for the smaller size perhaps?
I'd love the 11" with the fastest processor and I'd gladly pay an additional $100 for that, but I have no need for a 256G SSD for an extra $300 (as offered on the higher end 13").
Conclusion, the 11"Air 1.4GHz is more similar in performance stats to a MBP, therefore it is more analogous of a slower MBP.
Thank you. To conclude otherwise is pure hubris.
I researched some other benchmarks yesterday.
Basically we're looking at the 11" at 1.4ghz having roughly 2/3 the performance of a MacBook/Pro.
However being purely flash-storage based, it can be responsive in a lot of tasks.
Not good enough to replace my Macbook Aluminium 2ghz (besides financial discipline I'm trying to stick to), and 13" is the smallest I can go for a laptop.
But then again I can have open at one time, Safari, Firefox Mail, CS4 Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Bridge, Flash, VMWare Fusion WinXP/ Win7.
Nonetheless for a lot of mainstream users, outside of those "geek"benchers, it's got decent performance for their needs. People are going to be pushing the limit on these MBAs, or otherwise just be getting them to follow the trends, and in Asia, as the new luxury item du jour.
MacWorld has a more useful, real-world testing, (not just one benchmark designed to stress CPU & memory), and they found that the new MacBook Airs are much faster than the old one when you factor ALL aspects of hardware into the equation: the nVidia 320m, the faster SSD, and the refined Intel Core 2 Duo, which handles heat better, so the chip doesn't get underclocked like the version used in the older Airs. That's the main take away: the new MacBook Airs are hands-down faster than the older Airs, and depending on what you're doing, even faster than disk-based MacBook Pros on I/O-bounded activities.
Comments
The main reason? The iPad cannot exist without a computer. It is not an autonomous device. I am going to need a computer to transfer to and from the iPad. If Apple would not limit the device as such...it would do just fine so SO many people as a basic computer.
Agreed, if only it could...I would be very tempted to pare down my digital lifestyle to an iPad 3Gs and an iPhone 4....
I don't want to have to shelve, store, charge, update, remember to take, all these gadgets! Uggh!
I have a son-in-law...(Masters in Finance) and absolutely hates "tech."
He has an old TV that looks like the cab of the Space Shuttle and flip phone that looks like it's from the late 90's.
He says, ALL his emails will be on his desktop at work in the morning when he gets there!
I asked him to put it away, b/c it was embarrassing. He said, "I've been told that, before!"
I had the white 3Gs when it first came out....with a Mophie white battery "case." Which essentially, doubled its size. Yep, little blue flashing lights on the back-thought I was cool!
He said, "it looked like something a Star Wars Storm Trooper would carry!" And he was exactly right...It looked really stupid! so I sold it and got the iPhone 4!
Best
I hear it's more portable than a MacPro, too!
Yeah! Is it more portable than the MBP 17" ?
Built for Apple by Sony.
Good times!
"... and may be more appropriately categorized as a larger, faster iPad".
Except that the Macbook Air not a tablet, has no touch interface, can't be held like a tablet, doesn't operate like a tablet, doesn't look like a tablet and is not an iPad. Other than that, it's a faster iPad I guess.
But if you're looking for "The rest? email, web browsing, music, videos, etc. It works just fine." then why not an iPad?
Title should be Apple's new 11" MacBook Air a "much faster iPad" or "much slower MacBook Pro ... Duh!!" ..
AI Seriously ? things should be really slow today huh ?
or maybe dare I say it a "netbook" hmmm seems to fit the mold doesn't it.........
The main reason? The iPad cannot exist without a computer. It is not an autonomous device. I am going to need a computer to transfer to and from the iPad. If Apple would not limit the device as such...it would do just fine so SO many people as a basic computer.
I was actually curious to see if this new unveiling would reveal a dual-boot device -- a small laptop with flash memory and a regular processor that would run OSX, but also have an A4 processor and could boot up instantly with iOS. And have 3G. A true hybrid of both a Macbook and an iPad. And it could share some documents back and forth between the 2 OS's.
It should be noted that Poole did not include scores for Late 2010 1.6GHz or 2.13GHz MacBook Airs, which are $100 build-to-order options for the 11.6- and 13.3-inch models, respectively, through Apple's online store.
I don't understand that. If somebody cares about raw performance, they likely would buy the faster processor. Why wasn't that one considered?
And yes, comparing Air and iPad is pretty stupid - that's two different devices for two different uses.
:-) Its really a lighter and faster PowerBook 100
OR a very fast PowerBook Duo 2400, which just so happens to be the computer I've been waiting for for more than 12 years!
Not one of the best stories of the day...
I doubt this performance is a shock to anyone. The thing that sells the Air is the size/portability of the device - not performance. There has always been a performance gap but it is acceptable to those with this need.
I personally would take the extra weight for performance and display size but I think what they have squeezed into these small pkgs is amazing.
I have the first week (2/08) MBA, 1.6, 2G, 80G HDD. I don't use spreadsheets or PowerPoints or PhotoShop or even Aperture and I've switched to iWork from Word for word processing and while I'd like some additional speed I'm a happy chappy. My wife has the Summer 2009 MBA 2.13, 128 SSD and it's blazing fast and makes me jealous.
Today at my Apple Store I played with the 11" and I love it. I'm going to try the slightly faster processor with 4G and see how it fares. I'm sorry the 11" doesn't come with a SD slot, but otherwise I'm pretty excited about it. Odd that the 11" with the minimally faster processor and 4G RAM is the same price ($1400) as the 13" standard processor, 4G and 128G SSD ($1400). Paying for the smaller size perhaps?
I'd love the 11" with the fastest processor and I'd gladly pay an additional $100 for that, but I have no need for a 256G SSD for an extra $300 (as offered on the higher end 13").
It's meaningless that the Air is faster than the iPad, because they run two totally different OSs.
Benchmark performance differences:
Between 13"MBP 2.4GHz and 11"Air 1.4GHz ? 1332
Between 11"Air 1.4GHz and iPad ? 1573
Conclusion, the 11"Air 1.4GHz is more similar in performance stats to a MBP, therefore it is more analogous of a slower MBP.
Thank you. To conclude otherwise is pure hubris.
I researched some other benchmarks yesterday.
Basically we're looking at the 11" at 1.4ghz having roughly 2/3 the performance of a MacBook/Pro.
However being purely flash-storage based, it can be responsive in a lot of tasks.
Not good enough to replace my Macbook Aluminium 2ghz (besides financial discipline I'm trying to stick to), and 13" is the smallest I can go for a laptop.
But then again I can have open at one time, Safari, Firefox Mail, CS4 Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Bridge, Flash, VMWare Fusion WinXP/ Win7.
Nonetheless for a lot of mainstream users, outside of those "geek"benchers, it's got decent performance for their needs. People are going to be pushing the limit on these MBAs, or otherwise just be getting them to follow the trends, and in Asia, as the new luxury item du jour.
Such a stupid article!
Slower than a MBP, really? Wow ...
Faster than an iPad, really? Wow ...
Are you serious?
MacWorld has a more useful, real-world testing, (not just one benchmark designed to stress CPU & memory), and they found that the new MacBook Airs are much faster than the old one when you factor ALL aspects of hardware into the equation: the nVidia 320m, the faster SSD, and the refined Intel Core 2 Duo, which handles heat better, so the chip doesn't get underclocked like the version used in the older Airs. That's the main take away: the new MacBook Airs are hands-down faster than the older Airs, and depending on what you're doing, even faster than disk-based MacBook Pros on I/O-bounded activities.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/artic...?taxonomyId=12