MacBook Air refresh delivers most affordable mass-market notebooks in Apple history

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  • Reply 41 of 64
    solipsismx wrote: »
    "Some of us" clearly wasn't enough to keep the 17" on the market. I'm sure there are "some of us" that a 19" or 21" MBP but I would guess those "somes of us's" are even fewer in numbers.
    It is plenty. You need to consider what most users do with a "PC", especially those that want a 11" notebook. For me, 11" is more of a deal breaker than 4GiB RAM but I will max out my RAM given the opportunity.
    I have searched before a and have not found market for any laptop above 18 inch, either this has changed or there is no "good" market for these anywhere.
    paxman wrote: »
    I disagree. I think 4gb is fine for most users. My daughter has an 11" mba with 4gb ram and whenever I borrow it never crosses my mind that it is sluggish. She uses mail, Safari and sometimes Word or Powerpoint, and iTunes, mostly and rarely quits any of them. I think she is a much more typical user than anybody here. Most users don't use powerful graphics or media software on a regular basis.

    Somebody with better technical understanding of OSX may be able to answer this but with better memory management isn't 4gb in OSX much more capable than a few years ago? I seem to remember this was a key feature covered at a fairly recent OSX roll-out.
    apparently most can still use 6gb ram, as with the keynote of WWDC last year it was that 4 gb = 6gb ram, of course I would not see any good use with less then 8 gb.

    I am really hoping the next generation 12 inch macbook air with Broadwell that is rumored to be replacing the current model is evidence that we will see 14 and 16 inch macbook pros. High def screens need more real estate. A 16 inch macbook pro would be stunning. The 14 inch would be much more compelling than the 13 inch. The next mobile GPU from nvidia will also bring much better performance per watt. At least if the 28 nm 750 ti on the desktop is any indicator then the 20 nm version will really bring improvements. These 16 form factors might allow for a 12 hour charging cycle.
    I hope apple does not do 14, 16 inch pros, I was thinking them 12 inch MBA and 14 or 15 inch Mbp as only 2 models.
  • Reply 42 of 64
    @ BAHR "4GB Ram isn't good enough for anyone? Maybe with Mavericks -- "

    -- and that's the topic of discussion: if new MacBook Airs shipped with Mavericks needs more than 4 GBs of RAM. In the virtual memory sense, no, 4 GBs is fine, but running a Mac in virtual memory slows it way down -- rendering your new Intel chip pointless.

    When any user has a Mac open, they need: a browser running a few open pages), their mail app open, Calender, and maybe iTunes ready. 4GBs can handle that without virtual memory. However, if you want to use the now free iWorks suite, simply opening any two of those apps pushes a user into VM. Not using those apps, but simply opening them.

    That's kinda tight. What you want is the freedom to be playing songs in iTunes and maybe adjusting a Numbers chart WITHOUT going into VM lead mode.

    The real Mavericks minimum is 6GBs and so all Macs should ship with 8. What's weird is I might have been happier if prices remained where they were but the 8 gigs of RAM was standard.
  • Reply 43 of 64
    slurpyslurpy Posts: 5,382member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by pmz View Post

     

     

    I doubt that. While many can "get by" with it, I doubt it is really plenty. I am not the average user either, and likewise can't deal with anything less than 16 GB....but even for light computer usage, I find the Mac very sluggish with 4 GB of RAM.


     

    Bullshit. I'm a heavy user, my Macbook Air has 4GB and never does it feel "sluggish", nevermind "very sluggish". Do you even know what those words mean? Incredible how entitled people have gotten, and how extreme every statement needs to be. Yes, in very specific situations that most users will not encounter, 8GB might help, as opposed to 4GB. That does not mean that your statement of "very sluggish" holds any water at all. 

  • Reply 44 of 64
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    slurpy wrote: »
    Bullshit. I'm a heavy user, my Macbook Air has 4GB and never does it feel "sluggish", nevermind "very sluggish". Do you even know what those words mean? Incredible how entitled people have gotten, and how extreme every statement needs to be. Yes, in very specific situations that most users will not encounter, 8GB might help, as opposed to 4GB. That does not mean that your statement of "very sluggish" holds any water at all. 

    Perhaps it's because it's still in beta but I've noticed something different with 10.9.3. I use iStat Menus so I see how my Mac is performing constantly. My Late-2013 MBP has 16GiB RAM and boots up to about 14% utilized. As I open apps it goes higher. Now, previously with 10.9.2 and lower using more than 50% without any VMs in play it was a concern that an app might be performing properly but with 10.9.3 I'm seeing the utilizing go well above 50%, even into the 90% range. That said, there is no performance loss, any known memory leaks, and when I go back to my MBP in the morning it's usually down into the 20% category despite never closing the lid, shutting down any apps, or in any way putting it to sleep. The display turns off.I hypothesize that Apple is applying advanced memory techniques it's learned from iOS back into Mac OS X to make the system more intelligent to optimize resources.
  • Reply 45 of 64
    droidftwdroidftw Posts: 1,009member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Slurpy View Post

     

    Bullshit. I'm a heavy user, my Macbook Air has 4GB and never does it feel "sluggish", nevermind "very sluggish". Do you even know what those words mean? Incredible how entitled people have gotten, and how extreme every statement needs to be. Yes, in very specific situations that most users will not encounter, 8GB might help, as opposed to 4GB. That does not mean that your statement of "very sluggish" holds any water at all. 


     

    I liked the part where you called his anecdotal evidence bullshit and supported your argument with your own anecdotal evidence.

  • Reply 46 of 64
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,309moderator
    solipsismx wrote: »
    Now, previously with 10.9.2 and lower using more than 50% without any VMs in play it was a concern that an app might be performing properly but with 10.9.3 I'm seeing the utilizing go well above 50%, even into the 90% range. That said, there is no performance loss, any known memory leaks, and when I go back to my MBP in the morning it's usually down into the 20% category despite never closing the lid, shutting down any apps, or in any way putting it to sleep. The display turns off.I hypothesize that Apple is applying advanced memory techniques it's learned from iOS back into Mac OS X to make the system more intelligent to optimize resources.

    Mavericks uses memory more than previous versions for caches but it flushes them out when the system needs to allocate memory. In 10.8, OS X calls this Inactive memory and if it gets too full, the system has to keep eating into it but things start to lag in the UI for some reason, maybe it happens sometimes in Mavericks. If you just flush the whole inactive memory cache using purge in the terminal, it doesn't do it. You have to use sudo purge in Mavericks.

    The good thing with Mavericks is that it compresses the memory not currently being used so you can get up to 50% more memory capacity than the physical amount suggests so 4GB behaves like having 6GB depending on how it's allocated.

    4GB is a good enough amount of memory for an entry-level machine but the integrated GPU can use up to 1GB of it so I personally would go with 8GB minimum. People who buy the entry machines likely don't consider this much.
  • Reply 47 of 64
    tzterritzterri Posts: 110member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by juanm105 View Post



    "An 11" screen is so last century.

    Where's a 17" model?

    Some of us like a laptop with a bigger screen and it isn't like we can just go buy one from another manufacturer if we want to run OSX."



    Check screen resolutions not just the diagonal measurements.

    The 15-inch MacBook is more than adequate and does a great job as a replacement to a 17-inch MacBook. My son and architect has the last model 17-inch but even a MacBook at 17-inch is huge and is not something you just pick up and take with you.



    11-inch is not last century, again check the displays and resolution at which they operate. compare with an FULL SIZE iPad with its 9.7 inch screen, 11-inch is huge and a great portable size.



    different opinions - that's what makes horse races.

    I don't run my existing 17" along with its 30" monitor at their maximum resolution now because I find everything is too small. 

     

    I'm a freelance print and web designer. A lot of meetings with clients are at public places that have wifi, like coffee shops and restaurants. Actually one of my bigger clients is a restaurant. 

     

    As it is now I often have to decrease the resolution even more than when I working so that everyone seated at the table can easily view stuff. Most of my clients are in their fifties with less than great eyesight. 

     

    Being a designer I know a lot of other designers and everyone is using a 17" Mac or Windows laptop. It's the perfect size for table top presentations. Big enough that a small group can view the screen.

     

    I own a 15" Macbook Pro, older model. Trying to sit down with a client and go over a publication two page spreads ends up involving a whole lot of zooming and scrolling. 

     

    I really hate the thought of having to buy a 17" windows laptop for meeting with clients (this would bring up a bunch of other issues) but at some point it will come down to that or trying to lug around an external display to hook to a 15" Macbook. 

     

    I've also looked into making a Hacintosh laptop but from what I've read there are a lot of issues.

     

    Personally I think the price of the Apple 17" Macbook Pro was more of an issue with its sales than its size.

  • Reply 48 of 64
    I agree that the SSD has personally made a greater difference for myself than a bump in ram, as long as you are at 4gb or above. Do people feel the processor upgrade is worth it?
  • Reply 49 of 64
    simtubsimtub Posts: 277member

    Apple has just made the a MBA similarly priced to an iPad Air!



    1.4GHz 11-inch MacBook Air

    4GB memory

    128GB PCIe-based flash storage1

    HK$ 6,688 



    iPad Air Wi-Fi 128GB

    HK$ 6,288 



    Now can we have more ram in the iPad Air please!

     

     

  • Reply 50 of 64
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by pmz View Post



    These are nice, and good prices. Too bad 4 GB of RAM isn't good enough for anyone anymore, or they would be REALLY good prices.

    For what it's worth my primary computer is a Late 2010 MBA with 2GB of RAM and I've never had any significant issues with it. My use is probably similar to the "average user." I keep multiple windows open, use Spaces, play music, and edit pics in iPhoto without any issues. Sometimes the fan will kick in when I have a bunch of windows open and start playing a bunch of flash videos, but other than that it's smooth sailing. The storage OTOH is a bit limiting, and I recently had to purchase an aftermarket upgrade kit.

  • Reply 51 of 64
    pbpb Posts: 4,255member

    What most people seem to miss regarding built-in RAM, is this. When all the available memory is used, the operating system starts paging out. With a common spinning hard drive, this causes a significant slowdown of the system. But with today's SSD in the MBA, the impact on system responsiveness is limited and likely to go unnoticed by the average user. Apple knows this very well, this is why they offer the minimum they can in system memory.

  • Reply 52 of 64
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by The Pool Man View Post



    @ BAHR "4GB Ram isn't good enough for anyone? Maybe with Mavericks -- "



    -- and that's the topic of discussion: if new MacBook Airs shipped with Mavericks needs more than 4 GBs of RAM. In the virtual memory sense, no, 4 GBs is fine, but running a Mac in virtual memory slows it way down -- rendering your new Intel chip pointless.



    When any user has a Mac open, they need: a browser running a few open pages), their mail app open, Calender, and maybe iTunes ready. 4GBs can handle that without virtual memory. However, if you want to use the now free iWorks suite, simply opening any two of those apps pushes a user into VM. Not using those apps, but simply opening them.



    That's kinda tight. What you want is the freedom to be playing songs in iTunes and maybe adjusting a Numbers chart WITHOUT going into VM lead mode.


    The real Mavericks minimum is 6GBs and so all Macs should ship with 8. What's weird is I might have been happier if prices remained where they were but the 8 gigs of RAM was standard.

    opinions vary.   I think for the MBA target audience... 4GB is fine with 64bit Mavericks.   VM on an SSD with memory compression isn't like Jaguar with 4gb and a 5400 rpm HD, running 32 bit apps.

     

    Little of iTunes would be in VM.   Numbers would be the VM culprit, and with compression and caching, the impact is nominal (my wife's normal operating mode is either netflix/silverligh or safari/flash running (both killer apps for leaking memory), and Pages.   She's very happy with the performance.

     

    I found the biggest tweak you can do to speed up your MBA is to turn on Spotlight privacy (or... turn off indexing) on your ~/Library/Cache and a few others (Safari, Silverlight, and for me ~/Downloads).    Performance improve immensely if you're not indexing crufty stuff.

     

    this post-> http://tumblr.amitgupta.com/post/262471673/stopping-runaway-cpu-usage-by-mds-mdworker-and ;

     

    points that out.

     

    But in the end, I'm finding that my Macs (HD and SSD) now perform very well at the 90%-110% range of memory... and before Mavericks, I was feeling the need to keep memory use down to under 80%.  but, YMMV.

  • Reply 53 of 64
    dewme wrote: »
    If these lower prices help a few more people break the shackles of the Windows dependency then all is good. I do agree with posters who recommend maxing out RAM and file storage whenever there is no opportunity to upgrade in the future. I've done that all along but I still have machines that were maxxed out at 4GB at the time I bought them. With that said I'm not suffering in any way because of it. My 2008 iMac still runs like a champ with Mavericks. I've never had a PC that felt as good to use after 6 years of service. Heck, no matter how much I've ever spent on getting the latest and greatest Wintel PC it's never failed to feel sluggish after 6 months once it's loaded up with antivirus, antispam, firewall, months worth of Windows Updates and other cruft that makes you want to pull your hair out. Trust me, I know that Macs and OSX are by no stretch of the imagination perfect or obsolesence proof but I will say without hesitation that Macs do not decay in performance to the extent that PCs do. I admire and appreciate the versatility and portability of the Windows operating system, but its ability to run on any hardware and run any software no matter the source or quality makes it have to work harder to keep from collapsing in on itself. Apple has both the luxury and burden of having a smaller and more constrained platform but if they say something will run decently on a certain version of OSX (or iOS) and hardware you can rest assured that it will. This is why certain versions of new OS and apps don't reach back as far as we sometimes wish they would, e.g., why not allow iOS7 on an iPad1? Apple doesn't want to subject their customers to a crappy user experience. On the Windows PC side the "minimum system requirements" are almost always laughable for people who value their time and sanity.

    I'd love to have a fully loaded MBA 11" if for no other reason than it is probably the only full functionality Mac laptop that you can use confortably on an airline tray table, in the cheap seats of course. Even the 13" version is too big for econotorture seating.

    Finally, there's no shortage of computer products to spend your money on. If the MBA doesn't fit your needs then select a model that does or go with a different brand. I hate to disappoint you but Apple actually does have a plan and does have a pretty good job of recognizing what its customers want today and even what customers will want in the future, even before their customers have told them. We'd still be using slider and flip phones if all Apple did was listen to current customers. If all they did was react to niche market concerns they'd have gone the way of the Dodo and DEC and Compaq and so many other "powerhouse" companies that only reacted to customer demand or a small segment, like the DEC Rainbow customer base.

    Hello fellow 2008 iMacer! How long before you get another? I'm hoping to eek mine out until 2015 or 2016.
  • Reply 54 of 64
    chiachia Posts: 713member

    Originally Posted by TzTerri View Post

    ?I don't run my existing 17" along with its 30" monitor at their maximum resolution now because I find everything is too small. 

    ...

    I'm a freelance print and web designer. 

    ...

    As it is now I often have to decrease the resolution even more than when I working so that everyone seated at the table can easily view stuff. Most of my clients are in their fifties with less than great eyesight. 

     

    Being a designer I know a lot of other designers and everyone is using a 17" Mac or Windows laptop. It's the perfect size for table top presentations. Big enough that a small group can view the screen.

     

    I own a 15" Macbook Pro, older model. Trying to sit down with a client and go over a publication two page spreads ends up involving a whole lot of zooming and scrolling. 

     

    I really hate the thought of having to buy a 17" windows laptop for meeting with clients (this would bring up a bunch of other issues) but at some point it will come down to that or trying to lug around an external display to hook to a 15" Macbook. 

    ...

    Personally I think the price of the Apple 17" Macbook Pro was more of an issue with its sales than its size.


     

    A micro projector and optional portable tabletop projection screen potentially address all your concerns better than ANY 17 inch screen and can be used with ANY size of laptop.

     

    They may even be a factor in why Apple discontinued the 17 inch MBP and 17 inch laptops are rare generally.

  • Reply 55 of 64
    ckilnerckilner Posts: 1member
    My first two Apple portables were cheaper than $1000.

    I bought my first PowerBook (a PowerBook 150) in 1995 with a student discount at $799 ($1299 list when released in 1994) after it was discontinued that fall. I still have it for accessing info on floppies.

    I bought my second, an Indigo iBook, as an Apple refurb for $999. That was later passed to a niece.

    My third was free - a found Mac Portable that I refurbished and sold to a museum in the Netherlands for $300 on eBay in the early 2000's... the shipping on that beast added quite a bit to the cost of that transaction.
  • Reply 56 of 64
    crysisftwcrysisftw Posts: 128member

    Quote:


    Originally Posted by hillstones View Post

     

    4GB RAM and 128GB disk storage is pretty weak if you were planning to use a MacBook Air as a primary machine.  Apple doesn't even offer flash drives larger than 512GB in the Air.  The base model units do not allow any drive upgrade options either, so your price quickly jumps if you want to add a larger drive.


     

    1. OS X is very good at managing memory. Mavericks requires a bit more, but it makes up for it by adding the Memory Compression feature. For many circumstances, that 4 GB RAM should act like a 6 GB.

     

    2. 128GB is very low indeed by 2014 standards, but I'd rather have a 128GB SSD than a 1TB HDD.

     

    3. Flash drives will only get better. Now is the time the whole computer industry is making a shift to the SSD technology (Apple, the benchmark definer, already has, along its well established wide range of Macs). We'll soon see larger capacity SSDs that are very reasonably priced and have very good reliability. So yes, while 512GB isn't enough now, you need to see the slick design and cues. Apple would love to charge a thousand bucks more from you, but they won't at the cost of ruining their design by making it swollen and fat like the majority of PC notebooks.

  • Reply 57 of 64
    bondm16bondm16 Posts: 141member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by juanm105 View Post



    "An 11" screen is so last century.

     

    I disagree. My laptop has an 11.6" display with 1366 x 768 resolution on an IPS screen. It makes the laptop very portable and great for my needs. 

  • Reply 58 of 64
    flashfan207flashfan207 Posts: 291member
    bondm16 wrote: »
    My laptop has an 11.6" display with 1366 x 768 resolution on an IPS screen. It makes the laptop very portable and great for my needs. 

    Yep. Me too. It's perfect. And it runs so well it's like it thinks it's a much bigger machine.
  • Reply 59 of 64
    juanm105juanm105 Posts: 49member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Bondm16 View Post

     

    I disagree. My laptop has an 11.6" display with 1366 x 768 resolution on an IPS screen. It makes the laptop very portable and great for my needs. 


    I didn't say anything against the 11.6 and in fact and thinking of getting one.

     

    I quoted  TzTerri.

  • Reply 60 of 64
    bondm16bondm16 Posts: 141member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by FlashFan207 View Post





    Yep. Me too. It's perfect. And it runs so well it's like it thinks it's a much bigger machine.

    Exactly ;)

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