EOE: Macbook air

[CLAY]

Who is using one?  What for?  How do you like it?  I'm not an apple fanboy, and it kills me that we can get a standard laptop at half the price that does so much more, but my wife is interested.  She is a doctoral grad still working on research.  Primary use will be for school (she starts as a professor this fall), powerpoints, word processing, email and the internet.  So, sell me on this device.  

[Cablebandit]

Well like you said you can get a Windows box for much less.  Is there a real reason she wants it other than "it's pretty"?  It's a decent laptop with a premium price.  I ran OSX for a couple years and have come back to Windows.

[Formerly Known as Bigfoot]

My wife uses on (laptop) for work but brings it home everyday.  We have an Apple desktop at home but I have my own Lenovo laptop which I much prefer.  My wife loves her Mac but she is working from home as we speak trying to fix a major Excel file that is screwed up.  I suspect it has something to do with the Apple.  You can't beat Apple support though.  You'll always get an American on the phone when you call that you can actually understand.  

[Carbonero]

While the malware/attacks on the Apple community are slowly increasing (as more people adopt Apple products), the fact of the matter is that the potential for malware and software related failures are in the single-digit percentage points compared to any Windows box running even the absolutely most current virus/malware protection, without having to give up a third of your processing power.

That may/might/probably-will change as more people buy Apple computers and the malware fucknuts see greater opportunity to be malware fucknuts.

[Cablebandit]

While the malware/attacks on the Apple community are slowly increasing (as more people adopt Apple products), the fact of the matter is that the potential for malware and software related failures are in the single-digit percentage points compared to any Windows box running even the absolutely most current virus/malware protection, without having to give up a third of your processing power.

That may/might/probably-will change as more people buy Apple computers and the malware fucknuts see greater opportunity to be malware fucknuts.

This may have been the case 20 years ago.  Today I don't buy it.  I've never had a virus on my machine and can count the OS crashes on two fingers.  Both of those were driver related.  I've had more issues with the Apple OS lately than anything.  The mobile OS crashes about 3-4 times a day.  

Of course this thread will degrade to a Apple vs Windows thread so just pick what you like and buy it.  Both OS's are good. It's just a matter of what you are used to operating within.

[JReazor]

Well, it's thin, light and very well put together. All important points if she's going to be hauling it back and forth every day. That being said, there may be compatibility issues if she has to share files with people on Windows machines. You can get MS Office for the Mac but it's the file format is not 100% compatible with the Windows version.

All of the major PC manufacturers are offering "Ultrabooks" or "Sleekbooks" now. You could get most of the benefit of a MBA out of a Windows machine. You might save a couple hundred bucks at the bottom end but if you spec a Windows thin and light to match a MBA, you're probably going to be in the same ball park.

[Carbonero]

This may have been the case 20 years ago.  Today I don't buy it.  I've never had a virus on my machine and can count the OS crashes on two fingers.  Both of those were driver related.  I've had more issues with the Apple OS lately than anything.  The mobile OS crashes about 3-4 times a day.  

Of course this thread will degrade to a Apple vs Windows thread so just pick what you like and buy it.  Both OS's are good. It's just a matter of what you are used to operating within.

Ok

I switched for a reason. I don't see myself going back. The reasons are listed in my previous post. I'm glad you've had better results.

[KLRchickie]

You can get MS Office for the Mac but it's the file format is not 100% compatible with the Windows version.

The fact is, every different MS Office installation, regardless of OS, is not 100% compatible with every other MS Office installation.  I've seen plenty of weird formatting issues going back & forth between different Windoz machines...  Using NeoOffice to edit Word/Excel files actually yields *less* compatibility issues between different machines...

We have several Apple machines in this house, they just work well, we won't go back.

[Carbonero]

The fact is, every different MS Office installation, regardless of OS, is not 100% compatible with every other MS Office installation.  I've seen plenty of weird formatting issues going back & forth between different Windoz machines...  Using NeoOffice to edit Word/Excel files actually yields *less* compatibility issues between different machines...

Very true. I just wrote an automated file-converter for our reporting department that takes in an excel or powerpoint file, then exports *all* available file formats of the same file, bundles them up in a zip file and sends them downstream. Compatibility testing continues, but the excel file versions in particular are a complete mess.

[JReazor]

The fact is, every different MS Office installation, regardless of OS, is not 100% compatible with every other MS Office installation.  I've seen plenty of weird formatting issues going back & forth between different Windoz machines...  Using NeoOffice to edit Word/Excel files actually yields *less* compatibility issues between different machines...

Yep. Especially if you have an Office 2010 file and you try to open it in a previous version.

We have several Apple machines in this house, they just work well, we won't go back.

Agreed. I manage several thousand Windows machines at work but we're almost all Apple at home.

[Hambonee]

Agreed. I manage several thousand Windows machines at work but we're almost all Apple at home.

GF is upgrading her computer and after testing out some options she is going the route of apple. She was go gin to get a mac book pro but is waiting a few months until they release the new ones with the new i7 processors.

They just have a much longer battery life and seem way more intuitive and well made. Besides, for a casual user they seem like the cat's meow.

[bluepoof]

Between personal and work machines, Peter and I have 5 or 6 MacBook Airs.   At least 2 of them run Windows via VMWare; mine does so that I can run Quickbooks for my hockey league (QB for Mac sucks).   Peter runs a lot of Windows software for his business via VMWare.

Even when I worked for Microsoft, my work machine was a Powerbook (this was pre-Air) running Windows on a separate partition.  It's seamless and negates the incompatible file problem (though these days I haven't had much trouble running Office natively on OSX).   I think an Air + VMWare/Parallels is the best machine setup available.  

[JReazor]

Between personal and work machines, Peter and I have 5 or 6 MacBook Airs.   At least 2 of them run Windows via VMWare; mine does so that I can run Quickbooks for my hockey league (QB for Mac sucks).   Peter runs a lot of Windows software for his business via VMWare.

Even when I worked for Microsoft, my work machine was a Powerbook (this was pre-Air) running Windows on a separate partition.  It's seamless and negates the incompatible file problem (though these days I haven't had much trouble running Office natively on OSX).   I think an Air + VMWare/Parallels is the best machine setup available.  

I run Windows via bootcamp on my iMac just so I can play SWTOR. You're right. It works beautifully but adding the cost of a Windows license is a tough sell to someone who is trying to justify the Mac's price.

[Mookie]

The GF has a new Air and it's really nice.  It's got a better screen than the 13" pro and it's really quite fast.  I'm no fan of OSX but she's also running MS Office for her school work.  She's happy with it, and besides the stupid delete button that's actually backspace, I think it's a pretty great UI.  The trackpad if fantastic, SO much better than every other computer I've dealt with.  If it were mine I'd be running window on it and it'd be perfect.  The OSX has a hard time connecting to my LG NAS (even though it runs on a linux stack) but that's the only problem I've run into with it.

[Motozeke]

Hands down, the MacBook Air is the best piece of computer hardware I've owned, after years of paying more for Thinkpads than other brands because I wanted higher build quality. Apple laptops put Thinkpads to shame. You pay more, you get more.

[Carbonero]

 You pay more, you get more.

A fact often ignored. Windows is everywhere, sure, which is great for third-party support and "53 crappy applications to do the exact same thing".

Apple doesn't have to support 120 different models of computers every 6 months. They control the whole thing so there simply aren't hardware/os compatibility issues.

Windows is great if you're a hardcore gamer, you enjoy tinkering with PCs, or want that ubiquity.

I just wanna be a user and not a sysadmin any more.

"It just works" has proven to be true, for me.  

[Ketch]

I got a Mac book air for my business about 6 months ago. I too run windows via parallels 7 so I can use quick books pro for my business. It is very fast and plenty powerfull. Storage hasn't been an issue yet. Portability and reliability are tops for me as I have a mobile business. I print my invoices with a little $29 hp printer I carry in my truck.  I do have an iMac at home. So have been chewing the apple for awhile  

[Cozye]

I've been in IT for almost 20 years. I was a former apple hater. I've built all kinds of machines, started fixing pc's when I got into the business. I loved Linux when Microsoft got too bloated and you could actually get Slackware to run on a laptop. I've progressed in my career, been doing network engineering for the last 12 years. Just a bit about my background.

I switched to a MacBook 3 years ago and haven't looked back. Fastest, easiest, most reliable, and power efficient machine I've ever used. My 3 year old MacBook is as fast today as any windows laptop. I'm sure I'll get another 3-5 years out of it. I love the BSD backend too . I'll never use windows again.

[Bounce]

My wife uses on (laptop) for work but brings it home everyday.  We have an Apple desktop at home but I have my own Lenovo laptop which I much prefer.  My wife loves her Mac but she is working from home as we speak trying to fix a major Excel file that is screwed up.  I suspect it has something to do with the Apple.  You can't beat Apple support though.  You'll always get an American on the phone when you call that you can actually understand.  

LibreOffice on the Mac has helped me fix office staff's MS office files more than once. files they couldn't open, etc. LibreOffice opened it, saved it with a different name, then Word/excel (2003 and 2010) could open it again.

been supporting 60 to 1000 Windows users on a daily basis since v2.  went to OS X at home a year ago november and regret waiting.

the economies of the WinTel systems are a false comparison. spec out like hardware to the comparable Mac and they prices will be as close as equal as to be negligible. the cheap systems are cheaper because they're built cheaper.


Oh yeah that for Mac is a dual core i5 27" iMac bumped from 4gb of 8gb of RAM - it also runs VMWare Fusion 4 for Win7 64 for those few apps that won't run native (EFI mapping for the car and bike).

A couple of weeks ago I added a quad core i7 Macbook Pro bumped from 4Gb to 10Gb of RAM as soon as it was unboxed.

[evilted]

I've had a 13" 2nd generation MBA (late 2010 model with 2.13Ghz Core 2 Duo and the nVidia GeForce 320M video card) for a little over a year.

The Good:  It's super portable (it's barely bigger than a netbook), offered vastly better performance than any netbook available at the time I got it, and is well put together.  One of my requirements was that it fit cased into all of my motorcycle luggage, and it does.  And I like OS X because it's real UNIX underneath.  Linux distros have come a long way in the past 10 years as far as ease of use goes, but everything in OS X just works without having to futz around with configuration files and complex package dependencies (mostly a thing of the past until something goes wrong).

Nits:  2 cores, 4GB RAM and 250GB SSD seemed adequate until I installed a Win 7 Bootcamp image and stole some of my OS X filespace with a 30GB (later expanded to 40GB) WinXP VM image for work.  If you're going to spend all your time in OS X then none of the foregoing is a concern, and the MBA is an awesome machine for everything except running the latest games (no idea how well the current gen MBA Intel integrated video performs compared to the GeF 320M discrete video it replaced).  The 4GB memory cap (RAM is soldered in and not expandable) is annoying if you run VMs but is probably fine otherwise.

By way of comparison, I recently acquired an Acer AO722 netbook for a new project I'm working on.  The MBA still beats it handily in any performance or aesthetic category you can come up with, but the Acer (4GB RAM, 500GB 7200 RPM drive, 1366x768 display) doesn't suck nearly as badly as the last netbook I had and it was less than $300.