Honest Apple review

Andyk5

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jul 27, 2011
Messages
1,154
As I said on an other thread I just bought a late 2012 MBA (1.8 ghz, 4gig, 128GB) and I am in love with it. This is my first Apple computer but couple days after purchase I was already a fanboy.

It is funny how blinded I've got over Apples heavily refined and optimized UI, aluminum casing, great form factor, size battery life etc. I started thinking, maybe I can replace my Desktop computer with a MBA. After all I have seen people do that, I know numerous people who use MBA's as their only personal computer. I have a PS4, I could move all my gaming to that. Why do I need a mid tower PC where the constant whine from the water coolant fans mix with the shame of constantly drawing 800 watts from the wall?

In order to to give this MBA a true test I connected it to my external 1440p ips monitor, apple keyboard and mouse and removed everything else from my desk including the MBA itself. My Herman Miller envelop desk looked amazing. Just a monitor, a wireless keyboard and mouse and no wires. It looked almost like out of an apple ad to be honest. So I started using it just like how I use my trusty Windows desktop computer (2600k OC 4.5Ghz, 16gig ram, GTX680 SLI, 240gb Kingston SSD Raid 0, 4TB Hitachi 7200rpm Raid 0, mechanical keyboard, wired big mouse with lots of buttons)
At the beginning it was great, My room was quiet, I was getting used to using the large screen real estate with apple desktop, but as time passed I stopped being so careful about which program I started and which one I stopped, before I knew it I had 20 tabs open on firefox, 3 large pdf files, spotify playing on the background, Matlab churning an algorithm and the poor MBA came to a screeching halt. The fans were screaming louder than my desktop trying to cool the little guy down, firefox was taking 5-10 seconds between switching among tabs and Matlab crashed.
Just to let you know, I was not purposely trying to break it, just doing my daily thing to see how it would handle it and it failed miserably.

This does not mean that MBA is a bad product or Apple sucks. I am still enjoying my MBA, although at a much less capacity. I love being able to get 7-8 hours of battery life while listening to music and coding in python, and not even feeling the thing in my back pack. It probably is the best laptop out there, it is just not the best computer. I just realized that someone like me will almost always need a Desktop because my daily activities and replacing a big power hungry mid tower with a sleek smooth Apple laptop is a dream that will never come true.
 
comparing the processing power of a MBA with a desktop is sort of like comparing the trunk space of a motorcycle to an SUV.
 
comparing the processing power of a MBA with a desktop is sort of like comparing the trunk space of a motorcycle to an SUV.

Yes but you can still try to see if you can sell your SUV and make do just with the motorcycle. In my case the answer was no.
 
comparing the processing power of a MBA with a desktop is sort of like comparing the trunk space of a motorcycle to an SUV.

I don't see why it isn't a fair comparison? Laptops are replacing desktops all the time and are supposed to be able to do a lot of these tasks. Companies hardly ever buy desktops anymore, they tend to buy laptops. Laptops today can come with the latest processors and graphics cards. You can buy a laptop with tons of processing power for pretty cheap these days (at least with Windows or Linux varieties). And the tasks he was doing are stuff I have done many times on laptops before for work. So how is it not a fair comparison?
 
I don't see why it isn't a fair comparison? Laptops are replacing desktops all the time and are supposed to be able to do a lot of these tasks. Companies hardly ever buy desktops anymore, they tend to buy laptops. Laptops today can come with the latest processors and graphics cards. You can buy a laptop with tons of processing power for pretty cheap these days (at least with Windows or Linux varieties). And the tasks he was doing are stuff I have done many times on laptops before for work. So how is it not a fair comparison?

It's not an entirely fair comparison because of what he's running on that hardware. Just because laptops can cover desktop tasks doesn't mean that any laptop can cover anything a desktop can do. Matlab is a very processor-intensive task, and he's throwing it at an ultra low-voltage mobile chip. Yeah, it's going to struggle! That segment isn't so much a review of the Air as it is a review of Intel's ULV Core chips circa 2012.

On that note, the OP should consider a MacBook Pro if he really wants a Mac laptop that can replace his desktop. There's a world of difference in terms of raw processing power!
 
I don't like Apple as a company, but I encouraged my wife to get a MBA after the most-recent refresh. You really can't beat it when you take into account the capabilities plus form-factor and portability for most normal daily uses.

That being said, I'm substituting my daily driver desktop 2500k with the 8GB Surface Pro 3. The only thing I do of any computational consequence these days is ripping and transcoding the occasional movie (for which I will keep my 2500k desktop, and only really use it for that). But of course, once you start throwing heavy tasks at something that's not intended to be a heavy-task-doer, it's out of its element and you should be using a more appropriate system.

That being said, with the way hardware has advanced so much faster than software and services, most even moderate things I do are easily addressed with ULV chips. Gaming and video processing are the exceptions.
 
Try a new MBP. It'll do everything you want and then some, especially if you're willing to sacrifice GPU power.
 
I don't really think its the hardware (though with that much open more ram would certainly help), I think there is honestly something up with the OSX scheduler in that it doesn't schedule tasks well when the os gets busy. I've noticed on my 15" rmbp (newest model, $2600 version) that when I do things with high cpu usage (not maxing all cores but maybe 2-3 of the cores maxed) that stuff gets choppy and laggy. Even if he is maxing the system out the os should be able to provide a fluid experience.

I can run prime 95 on my windows 8 desktop maxing all cores and its still fluid using internet browsers while prime 95 is maxing all cores. The only way I can get it to stutter and lag is to actually run prime 95 and furmark at the same time.

This just my experience though using both.
 
As a former Apple laptop owner of many years, I couldn't agree more. Modern Apple laptops (even the MBPros) are slowly becoming iPads with keyboards. Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing, but I want a GPU in my laptop and I don't think my only option should be to drop $2000.
 
I'll echo what others have said, you are not a proper candidate for an Air. The Pro line is going to be more your style, and even then I would steer towards the 15 inch model for the four physical cores.

Opening 20+ tabs alongside large PDFs is going to eat through the standard 4GB of Air memory fairly quickly (Chrome, specifically), and even the 8GB upgrade might not cut it. And this is saying nothing of Matlab, which, alongside memory requirements, can bring even the beefiest of CPUs to its knees under certain conditions, let alone a neutered or potentially throttled ULV chip.

But even if that is not a viable option, if you are truly set on getting rid of your desktop as a change of lifestyle, then there are plenty of workstation laptops out there meant for engineering professionals that would suit your needs. A refurbished or overstocked workstation model from the likes of Dell or HP would be a relatively inexpensive way to give your experiment another go.

So I think there are two sides to this equation and you were off the mark on at least one variable. E.g. "Can a laptop suffice as a replacement for my workload?" is a different question than "Can the Air suffice as a replacement for my workload?" which is in itself a different question than "Can the MBP suffice...?" etc..

I guess my point is that it sounds like you really enjoyed not having a desktop for a variety of reasons, and your one downside seems like something which can be mitigated. So maybe an alternative is worth looking into?

I would not give up just yet.
 
I have to agree that the air is not a proper replacement for a machine of that caliber. I run a 15" 2012 rMBP and I run matlab, simulink, and lab view all from parallels and have not had issues. I would use this thing as my work machine if they would let me.
 
Heh, how about... put your PC in a closet and remote desktop to it from your MBP. Now with Splashtop and Steam In-Home Streaming, using your powerhouse PC remotely is becoming a reality. You can even delegate power hungry tasks to your PC and alt-tab seamlessly between everything.
 
We've been getting the 8GB/256GB Airs at work and they perform very well. I think the limits in the OP's post are these things. The 4GB model laptops (Air and Pro Retina) are base models intended to be the ultimate cost cutters for like college kids or grandma sending emails. One does not get a fixed 4GB laptop to do "serious work" in 2014.

I'm not the "20 tabs in a browser" type but I've seen users that are, and their laptops seem to run fine, with that and whatever else they are doing.
 
I stopped reading at 4GB. That's just not intended for any serious usage, like mentioned above it's for kids and grandma.

I do most of my daily work on a desktop but I've been migrating smaller with the last couple notebook purchases, and I've settled on a 13" Air with 8GB/256GB. Screen real estate is the only issue that I routinely encounter, and occasionally I have to remind myself not to launch 2-3 virtual machines at a time. Otherwise it's been a great machine and the tradeoffs are worth the portability for my uses.
 
I actually own 2 other laptops next to my Desktop and MBA. One is a Sony Vaio 16.4 inch 6 gig ram Gt330m 240ssd I7920qm and the other is my work laptop, which is the workstation that you guys suggested I should buy, Dell Precision M4800 32gig Ram 512GB SSD x2 Raid 0, 4930MX, Nvidia quadro K2100m, 3200x1800 qhd+ screen.
I don't need to say anything about the Dell, it is a beast and performs almost as well as my desktop, the interesting of the bunch is the Sony. I bought that thing around 2007-2008 and upgraded the 5400rpm drive with an SSD. It is still a monster and does everything very well. It boots windows 7 under 15 seconds, multi tasks like a champ, the issue is the battery life, the battery is at %85 of it is original condition which is probably a guiness world record after 6-7 years of daily usage, but still cant power the laptop for more than 1.5 hours.

I do have a Surface pro 3 on pre order, we will see how that guy does.
 
As others have said, an Air with 4G ram (on only integral gpu) is never going to be a desktop replacement, unless you become a tidy, clean, minimal type of user.

You should use Activity Monitor to see where you are hitting roadblocks, on a per app/activity basis.

I run a MBPro, 17", with discreet GPU, and thunderbolt, something like this CAN be a desktop replacement. And even with that, I've decided after a few years that I actually need a 12core Mac Pro for CPU intensive rendering video jobs.

More ram, perhaps a higher spec Pro instead of Air, is required to do what you want. The Air is designed to be a stylish email/text document machine for road-warrior management executives.
 
As I said on an other thread I just bought a Windows desktop computer (2600k OC 4.5Ghz, 16gig ram, GTX680 SLI, 240gb Kingston SSD Raid 0, 4TB Hitachi 7200rpm Raid 0, mechanical keyboard, wired big mouse with lots of buttons) and I am in love with it. This is my first Windows computer but couple days after purchase I was already a fanboy.

It is funny how blinded I've got over Microsoft's heavily refined and optimized UI, Coolermaster's mid-tower casing, great form factor, black power cord etc. I started thinking, maybe I can replace my MBA with a Desktop computer. After all I have seen people do that, I know numerous people who use Desktop computers as their only personal computer. I have a PS4, I could retire that. Why do I need an ultraportable laptop where it makes virtually no sound at all?

In order to to give this desktop computer a true test I used it with a 27" monitor, keyboard and mouse and removed everything else from my desk including the desktop computer itself. Then I packed it up for a walk to the bus stop to head down to the coffee shop. Just a desktop computer, monitor, keyboard, mouse and wires in a bag. It looked almost like out of a Dell ad to be honest. So I started using it just like how I use my trusty late 2012 MBA (1.8 ghz, 4gig, 128GB) once I got to the coffee shop, since I couldn't do anything with it from the time I left the house to the time I got there. At the beginning it was great, The coffee shop was noisy from the water coolant fans mix with the shame of constantly drawing 800 watts from the wall, I was getting used to having a 27" screen, but as time passed I found myself just looking at cnn.com and a webmail tab, and chatting with my sister on IM (but my back and arms were still sore from hauling it there). The fans were screaming louder than my MBA (and everything else at the coffee shop) trying to cool the little guy down, firefox was taking milliseconds between switching among tabs and Pidgin kept running perfectly, though I was still exhausted so I couldn't do much with any of it.
Just to let you know, I was not purposely trying to freak out the people at the coffee shop, just doing my daily thing to see if they would throw me out, and they did.

This does not mean that desktop computer is a bad product or MIKKKRO$$$$$HAFT sucks. I am still enjoying my desktop computer, although at a much less capacity. I love being unable to move six feet from a power outlet while listening to music and coding in python, and not even fitting the thing in my back pack. It probably is the best desktop computer out there, it is just not the best computer. I just realized that someone like me will almost always need a MBA because my daily activities and replacing a sleek smooth Apple laptop with a big power hungry mid tower is a dream that will never come true.
 
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As I said on an other thread I just bought a Windows desktop computer (2600k OC 4.5Ghz, 16gig ram, GTX680 SLI, 240gb Kingston SSD Raid 0, 4TB Hitachi 7200rpm Raid 0, mechanical keyboard, wired big mouse with lots of buttons) and I am in love with it. This is my first Windows computer but couple days after purchase I was already a fanboy.

It is funny how blinded I've got over Microsoft's heavily refined and optimized UI, Coolermaster's mid-tower casing, great form factor, black power cord etc. I started thinking, maybe I can replace my MBA with a Desktop computer. After all I have seen people do that, I know numerous people who use Desktop computers as their only personal computer. I have a PS4, I could retire that. Why do I need an ultraportable laptop where it makes virtually no sound at all?

In order to to give this desktop computer a true test I used it with a 27" monitor, keyboard and mouse and removed everything else from my desk including the desktop computer itself. Then I packed it up for a walk to the bus stop to head down to the coffee shop. Just a desktop computer, monitor, keyboard, mouse and wires in a bag. It looked almost like out of a Dell ad to be honest. So I started using it just like how I use my trusty late 2012 MBA (1.8 ghz, 4gig, 128GB) once I got to the coffee shop, since I couldn't do anything with it from the time I left the house to the time I got there. At the beginning it was great, The coffee shop was noisy from the water coolant fans mix with the shame of constantly drawing 800 watts from the wall, I was getting used to having a 27" screen, but as time passed I found myself just looking at cnn.com and a webmail tab, and chatting with my sister on IM (but my back and arms were still sore from hauling it there). The fans were screaming louder than my MBA (and everything else at the coffee shop) trying to cool the little guy down, firefox was taking milliseconds between switching among tabs and Pidgin kept running perfectly, though I was still exhausted so I couldn't do much with any of it.
Just to let you know, I was not purposely trying to freak out the people at the coffee shop, just doing my daily thing to see if they would throw me out, and they did.

This does not mean that desktop computer is a bad product or MIKKKRO$$$$$HAFT sucks. I am still enjoying my desktop computer, although at a much less capacity. I love being unable to move six feet from a power outlet while listening to music and coding in python, and not even fitting the thing in my back pack. It probably is the best desktop computer out there, it is just not the best computer. I just realized that someone like me will almost always need a MBA because my daily activities and replacing a sleek smooth Apple laptop with a big power hungry mid tower is a dream that will never come true.

You have been here for 13.5 years so you are at least 18-19 years old, more than likely older. Is this supposed to be funny? Cause I do not see it.
 
As I said on an other thread I just bought a Windows desktop computer (2600k OC 4.5Ghz, 16gig ram, GTX680 SLI, 240gb Kingston SSD Raid 0, 4TB Hitachi 7200rpm Raid 0, mechanical keyboard, wired big mouse with lots of buttons) and I am in love with it. This is my first Windows computer but couple days after purchase I was already a fanboy.

It is funny how blinded I've got over Microsoft's heavily refined and optimized UI, Coolermaster's mid-tower casing, great form factor, black power cord etc. I started thinking, maybe I can replace my MBA with a Desktop computer. After all I have seen people do that, I know numerous people who use Desktop computers as their only personal computer. I have a PS4, I could retire that. Why do I need an ultraportable laptop where it makes virtually no sound at all?

In order to to give this desktop computer a true test I used it with a 27" monitor, keyboard and mouse and removed everything else from my desk including the desktop computer itself. Then I packed it up for a walk to the bus stop to head down to the coffee shop. Just a desktop computer, monitor, keyboard, mouse and wires in a bag. It looked almost like out of a Dell ad to be honest. So I started using it just like how I use my trusty late 2012 MBA (1.8 ghz, 4gig, 128GB) once I got to the coffee shop, since I couldn't do anything with it from the time I left the house to the time I got there. At the beginning it was great, The coffee shop was noisy from the water coolant fans mix with the shame of constantly drawing 800 watts from the wall, I was getting used to having a 27" screen, but as time passed I found myself just looking at cnn.com and a webmail tab, and chatting with my sister on IM (but my back and arms were still sore from hauling it there). The fans were screaming louder than my MBA (and everything else at the coffee shop) trying to cool the little guy down, firefox was taking milliseconds between switching among tabs and Pidgin kept running perfectly, though I was still exhausted so I couldn't do much with any of it.
Just to let you know, I was not purposely trying to freak out the people at the coffee shop, just doing my daily thing to see if they would throw me out, and they did.

This does not mean that desktop computer is a bad product or MIKKKRO$$$$$HAFT sucks. I am still enjoying my desktop computer, although at a much less capacity. I love being unable to move six feet from a power outlet while listening to music and coding in python, and not even fitting the thing in my back pack. It probably is the best desktop computer out there, it is just not the best computer. I just realized that someone like me will almost always need a MBA because my daily activities and replacing a sleek smooth Apple laptop with a big power hungry mid tower is a dream that will never come true.

lololol

Clap_clap_clap_fgts.gif
 
As I said on an other thread I just bought a Windows desktop computer (2600k OC 4.5Ghz, 16gig ram, GTX680 SLI, 240gb Kingston SSD Raid 0, 4TB Hitachi 7200rpm Raid 0, mechanical keyboard, wired big mouse with lots of buttons) and I am in love with it. This is my first Windows computer but couple days after purchase I was already a fanboy.

It is funny how blinded I've got over Microsoft's heavily refined and optimized UI, Coolermaster's mid-tower casing, great form factor, black power cord etc. I started thinking, maybe I can replace my MBA with a Desktop computer. After all I have seen people do that, I know numerous people who use Desktop computers as their only personal computer. I have a PS4, I could retire that. Why do I need an ultraportable laptop where it makes virtually no sound at all?

In order to to give this desktop computer a true test I used it with a 27" monitor, keyboard and mouse and removed everything else from my desk including the desktop computer itself. Then I packed it up for a walk to the bus stop to head down to the coffee shop. Just a desktop computer, monitor, keyboard, mouse and wires in a bag. It looked almost like out of a Dell ad to be honest. So I started using it just like how I use my trusty late 2012 MBA (1.8 ghz, 4gig, 128GB) once I got to the coffee shop, since I couldn't do anything with it from the time I left the house to the time I got there. At the beginning it was great, The coffee shop was noisy from the water coolant fans mix with the shame of constantly drawing 800 watts from the wall, I was getting used to having a 27" screen, but as time passed I found myself just looking at cnn.com and a webmail tab, and chatting with my sister on IM (but my back and arms were still sore from hauling it there). The fans were screaming louder than my MBA (and everything else at the coffee shop) trying to cool the little guy down, firefox was taking milliseconds between switching among tabs and Pidgin kept running perfectly, though I was still exhausted so I couldn't do much with any of it.
Just to let you know, I was not purposely trying to freak out the people at the coffee shop, just doing my daily thing to see if they would throw me out, and they did.

This does not mean that desktop computer is a bad product or MIKKKRO$$$$$HAFT sucks. I am still enjoying my desktop computer, although at a much less capacity. I love being unable to move six feet from a power outlet while listening to music and coding in python, and not even fitting the thing in my back pack. It probably is the best desktop computer out there, it is just not the best computer. I just realized that someone like me will almost always need a MBA because my daily activities and replacing a sleek smooth Apple laptop with a big power hungry mid tower is a dream that will never come true.

If the [H] had a way of upvoting posts, I would definitely be doing that right about now.
 
That emotion you feel, that's the same one we had when we read your post.

The emotion I have felt was confusion, and I am still confused.
I guess my post must have emotionally scarred you or something, considering you have spent all this time and effort just to edit what I wrote and re-post it.
 
It's always amusing when people don't even realize when they play straight into their stereotypes. If I didn't know any better, I'd suggest that their intent was to reinforce it.
 
Andy, your review is sadly just as confusing as the parody of your review.

I am not sure why you bothered writing such a review when the answer was obvious. Yes, your desktop can do things that your macbook cannot. Just like your spoon can't cut a steak. You were using the wrong tool, and nobody is really sure why you bothered comparing the two.
 
Highly suspect memory bottleneck considering iGPU will take a chunk away from that tiny 4GB but what is worse is the horribly low resolution that's more fit for a phone than a MacBook Air. rMBP is the clear choice between the two.
 
Andy, your review is sadly just as confusing as the parody of your review.

I am not sure why you bothered writing such a review when the answer was obvious. Yes, your desktop can do things that your macbook cannot. Just like your spoon can't cut a steak. You were using the wrong tool, and nobody is really sure why you bothered comparing the two.

Because you never know, that is the reason I compared it. For years I mad fun of MBA's and MBA users as not being power users and their hardware being toys. Then I used some of my friends Apple products and I enjoyed using them, then wondered if I could be one of those guys who can handle all his business on a small MBA. You know there are a lot of people out there who conduct all their eating with a spoon ( if I may go back to your analogy). I tried it and it worked for some stuff and failed miserably for others. So for someone like me, a devoted Apple bashing PC power user, who wants to dabble their feet in great design, battery life, lightweight chassis and clean UI, you have to have both, a desktop and a MBA.

I really do not know why people are getting such a hard on from this post. It feels like life is so damn hard and frustrating for some people that the first thing they do when they wake up in the morning is to look for posts online, try to make fun of them or bash them to make make their miserable lives a bit more bearable.
 
Because you never know, that is the reason I compared it. For years I mad fun of MBA's and MBA users as not being power users and their hardware being toys. Then I used some of my friends Apple products and I enjoyed using them, then wondered if I could be one of those guys who can handle all his business on a small MBA. You know there are a lot of people out there who conduct all their eating with a spoon ( if I may go back to your analogy). I tried it and it worked for some stuff and failed miserably for others. So for someone like me, a devoted Apple bashing PC power user, who wants to dabble their feet in great design, battery life, lightweight chassis and clean UI, you have to have both, a desktop and a MBA.

I really do not know why people are getting such a hard on from this post. It feels like life is so damn hard and frustrating for some people that the first thing they do when they wake up in the morning is to look for posts online, try to make fun of them or bash them to make make their miserable lives a bit more bearable.

I think what they're saying is that it's not the MBA, but the form factor. If you're capable of dropping your desktop for an MBA, you're also capable of dropping it for an ultrabook. There's nothing special about the Apple that made it able to replace your desktop.

And for the record, if your desktop is constantly pulling 800w at the wall, you might have a problem. In general, high end PCs won't pull that amount of wattage unless they're under load.
 
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