I want a mac.

silent-circuit, what do you see as your average battery life (and type of usage)?
Time to stop carrying around the 13" Dell (5+lbs) and want something extremely portable and the 11" MBA seems perfect.

I get about 4 hours with high brightness and wifi on. Gaming, that drops down to 2-3 hours. Not 100% certain of those numbers, I'll run it down from full to dead tonight and see how long it actually takes, so take those numbers with a grain of salt in the interim. From what I'm remembering the 5 hours they quote for browsing is being a little "hopeful".
 
my macbook pro fwiw gets 5-6hrs on medium brightness and no gaming but running a vm (parralells) etc
 
I get about 4 hours with high brightness and wifi on. Gaming, that drops down to 2-3 hours. Not 100% certain of those numbers, I'll run it down from full to dead tonight and see how long it actually takes, so take those numbers with a grain of salt in the interim. From what I'm remembering the 5 hours they quote for browsing is being a little "hopeful".

4 hours plus works for me.
I will not be gaming, purely web browsing and office applications, now to decide what I 'need' in the laptop.
 
Wanted it to be small, and the bezel issue is the same with the 13". GPU's the same as well. So which of the issues I described would've been any better? Apart from battery life, which I expressed mild disappointment with, but it's not that big an issue.

Well from the pics on Apple's website the bezel on the 13" looks thinner. And 1440x900 (16:10 mind you) on a 13" screen is like sex. Slightly better cpu and battery life like you said. All that for $100 more? More sex.
 
Well from the pics on Apple's website the bezel on the 13" looks thinner. And 1440x900 (16:10 mind you) on a 13" screen is like sex. Slightly better cpu and battery life like you said. All that for $100 more? More sex.

I got my 11" for $850 shipped, with the 128GB SSD and 4GB of RAM. Way more than $100 more for me. ;)
 
Yeah no kidding, I'm just going off the website here man. You're killing me..
 
I got my no-scratches late 2008 aluminum unibody MacBook with 2.0 GHz C2D, 9400M, 6 GB RAM, brand new battery for $700 a year ago. I thought it was an all right deal. I've since put a 120 GB Intel SSD in there ($130 on sale).
 
I got my no-scratches late 2008 aluminum unibody MacBook with 2.0 GHz C2D, 9400M, 6 GB RAM, brand new battery for $700 a year ago. I thought it was an all right deal. I've since put a 120 GB Intel SSD in there ($130 on sale).

Not to one-up you but I have to. Got my 2009 MBP two years ago for $417.
 
If you know someone that works at the mac store, they can score you a discount. My fiancé got an extra 10% off her MBA.
 
The latter sentence is why the first three words are wrong.

For what they are, I don't consider them overpriced except for one thing - they lack a discrete graphics card. With a decent discrete card, those prices wouldn't be all that bad. No worse than high end PC brands such as Sony. Alot of the VAIO stuff is just as highly priced. And FWIW, I consider the Apple hardware to be better.

EDIT: Nevermind, I see the ones >13.3" DO have discrete cards.
 
Considering my recent experience with the Macbook Air and Apple support I can't honestly recommend them anymore. Regardless of how this ends up working out I'll probably still sell mine, just to avoid dealing with Apple in the future.

I was using my machine as normal, as I have every day for about two months since I purchased it. Finished one class (I am a law student) and closed it, put it in the laptop sleeve area of my bag, walked to my next class. Took it out, and there's a very small pressure crack about three inches in from the right side of the display, roughly half way up.

"Well, that's annoying." I think to myself. "Good thing I have AppleCare!"

I call Apple on my lunchbreak, they are very polite but basically tell me that regardless of how this happened all damage to LCDs is deemed accidental damage and is not covered under AppleCare.

It's worth noting that I have never dropped the machine, it was never struck with anything, I did not close the lid with an object inside it, nothing like that. This was normal usage. It was closed, put in a separate reinforced, padded sleeve area of my bag (not in with books or other heavy objects) and when I opened it again the screen was cracked. Nothing abnormal, no drops, jostles, or anything of the like. This is the same bag I've been using for six years or so, with three other laptops, and I have never had an issue like this before.

As it stands I brought the machine to a local approved service center (the nearest Apple store is more than two hours away) and the tech there has been basically haggling with Apple over the phone, escalating the issue several times. I'm now in contact with David Hastings, an Apple Senior Adviser. It sounds like they may make an exception and fix the display issue at no cost to me, but I do not have a definitive answer yet. I'll hopefully find out later today.

If Apple decides not to make an exception the cost of a new "display module" is $600. They claim the entire top assembly must be replaced, aluminum and all, that the LCD alone cannot be removed from the lid. This is obviously untrue, and a half hour or so spent Googling got me this video of the process and this thread over at ifixit detailing how to find the exact model number needed, as well as a listing for replacement LCDs for $45-75 + shipping from China. It doesn't look like fun, a lot of careful prying and messing with a heat gun, but I've done similar things before repairing smartphones. If the repair exception isn't allowed I'll replace the LCD myself and sell the machine.

The process has left me with a very negative impression of how Apple does business, and even if they do "make it right" by going outside of corporate policy I don't think I'll be purchasing any more of their products. If it had been handled more quickly and tactfully the fact that they officially don't cover the repair would've made me hesitant but I probably wouldn't have shied away entirely. As is it has been two days and I still don't know anything for certain. I've now read multiple stories of people with Airs who have been through two and three LCDs in a year or two -- I simply can't deal with that kind of fragility. I bought the Air because of its size and supposedly solid construction, and it does give that impression, but if the screen is so fragile and unprotected I won't be keeping it much longer. I am extremely careful with my things -- my five year old Lian Li A05B with not a scratch on it despite going to countless LAN parties is testament to that -- but I'm not willing to deal with the potential they will just self-destruct.
 
If Apple decides not to make an exception the cost of a new "display module" is $600. They claim the entire top assembly must be replaced, aluminum and all, that the LCD alone cannot be removed from the lid. This is obviously untrue, and a half hour or so spent Googling got me this video of the process and this thread over at ifixit detailing how to find the exact model number needed, as well as a listing for replacement LCDs for $45-75 + shipping from China. It doesn't look like fun, a lot of careful prying and messing with a heat gun, but I've done similar things before repairing smartphones. If the repair exception isn't allowed I'll replace the LCD myself and sell the machine.

To be fair here, you're confusing an inability due to policy and procedure with an inability due to physical impossibility. Clearly, the task is not physically impossible, but Apple's support and repairs department has a specific method or procedure they're apparently trying to break just for you. They could have told you to pound sand, it's not covered; instead they're escalating as high as they need to go to fix your laptop.

The process has left me with a very negative impression of how Apple does business, and even if they do "make it right" by going outside of corporate policy I don't think I'll be purchasing any more of their products.

Huh? They're in all likelihood going to fix your MBA a. for free b. while going against their usual procedure in the process, and you're going to avoid them in the future? That sounds more like an emotional reaction than a reasoned position.

And your separate thread about your MBA is filled with anecdotes about quality service from Apple.
 
Huh? They're in all likelihood going to fix your MBA a. for free b. while going against their usual procedure in the process, and you're going to avoid them in the future? That sounds more like an emotional reaction than a reasoned position.

And your separate thread about your MBA is filled with anecdotes about quality service from Apple.

Hardly for free. I did pay nearly $300 for the extended warranty, and it's within the original year warranty period anyway. If it had been as simple as bringing it to the local equivalent of the Genius Bar (to be fair I am imagining this would have gone differently if there were a real Apple store here rather than an approved service center) and saying "this broke, I don't know what happened" and they hand be a new one? Yeah, I'd be ecstatic. That's what all those anecdotes in the other thread recall, but it hasn't been that simple at all.

Further, I've been told by David, the guy from Apple handling the case, that even if I had gone to a Genius Bar they would have had to go through the same process, that they aren't allowed to simply replace the machine on site without going through the whole escalation process. Given we're now on day three without an answer I'm glad I didn't drive the two hours to Greenville or Charleston to an official store just to be told there's nothing they can do.

There have been many claims that I "mistreated" or "abused" the machine in the other thread, and I find that both insulting and laughable. If putting a laptop in a laptop compartment / sleeve of a backpack alone constitutes abuse, I am guilty. There seems to be a consensus that I should have somehow known better -- nevermind I've treated every single laptop I've owned in the same manner and never had issues before. It's a Macbook Air! It should be carried around separate from everything else, in its own bag! This is just unreasonable and does not track with how people actually use these machines. Apple knows this.
 
Hardly for free. I did pay nearly $300 for the extended warranty, and it's within the original year warranty period anyway. If it had been as simple as bringing it to the local equivalent of the Genius Bar (to be fair I am imagining this would have gone differently if there were a real Apple store here rather than an approved service center) and saying "this broke, I don't know what happened" and they hand be a new one? Yeah, I'd be ecstatic. That's what all those anecdotes in the other thread recall, but it hasn't been that simple at all.

The anecdotes never said it would be that simple. They were a drop in the Internet's bucket of stories about very good services from Apple. Again, they could have told you to pound sand. They didn't.

It's a Macbook Air! It should be carried around separate from everything else, in its own bag! This is just unreasonable and does not track with how people actually use these machines. Apple knows this.

This is you being emotional again. Apple does not think their products are laid on floating beds of feathers, otherwise they wouldn't go to the trouble of using materials like aluminum or Gorilla Glass.

Nothing is perfect. But the fact that there aren't thousands of stories about MBA screens breaking just by closing the lid means that you have an isolated though unfortunate problem. It sucks, but it's not symptomatic of a widespread flaw.
 
I bought an i5 mac mini and love it.. Takes a little while getting use to but overall i like it just as good as windows
 
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