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MBA Mini Review and Teardown
- Thread starter JadedFTW
- Start date
Probably detracted from battery life a little too much for The Steves liking.
IMO, the only real annoyance is that what is normally a glass screen on the MacBook Pro line is a plastic screen on the Air. Its a compromise made for the sake of getting the Air under 3 pounds, but still.
Yes, I'm used to it on my Sony laptop and I wanted my first MacBook to be super cool, better than a 13" MBP. But it lacks such an important to me feature, making me unable to go for the 13" Air over 13" MBP.
It shouldn't take more than a millimeter or two... :/
This is a non-argument. A backlit keyboard doesn't detract from battery life _at all_. Why? Because it's normally off. You only turn it on when you absolutely have to, and in that case, battery life is meaningless if you can't use the computer.
Which Sony laptop?
According to who?
You need to have a backlit keyboard to use a computer? Shit, here I thought you just needed to know how to type. Or you could use the light from the computer's screen to find the keys.
Check my sig.
It sounds like you haven't used a laptop with a backlit keyboard in dark situations. Sorry, I can't explain it using words.
Agreed.
I'm starting to accept it and getting closer to pulling the trigger. But it will suck using it at night in bed.
You can manually turn it off, sure. You can even disable the built-in light sensing to prevent the backlighting on the keyboard and the display to adjust to lighting conditions. But that doesnt change the fact that, yeah, when something is on, it drains power. The light-up logo on the back of the case draws power.
Its a compromise. Live with it or dont buy the product.
My point stands. Having an optional keyboard backlight does not reduce the effective battery life. It certainly isn't the main reason to exclude it.
No, it doesn't. The light comes from the LCD backlighting which is on to light up the screen. It's essentially free.
Sadly, yeah.
It certainly isnt a reason to include it, apparently. If you can come up with a better reason, Im all ears. Otherwise, its battery life.
Where did I say it was somehow powered by a separate light?
There you go.
That's really very unfortunate in my opinion. I suppose, though, that I would need to see it in person to be able to come to opinion about it.
Ah, sorry, I don't look at people's sigs most of the time. So you're upset that a laptop that was meant to be very light and very thin doesn't have the same options as your 1.3" thick, 5.6 pound laptop? Awesome. I used to have a 15" PowerBook with the backlit keyboard. I never used it because it was worthless. I seriously don't understand the point if you know how to type from the home row. Unless Apple has changed the keyboard (I can't tell from the photos so far), there are two little "bumps" on F and J to find them easily.
Are you fucking kidding me? Wow. Are you sure you're able to read people's sigs?
My Sony Z122 weighs 3.0 lbs. Where in the world did you get 5.6 pounds from?
Maybe the previous-gen MBA didn't have a backlit keyboard either? Oh, it did, but it was probably 1.3" thick, that's why.
Cost, thickness, sure. Battery life, not really.
Does having bluetooth built-in subtract from battery life too? Or having built-in speakers? Or built-in mic? Not unless you use them.
Then why would the logo draw any extra power?
Thickness has to be the reason. The inside of the new MBA is packed tighter than a sardine can. Adding LEDs for backlighting increases the size of the enclosure, simple. The MBA is basically two sheets of aluminum with a thin slice of computer and an LCD display inside of it.
If you're going to get a backlit keyboard, it'll have to be with a thicker enclosure like the Macbook Pros. Calling MBPs "thick" is a little weird given how thin and light they are compared to laptops of comparable power.
I really doubt theres a major cost premium for keyboard backlighting. I dont think the technology adds much if anything in the way of thickness, either.
All of these are far more common and expected features than a backlit keyboard.
Same reason the display does.
EDIT: The 2008 model MBA did have a backlit keyboard, just double checked. The new MBA is about a tenth of an inch thinner at the thickest point, .05" thinner at the front. Couldn't find specs on the difference where the keyboard is. Either way, I suspect that they couldn't cram the LEDs in there given the size limitations and how much stuff they already need to jam into something that is basically a flat piece of metal.
The 11" MBA has similar thickness to the 13", look at how tightly the electronics are crammed against the keyboard assembly: http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook-Air-11-Inch-Model-A1370-Teardown/3745/1
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Amazon said 5.6, but that's shipping weight - sorry. Either way, it was removed due to space requirements and the fact that it's not really needed. Like I said, you either know how to type, or you use the light from the screen to see the keys.
You're missing the point. The goal was to build the thinnest, lightest, longest-lasting laptop they could. And knowing it's Apple, I would feel confident saying that it's got a decent profit margin. People would have liked to see a lot of things as features, but why bother? Even the guy that originally brought it up said he was getting over the fact that it didn't have a backlit keyboard I think. If it's going to add weight or thickness, reduce battery life, or hell, even if it reduces profit margins for something not "necessary" - why do it? I'm glad to hear all of you using your years of experience designing laptops to assume that a backlit keyboard would have no impact on thickness, weight, battery life, and profits.
I guess I'm just not going to understand it. If you "don't give a shit about the who, what, where, when, how, and why", then it's not going to happen.
It's like saying you want 27 USB ports on it. You're not being realistic. You just keep repeating yourself with the "we just want it" line and the best explanation for wanting it so far is shurcooL's "I can't explain it using words". Now if you have a legitimate reason for wanting it, I'm sure this guy would love to hear from you:
sjobs [at] apple [dot] com
Until then, enjoy living in Fantasyland. Please send me a postcard!
Anyway, back to serious conversations - benchmarks are starting to show up in the Xbench database: http://db.xbench.com/search.xhtml?text=macbook+air&sort=date#tableTop
Looks kind of weird as my MacBook with the GMA950 scores 200+ on the OpenGL test but the 11" MacBook Air only gets ~100. I wonder why?
So tempting... Would have justified it if I was still in college. Now that I started working I no longer need such a portable machine.
Anyway my main reasons for buying it would be 1) OSX, 2) very portable, 3) it looks nice. Battery life is decent. Price is fairly reasonable for Apple.
Anyway my main reasons for buying it would be 1) OSX, 2) very portable, 3) it looks nice. Battery life is decent. Price is fairly reasonable for Apple.
If you can't stop arguing about minuscule shit, i'm locking the thread.
Apple didn't include a backlit keyboard. THE ONLY people that know why, work at apple. Unless any of you are employees of apple, it's all just speculation.
Leave it at that.
Apple didn't include a backlit keyboard. THE ONLY people that know why, work at apple. Unless any of you are employees of apple, it's all just speculation.
Leave it at that.
It's a better compromise. The glass screen sucks for actually mobile use.
My biggest issue is that having shrunk it further, they've probably done nothing about the pathetic cooling (TDP's have either not changed or gone up), and the likely <5 hour real runtime of the 13-inch (i.e. probably shorter than the Sony Z) still isn't enough for all day, so I still need my external battery anyway - I see no reason for me to upgrade.
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So what's the difference between the previous MBA and the new 13" MBA?
-higher res screen
-same whole-pad-as-button touchpad as MBPs
-320M instead of 9400M graphics
-7 hrs vs. 4-5 hrs of battery life
-2.9 vs 3.0 lbs
-missing backlit keyboard
-2 usb ports vs. 1
Anything else?
-higher res screen
-same whole-pad-as-button touchpad as MBPs
-320M instead of 9400M graphics
-7 hrs vs. 4-5 hrs of battery life
-2.9 vs 3.0 lbs
-missing backlit keyboard
-2 usb ports vs. 1
Anything else?
Mandatory integrated flash storage. 11.6 model weighing 2.3 pounds.
The previous Air used a 1.8’’ HDD. You wouldn’t expect much in the way of weight savings by switching to flash storage anyway. That wasn’t the point of the switch: it was battery life and compensating for the slower CPU speed. Also to get the ball rolling on solid state storage as a standard feature across all Mac lines over the long term.
I'd say "instant on" is pretty dramatic... Also 40% more battery life is nothing to sneeze at.
So did Engadget. Phew, I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/26/macbook-air-review-late-2010/
http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/26/macbook-air-review-late-2010/
I tried the 11" for the first time yesterday, and it felt pretty weird based on my experience with similarly sized machines. Specifically, typing on a netbook size (albeit higher res) screen but with a full size keyboard was an odd feeling. My head was telling me that my fingers should be moving across a cluttered keyboard with small keys, not a comfortable full size keyboard. The keyboard seemed bigger than the screen!
Anyway, not for me (13" is the minimum display size I would get) but it is very impressive how they managed to get a real keyboard and the same awesome Apple trackpad into something so little.
Anyway, not for me (13" is the minimum display size I would get) but it is very impressive how they managed to get a real keyboard and the same awesome Apple trackpad into something so little.
I think apple is doing you a favor and making you learn where they keys are!
As far as gaming and windows 7 it actually compares well with the 13" macbook pro(which not great, old hardware). It can run starcraft2 at low settings, maybe even some on medium. I'd be interested to see if it can run medium shaders and terrain. Thats what makes sc2 look decent.
Too bad there isn't 4gb RAM standard, it would make the price much easier to swallow.
As far as gaming and windows 7 it actually compares well with the 13" macbook pro(which not great, old hardware). It can run starcraft2 at low settings, maybe even some on medium. I'd be interested to see if it can run medium shaders and terrain. Thats what makes sc2 look decent.
Too bad there isn't 4gb RAM standard, it would make the price much easier to swallow.
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I'm thinking about getting an air to replace the 4 year old MacBook pro in my sig. If I do it will probably be the base 13" with the 4gb ram, I like the portability of the 11" but i'd prefer the integrated sd card reader and extra battery power of the 13.
rubberwheels
n00b
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2009
- Messages
- 24
I say do it! I'm going to replace my Macbook Pro 13" for a base 11.6". I plan on using the 11.6" for school since it weights like 2.3 lbs. It's super portable. Also the price is amazing, 949.00 after student discounts and 2% cash back from my credit card. How can it be any better? Except the taxes lol. I was skeptical about the base 11.6" because I planned on using it as a HTPC at home to play movies on my 32". Was unsure if it would play 1080p or 720p smoothly. From some users, they were able to play them smoothly.