Review of the 11" MacBook Air | Hacker News Reader

Review of the 11" MacBook Air

mattgemmell.com

106 pointsflapjack82 comments

My alternative: Put a 256GB Crucial RealSSD 300 in a 13" Macbook and max-out the RAM. It will be bigger and heavier, with less battery life, but if you already have a Macbook, this is a much cheaper move. The RealSSD has background garbage collection, so you don't have to worry about TRIM. You only need to do two things: 1) noatime and 2) make sure you're using less than 220GB.

I did this, and the performance is fantastic. (Original 13" unibody Macbook with RAM upgraded to 6GB.) Everything happens instantly. I had journalling off, because it increases disk writes by 12%, but OS X compensates by cranking up its RAM cache. Keep journalling on, as it helps boot-up and shut-down happen quickly and things just seem to run faster without the system managing the really large RAM cache to disk. (Another factor: The nasty bug in XCode 3.1 requiring you to reboot your machine to unfreeze the simulator. This makes fast reboots a big win for me. Otherwise, I'd use sleep and only reboot occasionally.)

For increased battery life on the plane, I have a Tekkeon myPower All, which I also sometimes use to power a mobile 4G hotspot. You can find a $14 Magsafe cord on eBay, and solder it to a male Adaptaplug from Radioshack to make yourself an adapter.

EDIT: If you have an older Core Duo plastic Macbook capable of supporting more than 4GB of RAM, then I'd recommend slapping a RealSSD into it. You'll have something lighter than a 13" aluminum with great performance.

So I had to go look up noatime. Here's what I found:

"Linux [and presumably Mac OS X] has a special mount option for file systems called noatime that can be added to each line that addresses one file system in the /etc/fstab file. If a file system has been mounted with this option, reading accesses to the file system will no longer result in an update to the atime information associated with the file like we have explained above. The importance of the noatime setting is that it eliminates the need by the system to make writes to the file system for files which are simply being read. Since writes can be somewhat expensive, this can result in measurable performance gains. Note that the write time information to a file will continue to be updated anytime the file is written to."

(http://tldp.org/LDP/solrhe/Securing-Optimizing-Linux-RH-Edit...).

stcredzero, I'm curious to see how you set up your partitions to take advantage of noatime.

I used the method shown here:

http://blogs.nullvision.com/?p=275

My Macbook 13" alternative was to put a 128gb sandforce SSD into the hard drive bay and move my 500gb into the DVD Drive slot (For iTunes and Movies mainly). I also upped the RAM to 8gb.

It FLIES! And the battery life good.

SSD was my best new (to me) technology of 2010 :)

I was going to go this route, but I found it better to just move all the movies and install DMG onto an external drive. For one thing, I like how quiet my Macbook can be when the only spinning thing is the fan. (The MP3 collection needs to be on the internal drive, though.)

I have done this as well, but I'm a little concerned that the 500gb drive no longer has the sudden motion sensor. I'm thinking about swapping the two drives, but don't know if I'll end up running into hibernate issues or not.

Curious - how does background GC eliminate the need for TRIM?

I know it can use a set of unallocated blocks and clean them and swap them in and out where necessary - but without knowledge of the filesystem structure itself (TRIM) - it's always going to be sub-optimal. You'll have some fast write-space available, but not necessarily the full amount you could.

My understanding is that OS X/HFS+ already optimizes for reusing already allocated blocks. This means that fast write-space is conserved as much as possible at the expense of larger commit-loads from the OS's RAM cache when writing to already allocated blocks.

Also, what I've read seems to indicate that OS X behaves sub-optimally, but this is still good enough to support snappy behavior under normal workloads.

Not sure I follow.... the fast-write space in a non-TRIM device with GC is just some "extra" blocks (or whatever) that are kept aside and now and then swapped out for other in-use blocks (as far as the drive firmware is concerned - the OS has no idea this is going on) - and then the spare blocks are wiped for fast write again, then used when writes are requested.

Really appreciate if you could shed any more light on why OSX would be better at this.. not sure I can picture this.

OS X tries to avoid requesting "new" blocks for write. (AFAIK. Not an expert.)

Are you sure the Unibody Aluminum Macbook (Macbook 5,1) supports 6GB of RAM? I have this laptop and both the apple specs and crucial say it can only support 2x 2GB.

> Are you sure the Unibody Aluminum Macbook (Macbook 5,1) supports 6GB of RAM

The hardware limit is (and has always been) 8GB, the original firmware limit was claimed at 4GB and there's apparently been a firmware update late 2009 (december 8th) which raised the EFI limit. At this point, claims become muddled, it seems you can put 8GB RAM in it but it only sees 6, unless you launch the 64b kernel (apparently)

Macbook 5,1 absolutely supports 6GB, NOT 8GB.

The best summary I've found: http://blog.macsales.com/3291-putting-a-rumor-to-rest-owc-su...

Typing this from a Macbook 5,1 with 8gb onboard. Been running this way for months with no problems.

Under Snow Leopard, at least, this limitation does not apply.

I should have specified the model... I have a 13.3" 2.0GHz MacBook5,1. There is some variation within the 5,1 MacBooks; here's a quote from the discussion attached to that linked article (perhaps you have a 15" MacBook 5,1?)

  As far as the 15" MacBook5,1 models go – The three models released in October 2008, OWC supports to 6GB of RAM:

  MacBook Pro 15″ 2.4GHz
  MacBook Pro 15″ 2.53GHz model w/ExpressCard Slot (Late 2008)
  MacBook Pro 15″ 2.8GHz model w/ExpressCard Slot (Late 2008)

  The two models released March of 2009, OWC and Apple support up to 8GB of memory.
  MacBook Pro 15″ 2.66GHz (All)
  MacBook Pro 15″ 2.93GHz (All)

Nope, 13", 2.4 GHz.

Like so:

[[ Model Name: MacBook Model Identifier: MacBook5,1 Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz Number Of Processors: 1 Total Number Of Cores: 2 L2 Cache: 3 MB Memory: 8 GB Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz ]]

I put 8GB in my 5,1 (Late 2008 Unibody 13") a few months ago, and it worked great. It's running 10.6 with the default 32bit kernel and was definitely using the full 8GB, so something has definitely changed at some point. For the record, I got the 8GB from OWC.

I got the 13" Air (highest specs: 2.13Ghz+4GB) about a month ago and am completely loving it. I usually have Xcode, Photoshop, (occasional) Eclipse, and a slew of other tools open and it performs like a charm.

Most useful "feature": the battery really lasts around 6+ hours, esp. if you're not using wi-fi. This made some long airplane flights bearable.

I used to dread taking my previous Macbook Pro to a coffee shop, travel, etc. because it was bulky, required always plugging in the charger, etc. No more. Since it's so accessible on the go, my productivity has increased and I can quickly code up ideas anywhere.

It did take a week to get used to the smaller pixel size on the 13" screen-that-fits-a-15" resolution.

Sorry for the fanboy post, but seriously, this machine made my life as a developer that much better.

Same specs here. Still having issues with it even after the firmware patch though. If it sleeps after idle, it almost never wakes up. Have to do a forced reboot. I do all of my development work over ssh, so it's never really a problem - I haven't lost work it yet. Nevertheless it is kind of annoying (though the quick boot time helps mitigate that somewhat).

Ah, that sounds lousy. :( I wonder if it's a defective batch or something in my usage pattern that avoids this issue. Have you tried getting a replacement from a Genius bar? They are usually pretty helpful.

"I haven’t felt so thrilled by a new piece of hardware since I bought our first iPad..."

That long, eh?

I bought the entry level 11" MacBook Air 4 weeks ago and now it is the system I use for over 90% of my work, writing,and web browsing.

Caveat: most of my work is straight-up Ruby development, Rails development (both using RubyMine 3.01), and Clojure with Emacs. All three of these development scenarios take up little in the way of CPU or memory. I use TexShop for writing.

I do sit at my desk with a large external monitor occasionally, but not often. The only thing I don't like is the tiny escape key and I'll probably end up remapping it. Otherwise this is my favorite home computer ever (and I have owned many, starting with a PDP 8 one board, then serial number 71 Apple II, etc.) Both the light weight and a SSD drive make for a great experience.

I am going to start next week helping a friend's company do some back end Java EE 6 development and I'll either use my MacBook Pro or my beefy Ubuntu laptop for that.

> I am going to start next week helping a friend's company do some back end Java EE 6 development and I'll either use my MacBook Pro or my beefy Ubuntu laptop for that.

Why not use your Air? Expecting insufficient screen space?

Screen space is OK. However, I need to run NetBeans, web app, and DB 2. The 2 gigs of RAM is insufficient. I am happy keeping the Air for everything else and setting up the Pro for this one project.

Oh yeah, I can understand that. Why didn't you get the 4GB upgrade? I'd have thought of that one as a no-brainer.

How do you keep 2 separate notebooks to work with? How do you access your mail, code libraries, music, important files etc... on both? Do you sync them with dropbox or something?

I have 2 laptops - a Vaio for Windows related work and a Macbook for mac/iphone related work and I'm always struggling about which one to take when I go on a trip (when I don't have any specific work but like to keep a laptop handy anyway). The Macbook is lighter and more convenient but the Vaio has most of my mail and personal files.

Good question. I rely on my git repos to store all writing materials, programming projects, etc.

My customers usually have my work on their svn or git repos.

Also, I rely on GMail, my own getting things done web portal, my own (work in progress) consulting management web app, and Google docs. This stuff is available from any computer.

One more thing: I keep a small encrypted partition on all three laptops that contain my .ssh, .ec2, etc. credentials. I use soft links from my home directory to this encrypted partition. Hopefully if I lose a laptop then my credentials are not up for grabs.

I killed my MacBook Air envy by buying a Core i5 MBP, replacing the optical drive with a 128 GB SSD, installing the system and applications to the SSD and symlinking everything big and rarely accessed (iPhoto library, movies, iTunes U, etc) to the HDD. I have AppleScripts that mount/unmount the rotational drive when needed, and my machine now screams. It's heavier, sure, but I don't travel much and I love having all the additional internal storage. I still get over 8 hours of battery and the machine is silent as long as I'm not accessing anything on the rotational drive.

That's a much more expensive system. If we configure them as:

Macbook Pro 15: $1800 + $250 for 128GB SSD

Macbook Air 13: $1300 + $100 for 4GB RAM

Both machines will have the same size SSD, RAM, and same number of pixels, but the MBP will be $650 more.

(I know there are other ways of configuring the two, like adding a $100 hi-res option to the MBP, or adding the $100 MCE OptiBay like you did. I ignored them for simplicity and to create a more apples-to-apples comparison.)

Oh, it surely is, but I'm paying a premium for two things:

Additional internal storage – very important if you want one and only one Mac.

Double the RAM ceiling - 8 GB on the MBP versus 4 on the Air. And the MBP is user-upgradable, which feels better to me.

You also get longer battery life with the Pro, but since I'm not usually that far from an outlet, it's not a big deal. I'm also happier to have an incrementally faster and later-generation processor, since that'll hopefully grant a further 6 to 18 months usable lifespan for the machine.

Sigh, makes me regret my setup even more, price-wise. I have a big early adopter problem. First SSD was $680 for 80GB, it died, Intel sent me a second generation replacement. Then I purchased a second for $400, put them in my 17-inch MBP (older core 2 duo) in RAID 0 via an optibay. Then upgraded to 8GB of RAM when I started using redis locally. System screams but the SSDs are showing their age. I almost always run the drives close to maxed out storage. I used to have large volumes like iTunes on my Time Capsule but whenever I wanted to play a song it would take 10 seconds for the Time Capsule to spin up the drive.

http://paulstamatiou.com/ssd-raid-performance-9-months-later

I'm waiting until Lion comes out for any more hardware changes. Now that I'm using Jekyll locally (and will be just rsyncing the files) and it needs to regenerate 1000+ posts with layout etc changes, the core 2 duo is showing its age. And I have LSI disabled..

RAID-0 after having one die? RAID-1 would still get you double read speeds in the cases that tend to matter (small scattered reads), right? And is there a use-case for double write speeds on a non-server machine?

raid-1 may or may not get you double read speeds - it depends on how things are set up. ARe you sure the OSX implementation will take advantage of this?

+1. I put a 140GB Intel X-25 in my old non-unibody Mac. This thing boots so fast I can barely notice it. The only thing I really miss out on is the extended battery life of the newer macs.

Those AppleScripts sound interesting -- mind sharing a link to more info?

They're nothing special, and I can quote them right here if you like:

To mount a partition:

  do shell script "diskutil mount PARTITION_UUID"

Where PARTITION_UDID is the partition's UUID as returned by diskutil's info command.

To unmount all partitions:

  try
  do shell script "diskutil unmount PARTITION_UUID"
  end try

  try
  do shell script "diskutil unmount NEXT_PARTITION_UUID"
  end try

The try is there in case one partition is mounted and another isn't – won't throw an error in those cases.

Just compile those as self-contained apps, drop them in your dock and you're good to go. It's pretty manual stuff, I have to remember to launch the appropriate script at the beginning and end of a task that involves the HDD, but it's not much of a problem, since I don't use it that often. Meanwhile, you get a silent MBP, with a smidge better battery life, since the HDD isn't spinning needlessly.

Looking into auto-mounting the partition when a symlink is accessed, got a SuperUser question going here:

http://superuser.com/questions/228028/mount-drive-when-symbo...

> Looking into auto-mounting the partition when a symlink is accessed

Ah, see now that's what I imagined would be going on here ;)

From your SuperUser question it looks like there's a service called, appropriately enough, automountd. Neat! Is there no end to Unix's little undiscovered gems?

Some docs: http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Darwin...

A decent tutorial-style blog article: http://rajeev.name/2007/11/22/autofs-goodness-in-apples-leop...

(My new SSD shows up on Wednesday!)

There's actually a dedicated Script menu available in the OS. Instead of deploying .apps and taking up space in the Dock, you can start up AppleScript Editor and check "Show Script menu in menu bar" in its Preferences. Then place your scripts in ~/Library/Scripts (or ~/Library/Scripts/Applications/<application name> to have them only appear while a certain application is active).

I, too, would like to see these AppleScripts!

i've been using an 11" air as my only development machine for a month or two. a few minor things worth mentioning:

- no backlit keyboard

- no IR interface, so no ability to use a non-bluetooth remote control

- the LCD screen is glossy, but it's just a film over the screen, not a glass/plastic sheet over the entire display. as a result, the glare isn't as bad as the macbook pro.

- because the display is very thin, the glowing apple logo behind the screen sometimes shows through on the front.

I have been using the 11" for a couple of months now. I also love it but I am more productive at a real desktop with large screen and large keyboard. I have never seen the apple logo shine through the screen. Take that unit back for a replacement.

i have two of them, and one had its entire display replaced. all three displays show the logo through under certain lighting conditions.

Does the same on my 13 inch - it freaked me out the first time I saw it. Same for everyone else in my office who owns one.

That is completely unacceptable, and Apple needs to fix it fast.

re: backlit keyboard

Once you live with it, you can't live without it. I've become so spoiled in my years....

Do macs not have the little bumps on the f and j keys? If so, what do you need to see the keys for?

You'd think that wouldn't you, but clearly that isn't how it works. Something about making my index fingers hit those key requires a lighted keyboard now.

Again, I'm aware I'm being soft here.

I'm always having to stop and check that I'm pressing the right function key (volume control, play/pause), particularly if I'm watching a movie in the dark

I had this opinion, too, until I got a keyboard that was backlit.

oh, and the 11" has no sd card slot. i didn't really notice until i got mine that only the 13" air has it.

People are worried that 128G is not enough for a boot drive!? On my eeepc, I did it in 4G. On my desktop, I did it in 9.8G:

    Filesystem             Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
    /dev/sda2               26G  9.8G   15G  41% /
    /dev/sda1              894M   19M  827M   3% /boot
    /dev/mapper/md0_crypt  917G  238G  680G  26% /home

The key is to keep all your movies on an extra drive :P

I bought the 11" Air shortly after it came out as a fun little secondary notebook, and liked it so much I picked up the 13" as well for regular work purposes (replacing a 15" MBP).

I just finished coding an app on the 11" and it worked great. I never had a problem with the screen size or performance, and also have never had a problem with the apple logo showing through the display that another poster mentioned (on either the 11" or the 13"). I do occasionally hook it up to a 23" monitor when I need to do any design work, since there is a point where the 11" display is just too small for some tasks.

My only regret was going with the low-end 11" system. I really should have opted for the higher end 11", but didn't at the time because I was really buying it as "fun" purchase and the $999 entry price point was pretty attractive. If you're considering one, definitely spend the extra money to get the next step up.

I chose the 13" over the 11". The 11" had too small of a screen for my tastes and felt like a netbook. The 13" has a really nice resolution and feels amazing for typing (as the laptop is so thin your palms rest perfectly on it).

My 13" is not a netbook. It is a powerful laptop that I now absolutely love and do so much on. It's also my first mac, but I prefer the feel over my friends 13" macbook pro so I think I made the right choice.

I got the 11" and it does Starcraft on medium settings better than my wine session on a quad core 8800GTS does. Boot time of 16sec is also kind of a moot point... it drops in and out of sleep so effortlessly I doubt I'll ever need to reboot the thing.

Indeed. This has been the case with all my recent macs, actually. Why reboot (or shut down) if you can always just put it to sleep quickly.

I recently purchased the 11 with the same config.

Xcode runs happily enough on my iOS and Mac OS projects.

It runs my web dev stack just fine (Textmate, Python, Django, Nginx, Apache, Postgres)

It reminds me of how much I appreciated the form factor of my old 12" Powerbook back in the day. I got a lot of mileage out of that little machine.

The speakers sound tinny (under the keyboard) and I wish it had a proper ethernet port. The webcam doesn't seem to do as well in low light compared to the one in my MBP.

Overall I'm very happy with it and it's already been getting a lot more use than I expected considering it was purchased as a secondary machine.

Same here — I have the 1.6/4GB/128SSD version of the 11", and it's been fantastic since day one. I use it for Rails development, general web stuff & some light Lightroom work (when pressed), and as a second machine to a MBP that lives at home with a 23" external, but I vastly prefer the Air whenever I have the choice. The MBP really only gets used for when I'm editing clients' work in Lightroom & PS, where the CPU power makes the difference.

Thing is, the Air makes my 13" MBP seem fat — and the 13" is actually a pretty slim machine as far as laptops go these days.

I bought the 11" when it came out and it quickly became something I don't fo anywhere without. I used to carry my 13" MBP in a nice laptop backpack, but now I have a small satchel bag which can hold the Air as well as my essentials. With 3G tethering it's SO useful to always have a real computer with Internet access at my disposal.

I still have and use my MBP and iMac, but I use them much less. Convenience trumps power 90% of the time.

Two things that really bug me:

1. No cleartype. I.e. although there is subpixel antialiasing, fonts aren't optimized for the pixel grid. Thus, the fonts are much clearer when I boot to Windows and so I feel like everything is fuzzy when I boot back to Mac OS. This isn't a problem for the web, but for coding and SSH it's terrible. I can't use Windows full time though because Spaces is so outstanding and I don't get trackpad options under Windows.

2. Excel on Mac lacks my most used feature: web data import. Windows Excel lets me choose a table inside a web browser, and the data in that table (stock quotes/currency rates/etc) are imported into Excel (and re-retrieved just by pushing F9).

Excel on Mac does allow you to manually create text files that describe web data import which would be a possible workaround except that the sites I use require a login, and Windows Excel can save cookie state because of its tight integration with IE, but Mac Excel can't.

> I.e. although there is subpixel antialiasing, fonts aren't optimized for the pixel grid. Thus, the fonts are much clearer when I boot to Windows and so I feel like everything is fuzzy when I boot back to Mac OS.

It has nothing to do with fonts being "optimized for the pixel grid", it has to do with decisions taken on the antialiasing optimizations: OSX's is setup for rendering correctness (displayed fonts are to be as close to the original typeface as possible), whereas Windows's aims at clarity at the expense of rendering correctness.

I can only say that I have no issue with it (quite the opposite, you can disable AA for fonts up to 12px built in and some more with third-party applications and I find it dreadful)

The first point is a longstanding difference of opinion between different users. The thing is, fonts on Windows in general are sharper but mangle the letterforms, while fonts on the Mac look just how they were designed but have to sacrifice sharpness to do so with current display resolutions.

So, basically, the question is: Is readability more a function of the font's design or contrast of the luminance?

Not sure if they're "sharper". They're definitely thinner. OSX essentially increases boldness when they AA, while Windows decreases.

I, personally, vastly prefer OSX's rendering. But it's entirely a preference thing for nearly everyone (unless they're doing typographical work).

My font-rendering beefs seem quite transient, I've been a detractor and appreciator of plain aliased, ClearType and Mac style at various times. The only consistency has been Linux distro defaults looking gash ;)

You can easily set it to be pretty nice(hinting to slight or none, subpixel rendering). One very nice thing about linux is that it works very, very well for high-dpi screens.

You may want to download TinkerTool (http://www.bresink.com/osx/TinkerTool.html) and set font smoothing to "light". Here's a before and after screenshot I just made: http://imgur.com/gOffi

My biggest gripe is OS X not having working high DPI support. This really makes it impossible to use high res displays with OS X. I had to switch my 17" to Win 7 as I was killing my eyes in OSX badly. I have learnt to live with the lack of trackpad features on Windows but that's nothing Apple can't fix in a driver update - hopefully soon.

I always run Tinkertools and set the font antialiasing to 18pt or so. Makes the fonts clean like back on an apple II.

For coding and SSH, you should try using Menlo at 9pt or 10pt with AA turned off.

I own the 13" version. I spent some time testing both at the Apple Store. I really wanted to get the 11" one, but the upper row of keys is significantly thinner. As someone who uses vim all the time, this means missing the esc key very frequently. My advice would be to test both versions as much as you can and see which one works better for you.

You can always type control-[ in lieu of escape.

ive been remapping 'esc' to be triggered by rapidly hitting 'jj' and havent really run into this problem. jj is also more convenient than a fullsized esc key.

i use vim a lot and i got the 11". i simply remap capslock to esc, which i would do anyways.

I bought the top 11" that I could and I love it. It has become my main machine. Not since the 12" PowerBook have I loved a machine - sad as that sounds. The form factor fits me and I've been much more productive with it

I've checked out the Macbook Air at the Apple Store a few times and I'm so close to just selling my i5 MBP for a fully spec out 13" Air. I like the idea of having such a light and still powerful system for web and ios development. From the sounds of it I wouldn't be giving up to much going with the Air over the MBP.

That's exactly what I did, and I couldn't be happier. It's so light that I find myself checking my laptop bag just to see if it's still in there. I went with the highest-end 13" configuration so I didn't lose any performance in the transition, and haven't noticed any discernible difference in "real world" use.

I have a 10" Samsung N210 - proper 'netbook' (Atom, 1G RAM, etc) - and is fast enough for my dev needs (HTML/CSS, C, Python). I do need to farm compiling out to my main machine (a quad core) with distcc if I need to compile anything >10k LOC though.

I'm happy with it.

Another good satchel for the 11" Macbook Air:

http://amzn.com/B001F7FMUA

I have one of these for my old tc1100 Windows stylus tablet. It should fit the 11" Air quite handily as well as the iPad.

Got the 13" version with the 4GB ram upgrade. Works great for Android/iPhone/Web development. Loving it so far, haven't used by dell since. In fact, I'm going to give it to my mom (Core i7, NVidia GT435M)

problems waking up from sleep

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2630327...

we have this problem with ours, we've installed the newest firmware updates as well, I'm hoping they fix this soon.

other than that, seems pretty good.

Is anybody else holding out for the 3G compatible Air?

I thought about it, but like with the iPad, I ended up not bothering with it. My thinking is that now that 4g is rolling out and the next thing is probably in the wings, it's better to use your phone as a wifi hub and connect that way. I just got a g2 and t-mobile makes no attempt to prevent you from doing this, at least as far as I can tell, and their 4g service is super fast so far.

I know this is blasphemy but is anyone running Win 7 on their 11" Air?

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