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Comment by Nemisis7654 | Hacker News Reader

I have been a Windows user since I started using computers. I am thinking of purchasing a Macbook Air. As a young programmer (going into fifth year of college), would anyone recommend this laptop?

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Only if ultra light weight and portability are primary concerns. A standard MacBook Pro is a better value otherwise, IMO.

After using my first MBP for a while, I'm kind of regretting getting the 15 inch. With the high-res screen, and as long as you have good eyes, the 13 seems just as functional and more portable. I love using my girlfriend's. My two cents, if Nemesis ends up going with a MBP.

There is no option to upgrade to high-res(higher-res) screen on the 13 inch. I think I am pretty sure on that. Just the plain 1280x800.

You are correct. Sorry about that.

I sold my older 15in MBP to get a unibody 13MBP. I lasted 4 months before selling the 13 to go back to 15in (thank goodness for high resell values.) The little bit of extra space just makes it so much easier to juggle open windows and see data from different programs while working. People think I'm a major multitasker with they see all my open windows, but really I'm working on one task with lots of varied inputs. I'm a little worried that Lion might take this away from me, with its emphasis on single window apps.

Note that the Airs have much more manageable screen real-estate than the 13" MBP: the 11" already has a higher resolution than the 13" MBP, and the 13" MBA has the same resolution as a non-HD 15" MBP.

I love my 13" MBP. It drives a large monitor when I need it to, and the rest of the time it's very portable and comfortable. I forget the screen is small, honestly.

Lion download progress: about 45%

From personal experience: no.

I bought a MacBook Air in January. It's very ideal for travelling, due to its small size and weight. However, it squeezes nearly the same amount of pixels as a 13.3" MacBook Pro in a 11.8" display. So, if your eyes are a bit tired, it becomes annoying to read code. Also, the CPU is much slower (even after this refresh) than the MacBook Pro. If you use compiled languages or do a lot of data processing, this is annoying.

I returned my Air to my Apple Reseller recently, and purchased a MacBook Pro (as I had before). It's fast and a readable screen.

Since you are a programmer, you'll probably enjoy a MacBook, given OS X's UNIX underpinnings.

From my personal experience, I liked coding Python with Textmate on a MBA, but not Objective-C with Xcode. Py/Text didn't take up much space and was easy to work with. Obj-C/Xcode demand lots of real-estate space, so the tiny screen was a hinderance.

So I'd advise that if you have a language that's 'tiny' and a minimalist editor, you'll probably do fine on a MBA. If the language and editor take up lots of space, I'd stay away and go with something that has a bigger screen (exception if you plan on using an external monitor).

I am mainly an Android developer and use Eclipse, which is by no means light...So I guess, in this case, I should stay away from the MBA?

No. You'll be fine. Possibly, you'll have screen estate issues with the 11" air, but that's about the only issue with Eclipse you'll have. The SSD will severely speed things up.

A good test would be to try out the MBA's resolution on your current display, and work with Eclipse in it. 1366x768 for the 11 inch, and 1440x900 for the 13.

Fonts and interface chrome always seem to take up a tiny bit more space on OS X. Not usually an issue but I'd take it into account if, on Windows, a given res is barely usable.

I have a 13-inch air; the pixels are tiny. If you try 1440x900 on a large monitor, bear in mind smaller fonts may not be using once you shrink down to laptop size.

Apple stores seem pretty liberal about machine use (notwithstanding the guy being prosecuted for installing webcam upload software on a store's machines..) - maybe you could download Mac Eclipse to a USB key and try it out on a machine?

The biggest issue with IDE is screen real estate, rather than performance. While eclipse is an absolute dog, 4GB RAM and an SSD should be sufficient to work with it. The painful part is the surface eaten by the various panes and bars of the IDE.

Call the apple store, tell them this, you will be able to install it or they will on a floor model to show you.

They're super keen on stuff like this.

FYI, the 13in MBA has the exact same screen resolution as the stock 15in MBP, and the 11in MBA is comparable to the 13in MBP (different ratio though), so both models can basically show the same amount of stuff on the screen (unless you were preferring something like a large iMac for XCode).

YMMV but I'm using an Air as my main dev machine at the moment. I bought it just because I need a mac for a few things but I seem to have ended up using it all the time. I'm used to having very small laptops though. I would say you definitely need the 128GB version, I originally partitioned mine into two 64GB partitions (I was going to put Ubuntu on the other which turned out to be very hard, but that's another story) and found that the 64GB filled up from just the OS plus the applications I use for development.

Right now I've got it plugged into a huge cinema display (which I have on loan for 6 months, it's very nice) but I have also used it quite a lot as a laptop.

I'm mostly writing Python here, so no long compiles. I imagine that would be a killer if you were working on C++ projects...

The new MacBook Airs are two times faster than the last generation MacBook Airs. They are also faster than the high end 17" MacBook Pros from 2010. [1] They are about as fast as the low end 13" MacBook Pro.

-------------

1. http://electricpig.co.uk/2011/07/20/2011-macbook-air-benchma...

2. http://www.primatelabs.ca/geekbench/mac-benchmarks/

I'd wait a year till you graduate, if you still need to buy a computer, buy the 17in and add an SSD if you are going to be doing programming, otherwise either the 13in air or 15in MBP will work fine if you need one NOW.

The 13in MBP is pretty low end without upgrading many of the components.

MBPs have tremendous resale value (especially the higher size models), so don't feel so bad about spending a few extra bucks on them.

Good lord, no. Stay away from 17", you might as well be lugging a desktop around. 13" is the sweet spot for me, MBP or MBA depending primary on memory needs and workload.

The only big drawback is it ain't cheap. You can even run Windows on if you really want.

Having an external DVD drive to install it is advised though, it is really difficult to do it with a USB drive.

Apple EFI drivers suck. I've been trying to get windows installed on my MBP17" where I replaced the optical drive with a SSD and it's been pure pain.

You'll need the superdrive in particular most likely.

yep I had the same issue on my MBP13, they dont let you boot off USB basically. Sucks.

If you open the Installer.app package, you'll find a DMG in there. You can then partition your USB drive/internal hard drive/external hard drive with a 5 GB partition, and restore the DMG onto it via Disk Utility.

You boot from the partition, and after installation, delete it and extend your primary partition (if you partitioned your internal hard drive).

The biggest drawback, by far, is the insanely low RAM. Anything less than 8GB is unusable for me, and I certainly can't be the only one.

Surely you're exaggerating. 8GB is necessary for a dev machine where you're going to be intentionally straining it. Most laptops nowadays come with 4GB. You're seriously saying those are "unusable" for you? What are you doing that requires 8GB of memory? Running multiple instances of SQL Server, AutoCAD, Visual Studio, and 2 or 3 games simultaneously?

Oh, some of our software barely compiles with 4GB of memory (unless you have enough time). E.g. large finite state transducers dumped as a big array of structs in C tend to blow up the compiler ;).

Also, some people tend to work with large data sets or problems that just require lots of memory. E.g. I work on language generation, and generally the more memory the better. For me 8GB is the minimum for doing serious work, and most machines that I use have >= 8GB and <= 64GB of memory.

So, someone asks "why would anyone need 8GB of memory". I describe one situation where I need that amount of memory. Can the downvoter please explain why this comment is objectionable?

Edit: my question is not rhetorical, I really would like to know.

Can't say i found anything objectionable to your comment (while I'm not doing that kind of stuff, in my day-to-day web development I have to juggle with virtual machines and 8GB RAM is also a bare requirements to be able to work correctly without the machine swapping to death), so I put you back above threshold.

I didn't downvote you but I would guess it was the hyperbolic wording of "insanely low" and "unusable".

How is it hyperbole? If the machine can not support the workloads it will be put under, how is it not unusable for him?

Also not a downvoter, but it's hyperbole because he didn't qualify it by saying that he has very particular needs. It would be like saying, "the Ford Excursion is an unusable piece of junk due to the lack of interior space...I can't even fit my 42 foster kids in it for a trip to Disneyland."

That's cool, surely that's a niche situation though. People deving mobile apps and websites (most people here) can do fine with 4GB. I do think the low end MB Air at 2GB is pushing it though.

Yep, sounds like you need something heftier than a super-light laptop for that sort of task. Hopefully you have already provisioned thusly.

My new laptop has 16GB of RAM. Last night, I was using 12GB of it. I was running one VM with 4gb of ram, and the rest was taken up with my browser (where I was exploring a vulnerability involving a massive number of objects), my debugger, and IDA.

8GB will work for me (that's all I have at work) but it definitely makes my life hard.

Honest question: Are there any ultra-lightweight laptops that handle 8GB?

The Dell Adamo (their answer to the MBA, which was nicer than the original, just way too expensive) did a couple years back, but that's now dead. Not sure what else is out there in the space, but just about any newer laptop with upgradable RAM can do 8GB -- almost all will support 4GB in each of the (standard) two banks.

I believe most in this category only have a single bank. I think the MBA actually has zero -- it's soldered to the motherboard.

lenovo x220 can take 8

The (now old) 11" MacBook Air is the best laptop I've ever owned.

That doesn't say much without any information about which other laptops you've owned...

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