|
Stolen for OP! Thanks movax! Love, The management Somebody fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Jul 20, 2011 |
#
¿
Jul 20, 2011 21:38
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 12:18 |
|
|
Space Racist posted:Fresh new OS, hardware, and new discussion threads to boot. Today is a good day. I wouldn't do it...as you have a few tabs open in Safari with Flash in action, you're going to start swapping. Granted, it's a SSD that has swap but I think everyone should get 4GB if possible. It's worth it. Re: i5 and i7, the only differences for the MBAs are clock speed and L2 cache. I don't think you would notice the difference outside of synthetic benchmarks, or if you pay very close attention to the duration of MATLAB / video encoding operations. It's not like the desktop differentiation where some i5s do not have HT; both the ULV i5s and i7s have HT. Of course, since it is HT, it'll only really come in handy for floating-point heavy ops. e: ^^ it's true, my 2010 has the 2.67 i7 w/ HT and Nehalem just gets owned by Sandy Bridge. Technology! 
|
|
#
¿
Jul 20, 2011 22:01
|
|
|
Bodhi Tea posted:Do you guys think the 11" MBA screen sufficient for coding? Depends on the IDE, IMHO. TextMate/Fraise + Terminal doing some scripting, no problem. Running Visual Studio or XCode or Eclipse or someshit, 
|
|
#
¿
Jul 20, 2011 23:19
|
|
|
KidDynamite posted:SO would the new base 13" air be able to handle xcode? Cause gently caress if I don't want to return my 13" MBP Easily, just don't be surprised if OSX starts swapping. 1440x900 is probably the lowest resolution I'd ever use XCode at.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 21, 2011 14:30
|
|
|
KidDynamite posted:What do you mean by "swapping"? Once you run out of physical RAM, the OS will start hitting the swapfile which is stored on your HDD/SSD. Less of an issue (hopefully) with a SSD versus a physical HDD. You can open up Activity Monitor and look at the 'Page Out' statistic near the bottom. That number never goes above 0 for me unless I have a ton of apps running + VMWare (8GB RAM). e: ^ yeah, I don't know how much swapping will matter on a SSD. Still slower than RAM, but hopefully not grossly so. I'll wait for a trip report from someone who buys one and kicks up a Win7 VM w/ 2GB + a "standard" workload of like Safari, Skim, maybe Word.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 21, 2011 14:42
|
|
|
fishmech posted:I'm on my phone and Apple's site was loading extremely slow. That's more RAM than I expected it to use though, so sticking with 2 gb looks like an even worse idea. Yeah, I mentioned that in the last thread, getting a new MBA with Lion and 2GB of RAM and immediately dropping to 1.7GB usable is the height of madness. I don't think Apple should have even offered a 2GB option knowing drat well that user experience will suck.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 21, 2011 15:55
|
|
|
So I rebooted my MBP for the first time in ages, took an Activity Monitor screenshot to check RAM usage: This was with Safari w/ 6 tabs or so, Mail, Word and IM. I don't think that's too out-of-line for what a 11" MBA might be doing, but 2GB seems borderline.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 22, 2011 04:13
|
|
|
MacBook Air teardown is up as well! Apple has good taste, I used the same USB hub IC and BlueTooth IC in my most recent mobo design. Wanted to see a 2GB 11" teardown, to see if they just had open pads for more chips, or if they just used less dense ICs. I guess I need to make a trip out to the Fruit Stand and get like 50 tabs open in Safari or something to see how well it copes with swapping on the SSD. I counted 16 ICs on the board, so for 4GB, that's 2Gbit a piece. I don't remember how many chips are on your average 4GB SO-DIMM, 8? movax fucked around with this message at 04:49 on Jul 22, 2011 |
|
#
¿
Jul 22, 2011 04:46
|
|
|
flavor posted:I'd really love to be proven wrong, but for all I have been able to find out, these all just work in one direction from Mini-DP out to whatever, i.e. if you have a computer that has Mini-DP output (Mac or some PCs whose graphics card have Mini-DP out), then you can connect those to displays that take VGA/HDMI etc. as input. It doesn't work in the other direction, so you will still not be able to connect your PC with VGA/HDMI output to a Cinema/Thunderbolt display using those cables. You are correct, each of the Monoprice adapters has the following sentence quote:This device is not Bidirectional. It can only connect a Mini-DisplayPort source to an VGA/DVI/HDMI display. It will not work in reverse.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 22, 2011 21:01
|
|
|
Was at the Fruit Stand today, opened a ton of tabs in Safari w/ sites + every app that was on it, only dropped to like 400MB free RAM still, didn't swap. I think I may get one now...glossy coming from matte will suck, but there's no other choice, really. Now to just decide between 128GB and 256GB SSD. I need to find some drive benchmarks somewhere, I wonder if they behave like SandForce drives where performance goes way up when you increase the number of flash dies.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 23, 2011 20:36
|
|
|
hotsauce posted:The Air's screen isn't matte, but it does have some sort of anti-glare coating that actually works well. Ah yeah, it wasn't too bad in the store, I guess it's because of that coating then. Now I just need to check some benchmarks on the 128GB SSD vs 256GB SSD (if it's like Sandforce drives where the number of flash die/channel can have a huge effect on IOPS) and I think I will pick one up.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 24, 2011 07:11
|
|
|
Doc Faustus posted:Anti-glare vs. Regular screens: It's no big secret that the MPB screens are basically mirrors. Is the Anti-glare screen just a "regular" laptop screen, then, or does it still have the glass front? I like the glass just for the ease in keeping it clean (I assume), but the glare is pretty severe. There's no local fruitstand where I can see them side-by-side, sadly. Come on bro, I put this in the OP Anti-glare is a regular screen, no glossy coating. It will not have a glass screen, it will have a metal aluminum bezel. Glossy has a glossy coating, really vivid and "popping" colors, and has the fingerprint-magnet black bezel w/ glass screen.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 24, 2011 20:21
|
|
|
Doc Faustus posted:So assuming the glossy screen is usuable at home/in the library, a Hi-Res 15" MBP is in my future! Hi-res bros  Totally worth the upgrade, it's a pretty screen.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 24, 2011 21:11
|
|
|
jfreder posted:Any opinions on the 13" vs 11" Air? I think you should absolutely get the 13". 1440x900 @ 13" is usable, 1280x800 @ 11" gets too close to your run-of-the-mill netbook. Personally I'd get the 13" 128GB MBA, no upgrades. That fucker already meets or exceeds the performance of my 2010 2.66GHz i5 MBP.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 26, 2011 01:41
|
|
|
dissss posted:The 11" is 1366x768, just like any other netbook and personally I don't think you'd want anything higher at such a small screen size. Ooops, yeah I guess that isn't terrible in the 11" size. I totally agree that the 13" and 15" have poo poo resolution options though (stock at least). I went for the high-res upgrade on my 15" MBP and it's pretty. I think 13" MBP ought to stock @ 1440x900 or at least offer an upgrade option to that resolution. And matte and glossy options! Are you listening Steve? Pretty please  Do what you will with the GPUs and optical drives, just think about screens too!e: while I'm dreaming might as well ask for IPS too 
|
|
#
¿
Jul 26, 2011 04:47
|
|
|
flyboi posted:Ideally and realistically are two different things. The resolution on the 15" is fine, I can read it but I could not imagine a 1920x1200 panel as I would have to jack up the text size to even be able to read anything. My eyes aren't horrible, I wear glasses but the prescription is minimal and moot. I had a 15.4" laptop from work with a 1920x1200 panel (Dell Precision), and in retrospect, that resolution was only really good when I was coding/debugging on the go; back then (  ) all I had was XP DPI scaling so just surfing the internet or something was somewhat stressful on my eyes.I think 1680x1050 on 15" is a pretty sweet spot; both Windows 7 and OS X are usable and readable at that resolution without going cross-eyed. In the 13" arena, I saw a 1600x900 panel on some super-portable VAIO which I thought was pushing it a bit, but the 1440x900 panels at that size were pretty awesome. Mr Chips posted:While it makes sense to replace ieee1394 with thunderbolt for your high speed peripherals, I can't see how it makes any sense as an ethernet replacement. When/if Thunderbolt ICs come down in price, we'll probably see a lot of "docking stations" crop up. Thunderbolt is essentially analogous to the docking connectors you'd find on the bottom of Lattitudes; you can throw any PCI Express device on the other side of the link, keeping in mind the x4 link to the Mac. i.e: GigE Controller / FW800 Controller / USB 3.0 controller / eSATA controller -> PCIe Switch -> Thunderbolt IC -> Cable -> MacBook Should be able to make it for less than $150 or so.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 26, 2011 06:17
|
|
|
Bob Morales posted:There's the gig aftermarket adapter. What interface does it use? USB 2.0 and FW800 are both (theoretically) slower than Gigabit Ethernet, and the Airs of course do not sport ExpressCard slots. Or is there a Thunderbolt GigE adapter that costs like $150 out already?
|
|
#
¿
Jul 26, 2011 15:18
|
|
|
Bob Morales posted:USB 2.0 Ah yeah, I'd totally use one of those over my Wi-Fi when flinging large files around. The Apple one is like $50, I'd probably try to find a 3rd party one that uses some Realtek/Broadcom chipset that are found in the Macs. Or, if the Intel kext is anything like the Linux/Windows one, something in the 827xx family. I think the latest refresh of all Macs uses Intel ethernet now (since the chipset has a free MAC)?
|
|
#
¿
Jul 26, 2011 15:41
|
|
|
jfreder posted:Anyone have any luck with Mini DisplayPort/Thunderbolt to HDMI adapters? I have a cable from the Apple store that cost $45 but wouldn't mind grabbing something for $5-$10 off of Amazon if they actually work. Look at the Monoprice adapters linked in the OP, it should get the job done for you. I don't recall if they pass audio or not, however.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 27, 2011 05:49
|
|
|
Electric Bugaloo posted:I wonder what that means for the MBP's glass cover on the glossy screens. While I'm no fan of glare, I really like the vibrancy of the glossy's colors and the convenience of an easily wipeable glass front. Also, presumably quad-core Ivy Bridge CPUs and high-power discrete GPUs in an ultrathin? Don't current MBPs already have a problem with heat management with big heatsinks and two fans?...Not to mention, putting in one of those proprietary SSD cards (or any SSD, really) with a capacity to rival the 500gb HDDs in current MBPs is impossible if they want to keep pricing remotely consistent for most buyers. As long as battery life doesn't suffer because they have cut the size of the thing to fit, I'll be happy. It's unlikely anyways seeing as the power consumption would drop anyways going to an Air-like formfactor, but if I vaguely remember one of Anand's graphs, the 15" MBP gets better life than the 13" Air (both 2011) simply because it has more room for a bigger battery.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 27, 2011 14:18
|
|
|
Boris the Blade posted:AnandTech MacBook Air review is up. Very good review. This jumped out at me: Anand posted:The Thunderbolt port can also function as a miniDP output which works as expected on the Air. UI performance is ok on a 27-inch Cinema Display driven by a MacBook Air despite the lack of a dedicated high speed frame buffer. The biggest issue is that firing up Mission Control or swiping between Spaces is met with a significantly reduced frame rate. If you're going to be using a high resolution external panel regularly, you might want to consider a MacBook Pro with a lot of dedicated video memory. Interested to hear some reports from goons who've hooked up their Airs to an external display.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 28, 2011 14:52
|
|
|
SourKraut posted:I have a friend who is thinking of picking up a 13" MBP for school, and I've been able to answer most questions, but they asked about whether the i5 is sufficient (they're a architectural major, so it'd probably be stuff like AutoCad, etc.), or if they should pay extra for the i7. I'd tell him to get the 13" Air, simply because it has a much, much better screen (1440x900 in 13" vs. 1280x800 in 13") that will pay off for apps like AutoCAD. The i5 in the 13" MBA should more than enough.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 29, 2011 03:33
|
|
|
KidDynamite posted:Not much. He probably will not be using AutoCAD much in fact. Considering they pay drafters to do that poo poo in the first place. I'd still suggest the Air (unless he wants to game) simply because it has a better screen and 1280x800 @ 13" blows nuts, IMHO. It's only $100 more than the cheapest 13" MBP.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 29, 2011 04:15
|
|
|
Someone was asking about the i7 battery life on the MBA:quote:anandshimpi: .@nixtweet doing battery life testing on the 11-inch i7 now, expect an update in the coming days Anand's got us covered, so that should answer the last question, what is the battery life like on the MBA with the i7 upgrade.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 29, 2011 05:53
|
|
|
BlackMK4 posted:Hmm... refurb 13" MBP or Lenovo X220 with SSD, IPS screen, and 9cell battery. X220, I think you can even add a little mSATA SSD if you so desired. The 13" has horsepower, yeah, but that screen...goddammit Apple.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 30, 2011 17:51
|
|
|
SERIOUS posted:3) Wait til tomorrow, call Customer Service again to get the Customer Relations person, and have them basically poke that particular Genius Bar with a stick until they finish my computer. This has the greatest chance of getting your particular Apple Store yelled at / something done about your subpar service.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 31, 2011 22:56
|
|
|
AlphaDog posted:Ah, thanks guys, didn't realise there was a software thread, my eyes kind of skip over "mac" automatically since I never really use them. QuickTime likely installed some components that VLC may have needed to split/decode files properly, but AFAIK, VLC is designed to be pure 100% standalone and not depend on external filters if it can help it. And yeah, the trackpad is pretty  , I love the thing.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 1, 2011 16:07
|
|
|
evensevenone posted:Thunderbolt doesn't offer PCIe x16 though does it? I thought it was just x1. That would kind of limit the video card performance. It's x4, Generation 2 (for now) which is effectively 2GB/s bi-directional (500MB/s per lane). To compare, a x16 Gen 2.0 slot delivers 8GB/s, and a x8 Gen 2 delivers 8GB/s. Now we know that Ivy Bridge will upgrade the CPU PCIe controller to the 3.0 standard. Assuming it can be broken into x8/x4/x4 or something, and the TB controller gets updated and copper can handle the increased speed, you'd see a theoretical 4GB/s in each direction, equivalent to a Gen 1 x16 slot.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 1, 2011 20:38
|
|
|
SpoonsForThought posted:So if I'm reading this right, which I'm really not sure if I am, x4 should be fine even for high-end cards? What they proved there was that performance was capping out due to the GPU itself, and not a bottleneck in getting data between the CPU and GPU. This might not always be the case, but those are some fairly interesting results with the cards they tested.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 1, 2011 21:15
|
|
|
fleshweasel posted:why did you buy so much ram Swapping is for scrubs 
|
|
#
¿
Aug 2, 2011 04:03
|
|
|
Scienter posted:Last Thursday it was delivered and unboxed; arrived in perfect condition. It's been good times since with zero regrets. First Mac and best first impression of any computer purchase I've ever made. Many thanks to this thread for helping me wait for the right model and making the right decision. We accept payment/rewards in Apple hardware. Go ahead and mail a 13" MBA to me and we'll call it even  Seriously though, enjoy! What SSD did you get with yours, out of curiosity? (Look at the drive model from System Profile, would be SM256 for a Samsung, IIRC).
|
|
#
¿
Aug 2, 2011 14:19
|
|
|
Boris the Blade posted:I'm torn between picking up the 13" MBA or waiting to see what Apple does with the MBP. If you don't care about heavy gaming, aren't doing heavy VM stuff then I would absolutely go for it. The CPU/RAM performance alone is enough to dominate "normal" tasks like web browsing, e-mail, etc for a long time in the future, at least until the next Flash ruins the Internet even more. And is my usual posting style in this thread, the 13" MBP screen blows, the resolution on the MBA is just right for the screen size. If you do want a 15", be sure to get the high-res upgrade. Slight derail on CPUS: Ever since the Core 2 Duo/dual core A64s, CPUs are really shining in terms of getting poo poo done faster (video encoding, etc.) or pushing games further (looking at you GTA4/Crysis 2), but they haven't really opened any new doors for us (which I'm OK with, because now we're getting more cores/threads and lower power consumption). Even the first Core 2 Duos (E6600) will handle all the MS Office / Firefox /Chrome/etc you can throw at it with decent RAM; I had one all the way up until this January. The dually-ULV i5 in the MBA outperforms the last generation Nehalem 2.66GHz chip handily, which in turn made mincemeat out of the Core 2s, all at 17W or so. Progress! 
|
|
#
¿
Aug 2, 2011 16:32
|
|
|
Space Racist posted:Has anyone tried Lion on a base 2010 11" MBA? I'm eyeing the refurbs pretty heavily for a portable secondary machine this fall, but I'm hesitant to drop $750 + tax on one if it's going to be a dog out of the gate. 2GB of RAM is unacceptable for Lion IMHO, get 4GB or don't bother. quote:While this isn't my first Mac, I feel exactly the same. I almost always end up with buyer's remorse for my large purchases, but my last two Macs have been absolutely perfect. I love my 27" iMac and the new 13" Air is faultless. The form factor is better than my old 15" i7 MBP, the screen resolution is still great, and I don't feel like I sacrificed much performance for my workflow (if any) going from a larger laptop with an i7 and Intel SSD to the Air's i7 and Samsung SSD. I couldn't be happier with it. Do you actually get to use your MBA at work, or is it your personal machine, out of curiosity? Daric posted:So if I'm looking at getting a 15" MBP, they're going to be releasing a new one in about 6 months? I play games a little bit but my job will require that I watch a lot of tv too and so I'll be using it for that. I should probably wait, right? Everyone is riding a wave of after the new Air launch when it comes to rumours, buy it now if you need it. I'd only start second-guessing purchasing a MBP as it approaches March of next year or so. If new ones do turn out to launch this year, you can sell it or if you're lucky return it and not be down too much money.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 2, 2011 17:47
|
|
|
Space Racist posted:Out of curiosity, in what sense? Sandboxing in Safari would eat it up too quickly? Any other real-world scenarios? movax posted:So I rebooted my MBP for the first time in ages, took an Activity Monitor screenshot to check RAM usage: After that post, I went to the Fruit Stand to play with the MBAs in person, a 13" MBA sat at 2GB free after a reboot, IIRC. Remember you lose 384MB to video memory too. quote:I'm not really needing a ton of performance out of the thing, it'd be a secondary computer to take to campus to type documents/spreadsheets, plus web browsing, email, the usual. Nothing really intensive, but ideally I'd want it to last at least 2-3 years if I'm going to drop that much money on it. I'd get the 13" base Air, personally, or upgrade the 11" to 4GB for sure.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 2, 2011 18:29
|
|
|
brc64 posted:What I need: Every single Apple computer will fill this needs. Even the iPad, possibly. quote:* Lots o' pixels (I don't care if everything looks tiny... resolution is important to me) quote:What I don't care about : quote:That all brings me back to the specs, since I would potentially be comparing previous generation hardware to current hardware, and I still don't know how much better an i5 is over a Core 2 Duo, or whatever the options are. I know I don't need top of the line, but I'd still like it to be comfortably peppy. Are there any specs I should straight up avoid? Get anything that is Core i5/i7, ideally something from 2011 so you pick up the benefits of the 2nd Generation Core ix architecture, also known as Sandy Bridge. Improved performance and improved power efficiency; to give you an idea the new 13" MBA with a 1.6GHz 2nd Gen. Core i7 beats my 15" 2010 MBP with a 2.66GHz 1st Gen. Core i7. Comparing apples to apples, the new 15" gets about two more hours of battery life than mine as well. I think you either want the 13" MBA or the 15" MBP with the high-res upgrade. The 15" MBP is priced too high though IMO, and that high-res upgrade also sets you back an extra $100/$150, so if you're going that route, you'll have to look at refurbs. A base 13" MBA brand-new from Apple is $1299.00. The 15" is at a ball-crushing 1799.00 base (  )e: looked up my order for the 2010 MBP. Fully loaded (high-res matte, fastest CPU) it was $2050, and even that was kind of steep. e2: Don't forget the cost of AppleCare, which is cheaper for the smaller machines. movax fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Aug 2, 2011 |
|
#
¿
Aug 2, 2011 20:19
|
|
|
brc64 posted:This is the sort of feedback I was looking for, thanks. Might have been me, I put that in every post I make about the Air. You should not pay Apple for RAM upgrades for the MBPs, you can just order RAM off newegg and do it yourself cheaper. You should pay Apple for the 4GB RAM option in machines like the Air where it isn't serviceable. Lucky for you, all but one (lowest end 11") ship with 4GB RAM already, and that's that (no 8GB option this year  )Do you have an Apple Store near you? Go try out the Air in person, you may be pleasantly surprised. e: poo poo I kind of half answered your question. I think all the MBPs come stock with 4GB, you can upgrade that yourself to 8GB/16GB if you feel the need. It is important that you make sure your Air comes with 4GB of RAM. It's up to you to decide if you wan the i7 CPU upgrade in the Air, but that upgrade is only available in the 256GB configuration.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 2, 2011 20:41
|
|
|
Mu Zeta posted:OSX is poo poo without SSD My little brother brought over his new Air for me to install Office, etc on. I really need to get off my rear end and throw that Vertex 2 into my MBP already, it felt so slow compared to that Air.  Can you Ghost/etc HGFS partitions whilst preserving the bootloader from drive to drive like you can with PCs? I'll sacrifice the Boot Camp install for now and maybe just keep an external HDD I run VM Windows from.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 5, 2011 14:37
|
|
|
Star War Sex Parrot posted:The latter will do the trick, but if you can get the extra $90 together, try to get a Sandy Bridge refurb. Ignore the clock speed discrepancy. The Sandy Bridge notebook is a quad-core, has double the cache, and can turbo up to 2.9GHz in single-threaded tasks. It will smoke the old Arrandale design. Absolutely get the Sandy Bridge, everything SWSP said + more battery life and a Thunderbolt port for the future.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 6, 2011 05:30
|
|
|
KidDynamite posted:
No idea, mine does the same thing. After a month or so it'll have a few megs paged out, not a big deal at all. Not familiar enough with OSX to know exactly why it would do that. Other news, ordered an OWC Optibay for my 2010 MBP so I can toss the 500GB drive into that, and put in a SSD. You can pick any internal drive in the system to Boot Camp, correct? Thinking 250GB Windows, 250GB HGFS+ split on the physical drive. Also, that drive should spin down and stay quiet (aka, off with little to no power draw) I think if neither of its partitions are active and mounted?
|
|
#
¿
Aug 8, 2011 02:34
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 12:18 |
|
|
Hiyoshi posted:What's so different between the 2008 iMacs and the early 2009 iMacs that would make AirDrop support difficult? I was wondering the same thing. Bet it's related to what WLAN chipset is in use. If you're adventurous, look at the iFixit for your 2008 iMac vs. the 2009/2010, and see if the form factor of the newer WLAN cards is compatible with yours. Driver support obviously won't be an issue. Maybe even tracking down a USB WLAN adapter that uses a supported chipset and is 11n could work. I don't think you'd find the identical chip in a USB stick though as Broadcom/etc probably have silicon variants so they don't waste unnecessary $$$ implementing PCIe transceivers in a chip that is just going to be USB in the end. sicjoke posted:The 2008 MacBook fills the external monitor at this resolution entirely. movax fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Aug 8, 2011 |
|
#
¿
Aug 8, 2011 14:55
|
|