best hacktintosh laptop - hands down - not mini

[runawayprisoner]

Yeah, the 2010 Air also has a high-res screen.

The GeForce GPU is better because it has more stable drivers, and it's not dependent upon TurboBoost to give it the kick it needs in performance.

Generally, I have read more problems with erratic graphics performance on the 2011 Air than on the 2010 Air, which is typical of Intel graphics.

Of course, that's not to say Intel's integrated graphics on Sandy Bridge is that bad, but that it's not as good as nVidia's in some cases. It's a fair trade-off if you need more CPU power.

 

[Nvidiaguy07]

Went to best buy today, got the newest macbook air for $1199. Pretty happy with it for far. Going to make a commitment to adapt to OSX. The guy at best but (who was actually pretty knowledgeable for a change) was showing me all new features of lion that looked pretty cool, so know i just need to learn the gestures/keyboard shortcuts, and i think i might end up liking it.

The build quality ridiculous, the closest pc laptop i found to it was a samsung, but the screen had a bad resolution, and horrible viewing angle/washed out colors.

Probably going to put windows 7 on it sometime this week, but only to see how it works.

If i end up really hating it, best buy has a 14 day return policy.

 

[Pliablemoose]

Welcome to the club, it's growing

What tipped the scales for me towards the MBA were the reviewers that said they loved it and were buying one for themselves. How often do you see that in a review? they sing a device's praises and move on to the next device to review.

 

[Nvidiaguy07]

there really is no pc laptop equivalent. Whether or not ill like to OS is still up in the air, but i probably will. But PC laptops are ugly/lack certain features.

I probably would have paid just as much, if not more for a PC with similar build quality and features, but it just doesn't exist. Pretty sad considering less and less people will be using desktops in the coming years. If apple could get someone like me to to buy their product, then im afraid MS is in big trouble.

 

[Ns1]

buy a mac and install Win7.

This

 

[Nvidiaguy07]

This

Gonna do it soon. Will report back my experience.

 

[deanx0r]

Congrats on the new purchase. My very first experience with Mac was terrible. I hated the hardware, it was slow, and I was completely lost in the Apple environment, because I wanted the OS to act exactly like Windows (XP at the time). But that was over ten years ago. The new Mac is great. You should go over your trackpad settings and learn all those gestures

I would recommend installing Windows via a virtual machine like VirtualBox (free) first. The switching is seamless, unless you want to play games under Windows 7. The windows experience under bootcamp is too compromising in my opinion (it takes way too long to boot into windows). I feel that Apple put bootcamp there just to make us realize how great OSX is...

 

[slackerinabox]

Congrats on the new purchase. My very first experience with Mac was terrible. I hated the hardware, it was slow, and I was completely lost in the Apple environment, because I wanted the OS to act exactly like Windows (XP at the time). But that was over ten years ago. The new Mac is great. You should go over your trackpad settings and learn all those gestures

I would recommend installing Windows via a virtual machine like VirtualBox (free) first. The switching is seamless, unless you want to play games under Windows 7. The windows experience under bootcamp is too compromising in my opinion (it takes way too long to boot into windows). I feel that Apple put bootcamp there just to make us realize how great OSX is...

Don't listen to him, gaming under virtual box is dreadful. bootcamp works fine, almost flawlessly

 

[TheStu]

Don't listen to him, gaming under virtual box is dreadful. bootcamp works fine, almost flawlessly

You should listen to him, especially the part where he says that every thing BUT gaming is good under virtual box.

 

[lokiju]

Why not just get a Macbook Air or Pro from Apple directly from their refurb section online?

Would fit your price point and do both very very well.

Confused...

Let me qualify my suggestion.

I'm a Windows focused Systems Engineer for a living. I know and use Windows server OS'es to a level most never do.

I choose Mac's for my personal needs.

I use a MBP 13" for a few years straight at a prior job while still being a Windows Systems Engineer.

I started off doing boot camp and would spend a considerable amount of time in "pure" Windows. Then I started spending more time in OS X and just use VMware Fusion to "mount" my Bootcamp partition as a VM. Then I finally went pure OS X with a non-bootcamp Win7 VM for the times I had a need, which was and is less and less often.

There aren't many things I cannot do on a Mac now days that I can only do on a Windows OS.

All that time spent using Win7 on a MBP with Bootcamp I never once ran into any issues that were specific to it running on a Mac. It was just Windows, regardless of the underlying hardware.