Kaido
Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Checked out the new goods. For starters, the Air - yowza!
Macbook Air: Awesome - the future of computing. For a long time, I have wanted an ultraportable Macbook. Then I got the 11.6" in my hands - it's fabulous, but not for me. I played with the 11.6", then I played with the 13", and the 13" definitely felt like the right fit. It didn't really feel any heavier or bigger - just a much more usable screen.
The end is about the thickness of a pencil eraser. The USB ports were very nearly flush with the edge - amazing! Easy to carry, easy to open the screen, really great LCD screen, boots up quick. I didn't see the point of their "instant on" bit - that's not boot, that's restore from hibernation mode. But the old Mac laptops woke from sleep instantly anyway. I dunno. But it did boot up fast.
My buddy and I screwed around with iMovie for a bit. 2 gigs is NOT enough for iMovie - the movie kept stuttering on playback (we were messing with the movie trailer feature), even in small preview mode, not fullscreen. We had about 29 megs of RAM free on the 2 gig model. I would have thought the SSD would help speed up virtual memory, but HD video kept choking. My Sandforce (250 MB/s+) seems to do a much better job at that; there is a Sandforce upgrade available:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/27/macbook-air-upgrade-kit-bumps-capacity-to-256gb-turns-old-modul/
If I had money to burn, I'd do a 13" Air with that 256GB SF-1200 upgrade and 4GB RAM. That'd be a sweet little ride right there. It was amazingly capable - felt like a real computer, not an Air McSlowsky. Surprisingly, it felt thicker than the previous Air, since the back end was tapered from a "V". It felt about 1/3 as thick as an iPad. They should throw a Core 2 Duo in an iPad now :biggrin:
If I truly needed an ultraportable, I would go with the 11.6". If I were just buying an anything-laptop, then the 13" is really the ticket for me. Maybe for Christmas 😉 Oh, and the regular Macbooks & Macbook Pros felt like bricks after playing with the Air. So much for awesome Apple design on the "real" laptops, haha.
Magic Trackpad: I went into the store to browse, but secretly hoping that I would buy a Magic Trackpad. It was pretty cool, but I just couldn't see myself using it. I'm so much faster with a mouse. It's a really nice size, the gestures work great, iPhoto had a bit of trouble with rotates, and I couldn't figure out how to pan once zoomed in on a photo (at least, without clicking & holding on the mini-preview window, but maybe that's just how iPhoto is). There's some aftermarket software available to customize gestures, which is what I was planning on doing, but opted not to. Maybe someday. Maybe. If I can think of some better uses for it than just playing around.
iPod Touch: WOW is it thin! Feels amazing in your hand. I don't know what people are talking about as far as bad camera quality goes, the front-facing camera looked *great* on the screen. If I didn't have an iPhone 3GS, I'd totally get one of these. Very impressed!
iPod Nano: In a word - cool!! I thought this would be the lamest product ever, but it was actually REALLY neat! It's like a touchscreen clip-on Shuffle. The homescreen with the icons works really well, surprisingly. Some of the menus in the apps were a tad slow and had a tiny bit of interface weirdness, but for what it was, I was very very impressed.
iPod Shuffle: Love my old clip-on one. The new one is even smaller - very nice. Best iPod for the gym imo.
iMacs: 27" is a nice size. I've been installing a lot of Hanns-G/I-Inc 28" LCD's at work ($249 on Tiger Direct) and I like them better because of the matte screen. I like the iMacs a lot, just not the glossy screen too much.
Mac Mini: Holy crap, they're huge! And heavy! I miss the older, smaller design. It's like the old AppleTV. Neat, but didn't really care for this iteration.
AppleTV: Wowowow! So small! Literally the palm of your hand! Didn't particularly care for the remote, or the fact that you can't hook it up to an SDTV. I'll probably get my dad one for Christmas, since he likes iTunes a lot for TV shows, but I want a Boxee. The new AppleTV is a very sexy device though...I almost left with one after not getting hooked on the Magic Trackpad. But I didn't want to convert my library to MP4, haha.
17" Macbook Pro: Real nice...played with one with a matte screen. I liked it a lot. For pro work, that'd be a very nice machine.
My local store was really interesting. It's mostly laptops and iPod Touches now. There used to be aisles of software and accessories, especially accessories for the iPods. Now there is just a tiny corner wall in the back. Go Mac App Store go! I almost left with a 13" Macbook Air, but just couldn't justify the price for how much I'd actually use it. My wife would love it though, especially for traveling. Maybe Santa will smile upon my Hackintosh-loaded household this year, haha.
Macbook Air: Awesome - the future of computing. For a long time, I have wanted an ultraportable Macbook. Then I got the 11.6" in my hands - it's fabulous, but not for me. I played with the 11.6", then I played with the 13", and the 13" definitely felt like the right fit. It didn't really feel any heavier or bigger - just a much more usable screen.
The end is about the thickness of a pencil eraser. The USB ports were very nearly flush with the edge - amazing! Easy to carry, easy to open the screen, really great LCD screen, boots up quick. I didn't see the point of their "instant on" bit - that's not boot, that's restore from hibernation mode. But the old Mac laptops woke from sleep instantly anyway. I dunno. But it did boot up fast.
My buddy and I screwed around with iMovie for a bit. 2 gigs is NOT enough for iMovie - the movie kept stuttering on playback (we were messing with the movie trailer feature), even in small preview mode, not fullscreen. We had about 29 megs of RAM free on the 2 gig model. I would have thought the SSD would help speed up virtual memory, but HD video kept choking. My Sandforce (250 MB/s+) seems to do a much better job at that; there is a Sandforce upgrade available:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/27/macbook-air-upgrade-kit-bumps-capacity-to-256gb-turns-old-modul/
If I had money to burn, I'd do a 13" Air with that 256GB SF-1200 upgrade and 4GB RAM. That'd be a sweet little ride right there. It was amazingly capable - felt like a real computer, not an Air McSlowsky. Surprisingly, it felt thicker than the previous Air, since the back end was tapered from a "V". It felt about 1/3 as thick as an iPad. They should throw a Core 2 Duo in an iPad now :biggrin:
If I truly needed an ultraportable, I would go with the 11.6". If I were just buying an anything-laptop, then the 13" is really the ticket for me. Maybe for Christmas 😉 Oh, and the regular Macbooks & Macbook Pros felt like bricks after playing with the Air. So much for awesome Apple design on the "real" laptops, haha.
Magic Trackpad: I went into the store to browse, but secretly hoping that I would buy a Magic Trackpad. It was pretty cool, but I just couldn't see myself using it. I'm so much faster with a mouse. It's a really nice size, the gestures work great, iPhoto had a bit of trouble with rotates, and I couldn't figure out how to pan once zoomed in on a photo (at least, without clicking & holding on the mini-preview window, but maybe that's just how iPhoto is). There's some aftermarket software available to customize gestures, which is what I was planning on doing, but opted not to. Maybe someday. Maybe. If I can think of some better uses for it than just playing around.
iPod Touch: WOW is it thin! Feels amazing in your hand. I don't know what people are talking about as far as bad camera quality goes, the front-facing camera looked *great* on the screen. If I didn't have an iPhone 3GS, I'd totally get one of these. Very impressed!
iPod Nano: In a word - cool!! I thought this would be the lamest product ever, but it was actually REALLY neat! It's like a touchscreen clip-on Shuffle. The homescreen with the icons works really well, surprisingly. Some of the menus in the apps were a tad slow and had a tiny bit of interface weirdness, but for what it was, I was very very impressed.
iPod Shuffle: Love my old clip-on one. The new one is even smaller - very nice. Best iPod for the gym imo.
iMacs: 27" is a nice size. I've been installing a lot of Hanns-G/I-Inc 28" LCD's at work ($249 on Tiger Direct) and I like them better because of the matte screen. I like the iMacs a lot, just not the glossy screen too much.
Mac Mini: Holy crap, they're huge! And heavy! I miss the older, smaller design. It's like the old AppleTV. Neat, but didn't really care for this iteration.
AppleTV: Wowowow! So small! Literally the palm of your hand! Didn't particularly care for the remote, or the fact that you can't hook it up to an SDTV. I'll probably get my dad one for Christmas, since he likes iTunes a lot for TV shows, but I want a Boxee. The new AppleTV is a very sexy device though...I almost left with one after not getting hooked on the Magic Trackpad. But I didn't want to convert my library to MP4, haha.
17" Macbook Pro: Real nice...played with one with a matte screen. I liked it a lot. For pro work, that'd be a very nice machine.
My local store was really interesting. It's mostly laptops and iPod Touches now. There used to be aisles of software and accessories, especially accessories for the iPods. Now there is just a tiny corner wall in the back. Go Mac App Store go! I almost left with a 13" Macbook Air, but just couldn't justify the price for how much I'd actually use it. My wife would love it though, especially for traveling. Maybe Santa will smile upon my Hackintosh-loaded household this year, haha.
Last edited:
