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macbook air first thoughts and overview.

Swndlr

"aquired"? I don't believe someone would deliberately pay for a macbook so how did you come across this? Nice review nonetheless.

clearly im a real hood nigga and it just fell off the truck this morning.

4690K // 212 EVO // Z97-PRO // Vengeance 16GB // GTX 770 GTX 970 // MX100 128GB // Toshiba 1TB // Air 540 // HX650

Logitech G502 RGB // Corsair K65 RGB (MX Red)

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I love mine, my only complaint is that the steel scratches VERY easily over time. I use this cover and I'd recommend it

 

Btw that Amazon link has Linus's kick-back code on it

the one thing i noticed about laptops now :c they scratch EASILY. i got a scratch on the bottom of the blade and although its barely noticeable the perfectionist in me wants to break the laptop and use the insurance to get a new one.

4690K // 212 EVO // Z97-PRO // Vengeance 16GB // GTX 770 GTX 970 // MX100 128GB // Toshiba 1TB // Air 540 // HX650

Logitech G502 RGB // Corsair K65 RGB (MX Red)

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But I am drunk

Doesn't make it acceptable. 

"You have got to be the biggest asshole on this forum..."

-GingerbreadPK

sudo rm -rf /

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Doesn't make it acceptable.

You know what I will just go home now. Ya da real MVP
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Are you saying the SSD is dependent on the CPU? What? GHz is not everything my friend. There's also an enormous difference in speed. I get around 600MB/s write and 750MB/s read off of mine.

 

I don't know what you're getting at but MacBook Airs can run most games.

 

I never said ghz are everything. That cpu is simply very slow. What I meant is that the cpu is not fast enough for any program that would leverage the faster speed of the ssd. So you got 600mb/s writes in a benchmark. Does that matter? Nothing is capable of transfering files to the ssd at that speed, thunderbolt is theoretically capable of it but the external storage wouldn't be that fast. And considering it's a 128gb drive, it can't contain large enough files that there is a noticeable speed difference compared to a sata ssd when copying files to itself.

 

A lot of games have a base frequency in their minimum requirements, and it's often way higher than 1.4ghz. Did you manage to run any modern games on it at a decent framerate?

Don't ask to ask, just ask... please 🤨

sudo chmod -R 000 /*

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I never said ghz are everything. That cpu is simply very slow. What I meant is that the cpu is not fast enough for any program that would leverage the faster speed of the ssd. So you got 600mb/s writes in a benchmark. Does that matter? Nothing is capable of transfering files to the ssd at that speed, thunderbolt is theoretically capable of it but the external storage wouldn't be that fast.

It's over PCIe. The thing fucking blazes. It IS that fast. The CPU is not very slow evidently because it runs a lot of games, hmm?

"You have got to be the biggest asshole on this forum..."

-GingerbreadPK

sudo rm -rf /

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It's over PCIe. The thing fucking blazes. It IS that fast. The CPU is not very slow evidently because it runs a lot of games, hmm?

 

I know it's fast, but for daily use the difference is unnoticeable. Again, which games does it run? I wasn't able to find any concrete gaming benchmarks other than "it can run sc2 at minimum and tf2 at medium"

Don't ask to ask, just ask... please 🤨

sudo chmod -R 000 /*

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I know it's fast, but for daily use the difference is unnoticeable. Again, which games does it run? I wasn't able to find any concrete gaming benchmarks other than "it can run sc2 at minimum and tf2 at medium"

You'd be surprised.

 

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7085/the-2013-macbook-air-review-13inch

"You have got to be the biggest asshole on this forum..."

-GingerbreadPK

sudo rm -rf /

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It still only reaches the cinematic 24 fps and a little more in some cases... most of those are relatively old games, too. I'm pretty sure wolfenstein tno wouldn't even start, it would instantly cap the video allocated ram and fail to load. Either way it's certainly not a value gaming offer... it's ok for casual gaming once in a while if you're content with fairly old games, but it's pretty restrictive for anything else.

 

As for the ssd, you're trading moderately faster transfer speeds with a moderately faster cpu. I guess that makes it even. And the disparity is still about 400$.

Don't ask to ask, just ask... please 🤨

sudo chmod -R 000 /*

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I can give you the battery life, but honestly I wouldn't consider that to be worth 400 euros more when the rest of the specs are slightly inferior. Of course everyone has their own use scenario, personally I'd be using a laptop for usiversity and there are plenty of power sockets there (but again I understand that not everyone has constant access to a power socket).

 

Battery life is priceless in terms of convenience. Have you ever attended a conference? 400+ people where everyone needs a power socket and lectures/talks all day long. This is where mac air really shines.

 

 

 

 

It still only reaches the cinematic 24 fps and a little more in some cases... most of those are relatively old games, too. I'm pretty sure wolfenstein tno wouldn't even start, it would instantly cap the video allocated ram and fail to load. Either way it's certainly not a value gaming offer... it's ok for casual gaming once in a while if you're content with fairly old games, but it's pretty restrictive for anything else.

 

As for the ssd, you're trading moderately faster transfer speeds with a moderately faster cpu. I guess that makes it even. And the disparity is still about 400$.

 

Runs Civ 5 on med/high just fine and Divinity OS on med. It's not a gaming piece of gear in any respect. 

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Battery life is priceless in terms of convenience. Have you ever attended a conference? 400+ people where everyone needs a power socket and lectures/talks all day long. This is where mac air really shines.

 

"Priceless"? Really? Most laptops have replaceable batteries (except macbooks... because you know, why let people replace a broken battery instead of forcing them to buy a new laptop), with 50 bucks more or less I could effectively double the battery life of such a laptop. 50 bucks, not 400. Hell, I could go crazy and buy 3 spare batteries and quadruple the battery life for less than half the added cost of a macbook. Yes, it's bulkier, but if you're going to sit all day and listen to a guy talking that doesn't matter... and for almost every other use scenario that doesn't involve you carrying a bg regardless all that battery life is nice, but not necessary.

Don't ask to ask, just ask... please 🤨

sudo chmod -R 000 /*

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Like Linus, I don't consider the Air a real computer, just a highish-end non-touch tablet with a built in keyboard and trackpad. As evidenced by the battery life (the iPad Air and Galaxy Tab S 10.5 both get ~10 hours, 12 if you try with the iPad and 35 Days with super cheaty Ultra Power Saving Mode on the Tab S), screen (c'mon, 720p is considered bad on a 4.7" smartphone (Galaxy Alpha), so why is it being used on a 11"/13" laptop?) and relatively mediocre performance.

Mind you, I'm biased on two fronts: I'm not fond of Macs (overpriced, although their metal build is gorgeous), and I don't see the point of laptops in general. (not as powerful as a PC or as portable as a tablet, but for sometimes the same price as both combined? Seems legit.) Custom PC+Android tablet and phone= perfect tech trinity.

"We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology." ~Carl Sagan


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