Nekochan Net

there is a 64, and 128gb variety. i got the 128gb 11 inch one.

_________________


DECUS Member 368596

too early too talk about it, but it seems dead silent sky :)

if there's a fan inside it i have not heard it so far (my eyesight is less than perfect but my hearing is ubersensitive). i'll take it for a stills pipeline ride tomorrow

light! my shoulders/muscles are thankful

there is a very slight fan-like noise. when i hold the keyboard up to my ear, the strongest sound is above the 'WAZS' keys. here is sounds most like a fan. you can push air around the key's even if it seems like a pretty restrictive area. design-wise it's certainly more attractive than fan slots. it seems to the get hottest in the area behind the '6' key. i'll let someone else open it up, but, it's definitely quite at reasonable distances. this is one bad thing about the HP's, they have a noisy fan.

_________________


DECUS Member 368596

Check out http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook- ... own/3745/1 for an 11" MacBook Air teardown with photos.

naturally, someone always does it.

looks like the suspected fan is where i thought it would be, and well as the heat source. the heat pipes are doing an OK job. the keyboard seems like it should be sealed though... don't drop any liquid in there!

_________________


DECUS Member 368596

From what I read on apple's site, the fan *always* runs at ~2k rpm, and if you really flex muscles it will turn up to a noisy ~6k rpm for a few seconds.

otoh, on my thinkpad, the fan rarely runs, you can see it through the vent and 95% of the time it is not turning at all, and the machine is cool to the touch. If I play a game it will turn slowly, a slight buzz and you can feel air moving, and if I encode movies or resize photos it will scream. Of course, a modern C2D will use more power than antique low-voltage pentium M.

thought... ipod/ipad on the go, and macbook pro for at the home (just for me). MBP is plenty small enough to toss in a suitcase easily. +ethernet.




Am I the only one who thinks the 5-point screws are the niftiest thing ever? whoop-de-do if you have to buy a new driver... I think they are cool! And it's not like you'll ever need to open it up anyways...

_________________
(Maradona) (DavidVilla) A1186 (Xavi)
A1370 (Messi) dp43tf (Puyol) A1387 (Abidal) A1408 (Guardiola)

"InfiniteReality Graphics - Power Through Complexity"

yup, the fan purrrs guys. all i did yesterday was to set it up (right next to the 15" mbp) and its purr was absorbed by ambient noise.

it's barely noticeable under light use (it's just 2 days old) but it did show its teeth after 1h on a wifi link while managing stills in aperture (crop, resize, email/upload). my experience w/ fan noise is that it gets worse over time as the fan wears out.


here is where it gets interesting and how the ipad discussion started. plain specs always lead to heartbreaks unless we put 'em in decent use.

the air is note/netbook, runs the regular full-flavour mac os apps, so you're likely to use the ones you like. real keyboard -yay!- but i don't think it'll fit you as the primary/sole machine. go back home, and all you have is still 2 usb ports + external display. i'd appreciate an ethernet port too and something to connect my firewire/esata peripherals when i get back in the base.

make/brake point for the mba seems to be its fan performance, i'll keep testing it this week. we may get a real keyboard with this one but if it turns out to be much of a noisemaker it's no good. we have the sgi beasts for that :)

i'm still game to try an ipad within the same scenario, on the go. i went for the 64gb ssd on this one to test the space limit of the largest ipad. 64gb is aplenty for an intermediate device.

i can't hear the fan on mine. even after watching hulu for a couple of hours.

_________________


DECUS Member 368596

good to hear so sky, i bet that aperture is pushing it

i'll try to simulate my pipeline a la iOS (no aperture, just preview.app) tomorrow and see how it goes

The new 11" Macbook Air is like a dream come true.

It is small, silent, fast and has a very good keyboard (unlike
other netbooks).

The only two drawbacks are:
- it' s expensive
- 128GB SSD memory maybe to little for today's demands

I got the 128 GB because only the 128 GB allows you to upgrade the CPU.

_________________


DECUS Member 368596

i never noticed the cpu upgrade catch, no sweat since i'm just looking for something when on the go (anything that matters gets synced/uploaded/offloaded to a server/hd/magic pocket)

a few more thoughts:

-small: check (i find the 11" model to be a sweetspot of proportions)
-light: oh yes!
-fast: check
-silent-ish (let's define silent a device like the ipad, no fan)
-good keyboard: check (purely subjective as no two pair of hands are the same)
-solid build (i haven't tested any other netbook, i've seen a few here and there and they all looked like a $10 keychain. fine for students or anyone on tight budget tho)

after i'm finished working on it and close its lid, it remains a macbook that runs mac os x. feels like home for anyone familiar w/ mac os (i guess it'll take me some time to get things done the iOS way). i can't think of any realistic app/task that it cannot handle. i can only picture it as an intermediate machine though. if this gets purchased as a primary/sole computer (i think), there'll be something more to be desired, be it extra ports, more ssd space etc.

mine is very quiet. i took it down into the control room and i still couldn't hear it unless, i was 6 inches away. but yeah, the dell's had no fan's in them - very quiet, but hot :)

the netbooks were very cheap feeling mechanically. the air feels nice. i could run outlook in vmware on the dell, but my spread sheets would nearly hang it. i haven't tried that on the air, but i expect it'll be fine. in retrospect i wish i had bought 4GB, but, again i expect it'll never be a problem. i'm very happy with the macbook air. i am addicted to light-weight.

_________________


DECUS Member 368596

it's hard to remember everything after 12h in a darkroom:

past 2 days w/o aperture left the mba in peace, barely audible

apropos, the tests you did w/ hulu sound like a melody. iirc, it runs on flash (and flash tends to lead to fan cacophony)

wow, i thought i would never hear that sentiment again. the digital world is suffocating us all :(

_________________


DECUS Member 368596