Jan Zdarsa The prices of older Macbook series, whether new or bazaar pieces, have been hellishly low lately. And so one day I couldn't resist such an offer and bought a Macbook Air for CZK 26.500 including VAT. So I brought it home with a smile on my face and looked forward to the first launch.
But I had to look at it first, its thinness (1,93 cm) just got me and the weight, that was of course the biggest plus, 1,36 kg is almost unrecognizable on your back. And I'm not even talking about when you have it on your knees, you can't talk about it, you just have to try it :) In short, the weight, thinness and design just won me over. Of course, I also like the aluminum chassis, but that's what I'm used to from my Macbook Pro.
So the first MacOS boot came, everything went fine, no problem. When I had already set everything up, of course I immediately went to look on the Internet, but everything kind of "bitten" me, I certainly didn't expect such poor performance from an Intel Core 2 Duo 1,6 Ghz processor with 2 GB Ram. So I thought maybe the system was indexing the files, but I better install iStat Pro to look at the temps. They weren't very high, around 60°C, but the processor was completely unburdened.
When I looked around a bit, I did found that the fan is not spinning. I thought it must be some kind of firmware or Leopard error, but after downloading all the updates, the situation has not changed. Google eventually found me the answer - it was a defective piece and a claim was needed. And so I did..
In the company where I bought a Macbook Air, they went out of their way to help me and they immediately replaced my laptop piece by piece. And so I carried another piece home with a smile. This time, right after setting up Leopard, I looked into iStat Pro and everything was fine with the fan. I didn't like Safari either, I certainly didn't think the Macbook Air was slow, rather the opposite. Such a processor is certainly enough in it. Personally, I would appreciate a faster hard drive in a Macbook, 4200 rpm is not a win, but it is also more than enough for normal work. For more demanding users, the version with an SSD disk will solve it.
I would still have a complaint about the keyboard, which I found to be noticeably worse than that of the Macbook Pro (with 8600GT), but I will have to get used to it in the future, because the keyboard is probably the same in the new series of Macbooks. Another thing that bothered me is also very long charging. There are also reports on the Internet that people can charge up to 9 hours! Luckily for me it was "only" about 4-5 hours. It doesn't fit me very well on a mobile laptop.
After a while, however, a problem appeared and it was my familiar old fan again. This time I certainly didn't have a problem with it not spinning. On the contrary, he sometimes turned at full speed, a full 6200 rpm! I have to say that the Macbook Air was really noisier and I didn't like that. For example, I was just surfing the Internet, no demanding operations. However, neither he nor the processor got particularly hot, he certainly had no reason for such speeds. But I wouldn't mind it so much if the fan sometimes spins at full blast, but then he never wanted to go back to 2500 rpm (default speed, really quiet) and simply hung at full speed. He stopped being noisy maybe after half an hour!
After a while I googled that such behavior is quite normal for Macbook Air, it often happens when an external monitor is connected. I haven't been able to find the real reason why it spins up to full on me, but I had a feeling that it did it every time I plugged in my iPhone.
Here it would be should be solved by some firmware in the future. But the noise really bothers me. In addition, I would really like 2 USB ports, the possibility to connect an external microphone and the socket for connecting headphones is not in the best place. And since I didn't want to spend another 2 thousand for a Superdrive and an Elgato tuner (currently I have TV streaming via LAN), I decided to sell this aluminum thing.
The Macbook Air is definitely the perfect laptop. Small, light, beautiful. No doubt about it. But they suffer from childhood diseases that must be caught. I have no doubt that the second generation Macbook Air with Nvidia 9400M will be a great laptop, but I will have to wait for another Friday before it becomes affordable for me again.
By the way, the new Macbook Air line went on sale in the US just yesterday. Thanks to the Nvidia 9400M, it really gains a lot, because video playback will now not only cost the processor, but the new graphics will help.
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I knew why I didn't want him, after all, no one in the 1st generation can
@ERT: It will depend on each individual piece, but I learned from another Macbook Air owner that he has complained about it 5 times already. If I were to keep it, I would definitely buy a 3-year Next Business Day warranty with it.