WWDC 2012 keynote roundup. Thanks superchunk!

[smbu2000]

ethomaz said:

smbu2000 said:

Both are good though it really depends on what you plan to do with it. I don't have the new MBA, but I do have  13" mid-2011 MBA (Sandy Bridge); 1.7ghz i5, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD.  Very light and portable, not that great for 3d gaming as it has an integrated graphics card, although the newer MBA should improve a bit on that. It's great for when you have to do a lot of typing/editing/etc on it and the SSD really makes it fly.

The 11" MBA is even lighter and more portable and has a beefier cpu as well as 4GB RAM standard now. (2011 11" MBA had 2GB) The 13" has excellent battery life at 7hrs, but the 11" isn't too shabby at 5hrs.

I also have the new Ipad (2012; 64GB WiFi) and it is really great for all around things. The Retina display is gorgeous and it is very handy to have around and very portable. Battery life is also great at ~10hrs and I usually just leave it on all the time.

Thank you for sharing your experiences.

I'm more inclined to get the new MBA 2012 soon but it's way more expensive.

The filesystem and the keyboard is important for me. I have to waste more time with iPad too but I thing there are things I can't do with it.

Sorry for replying so late. The MBA is a really nice machine. I'm not sure whether you are looking at the 11" or the 13" model. The screen resolution on both is pretty good as well, the 11" MBA has a slightly higher resolution screen than the 13" MBP (1366x768 vs 1280x800) and the the 13" MBA has the same screen resolution as the 15" MBP (1440x900, the older one not the new Retina MBP), so there is plenty of usable space. 11" has a 16:9 aspect ratio and the 13" has a 16:10 aspect ratio.

In addition to improving the cpu (base model performs better than the upgraded 2011 model) and gpu, they added USB3 slots (Intel finally included native USB3 support with Ivy Bridge), a better integrated camera (was 480P, now it's 720P HD). They actually lowered the price a bit as well for this years model. (down $100 USD I believe, not sure about other countries)

The MBA is very light (11": 2.38lbs/1.08kg or 13": 2.96lbs/1.35kg) and very easy to carry around. I can throw mine in my backpack and not really worry about it. The keyboard is nice (it lights up) and is great for doing work on it. (Much easier than typing on an iPad, heh.)

If you haven't used a laptop with an SSD in it, it makes things so much quicker compared to a standard hdd. The trade-off is storage space of course, but I just have an external usb hdd for when I need extra space (or to transfer stuff from my desktop PC.) Using the MBA with a SSD is what made me buy a SSD for my desktop!

The MBA is a great machine to work on. The only way I could ever see myself getting rid of my MBA, was if I was getting the new Retina MBP. ;-p