MacBook Air (NVIDIA) / SATA or SSD?

[afx5i]

Thinking of getting one of the new MacBook Air.
Wondering how slow? the 4200rpm will be.
I've heard on Tekzilla that densities have impact on drive speed.
Will a 120GB 1.8" 4200rpm drive work somehow on par with a 2.5" 5400rpm drive?
Certainly want the SSD option, but $500 is really expensive for a college student...

Any help would be appreciated. Thx.

[radzack]

I would say after this new notebook upgrade, don't go mba.

I've played with both 13 inch macbook and the mba simultaneously...almost no different.

The air is obviously a tad more trimmed and light...but they are almost identical. so similar.

[afx5i]

Understand your point. The 13-inch Macbook is certainly a better choice, when considering the fact that I can add up to 4GB (maybe 8 in the future?) RAM and put in a 16MB 7200rpm drive at a MUCH LOWER price point.

But the problem is, I'm sitting in front of a Santa Rosa Macbook right now (the white one). So, if I get a Macbook Air, I'll probably never use it at home.
The 1.5 pounds that MBA offers sounds very tempting to me, because I'm going to carry it from here to there, even though it might be some kind of luxuary.

Wonder how well the HDD will perform because I remember the days when iBook G4 uses 4200rpm drives. It's just a little bit slow...

Originally Posted by radzack

I would say after this new notebook upgrade, don't go mba.

I've played with both 13 inch macbook and the mba simultaneously...almost no different.

The air is obviously a tad more trimmed and light...but they are almost identical. so similar.

Were these bolted down by any chance? You'll find a very appreciable difference in daily use when carrying both around.

That said, it depends on what you need. The Crudbook goes for around the same time in real life as the Air - about 3.5 hours - but the battery is swappable. And 2Kg's is on the high side of all-day portable, but nevertheless it's not impossible.

My absolute limit for an all-dayer is 2Kg's, and my extended-battery-equipped Sony Z and SZ's (which goes for about two and a half times longer than a 2Kg-config Crudbook) approach that limit. ANd at the end of the day I can really feel it. With the Air and my Sony TZ's and TT's, it's nowhere near the same problem. You think it's only 700 grams or so difference from a bag which weighs a kilo already plus the laptop and the odds and ends you carry around, but it is surprising.

The Crudbook Air won't be your primary computer but the weight and size (if not the runtime, it's propensity to bend, it's unreliability and a myriad of other issues) are very desirable attributes. In my case, it's not even my secondary computer - I only use it when I actually need to walk out of the door with an OS X machine. But it is significantly more portable than the regular Crudbook. Dragging a heavy laptop is not smart when you actually do stuff on the move which is perfectly well executed by a slower, but lighter machine.

The screen is also different. While I can say lots of bad things about the Air, the screen is not one of them. Barring the Sony's, it's one of the best 13" screens I've used - and the regular Crudbook uses a lower-grade screen.

Sorry I can't help with the 4200rpm question. I've only owned SSD 1st and 2nd-gen Airs, but I would imagine that provided you're not expecting a Crudbook Pro on the move, it would be perfectly acceptable. The SSD's do provide the added assurance of no moving parts - so the only moving parts on the Air would be the fans. It's one less thing to worry about, and given the (lack of) reliability of Apples that's a good thing. That was at least my justification for getting SSD.

[ranron]

Originally Posted by ArmpitOfDeath

Were these bolted down by any chance? You'll find a very appreciable difference in daily use when carrying both around.

I've used a MacBook Air and a MacBook at the same time. I really don't see the point in the MacBook Air. Sure by feel it feels smaller and lighter, but the end of the day in a proper backpack or case, the two are so close. Since the new MacBooks are so good, I now no longer see the MacBook Air to any advantage.

Meh. Non-owner conjecture once again. I can definitely feel the difference between my SZ with extended battery (1.9Kg) and a TT/Air (same ~1.3Kg weight, totally different machines) at the end of the day.