So I do sys admin kinda work as my full time job, so get provided with high power computers at work. At home I have a pretty powerful desktop too. At work we use almost only Windows environments from win7-10-server2012. I recently saw MacBook Air’s for a killer price after Christmas in some of the sales but am not sure weather to pick one up or not just for general home use and for watching stuff in bed? Not sure if I could handle OSX! Is it a wise choice to buy one for the portability or is trying to use OSX just a waste of time for a power user?
If anyone uses one or has any thoughts let me know!
Was given a 2011 Air with i7, 256 ssd but only 4gb of ram. and it's OK but I find OSX very buggy ...it completely borked when updating Safari last and it wasn't the first time I've had problems while updating the OS. Mine was free but can't trust it but obviously it's just me and lots of folks like them.
My father has a 2013Macbook Air and he loves it, but it's almost used solely for stuff that you'd expect the average consumer to want to do - Content consumption, internet browsing, email, Google Docs, the odd word document or spreadsheet, etc. Try to do anything else and it suffers.
I'm not too hot about them (I need muh I/O man ;3 ) but I do see their appeal. If you like OS X and you want an Ultrabook that has it, I guess it could be pretty good. But I have no long-term experience using one.
I would either get the Dell xps 13 for around the same price, and then turn it into a hackintosh.
Or i would spend the extra cash and find a good deal on an early 2015 macbook pro. You can find them for pretty cheap and they are wayyyyyyyyyyy better than the air.
how much would you get the air for? do you still need ports, vga and Ethernet port?
as a admin the x220-260(thinkpad) is great. its thicker but last 25hrs with 9 cell. has ports, amazing keyboard, and flies with linux.
if you were a web dev i would recommend it. my coworkers all have it. however they keeps their brightness at 4% to get full day batt life. i prefer my x1 carbon with linux and vm windows & osx
the macbook air is a solid laptop however. is just dont prefer OSX for network admins. there are ALOT of free tools on linux for you
wait until ces 17 in a week. the prices will go down even more
Not sure what you mean by fix. I've not bothered reinstalling , which needs to wipe the data, mainly because...Either the laptop or OS has been too buggy for me to really trust it in use.
Not overly keen on laptops anyway as any portable use I have is covered by a tablet and more keen on 'updating' a first gen intel 2006 Mac Pro (also free from my brother) to run a modern 64bit OSX. Pondering if it's worth it which would give me a reason to care about the Air.
Been pondering this for a year, updating the xenon's isn't too expensive but it only has 4gb memory and last time I looked it was very expensive. Plus, think I'd need to update the video card. Thus the lengthy pondering, not exactly flush...
I am a sys admin who has had a late 2013 MBPr13 since it was released. Great machine and I love it. I can run VM's in Fusion no problem while still using safari on another workspace for web.
The pro has two usb 3, two thunderbolt 2, HDMI, and a SD card slot.
Awesome screen on the pro with retina that the air does not have though.
I had an air 11" i7 which they no longer make. Loved it. I'm a web developer, so I would use a VM or two, photoshop, and after effects. I now have an 13" pro i5 (last gen), and the screen is better, and it has more power. I encode lots of video on it when I travel, lots of coding and VMs, it handles most things like a champ.
For the extra cost, I would recommend going with the pro. Though if you're all about battery life, go with the air. MY PRO gets about 8-9 hours.
If you don't think OSX will cut it for you just buy a 20$ Windows license from Kinguin or install your favourite Linux distro on it. If the price is really a steal (I guess depens on the specs but for a recent Macbook Air w/ an i7 CPU, 256GB SSD and 4/8GB of RAM I woulnd't spend more than 700$) and the battery is almost new I would go for it. I think those machines are pretty good and do to basic things are more than enough. You could even take it to work and access your main machine at home if you need it.
I usually discourage MBA's mostly because they have horrendous battery issues. They may have fixed them in later models but when those batteries go, you are left with split open aluminum door stop.
I wouldn't personally want it and I don't know what your general home use involves. I would probably chew through all the ram in the base models with tabs during my home use.
I guess something to consider is that they have a TN panel, not a bad one but still TN and if that upsets you then go with the MB or MBP. I know some people who find looking at TN panels difficult.
i think its very obvious the majority of people on this fourm do not prefer macbooks. i would go to the apple store and check it out yourself. I was also laptop hunting and went to the store. most people i know are happy with their purchase.
To be completely honest I would much rather have some other sort of lightweight ultrabook, even a Razer Blade Stealth or something, but as I live in New Zealand range and supply can be kinda limited as to what I can get.
$700usd for one with a 256gb and i7?! The one I was looking at here was a 128gb [storage isn't an issue] and an i5 for the price of $1300nzd [$900 usd] which is a steal here!
i forgot about that. my macbook can only be charged to 85% and then lasts no more than 2-4 hours on the battery. maybe you can get better battery life with a better kernel and some more tweaking but as far linux goes you are not getting the full "10hrs+" that you get when you have a brand new macbook air with osx. (when i got it new i could get sometimes even 12 hours of office work with on charge. no youtube, low brightness etc.)
I bought a 2013 MacBook Air (8 GB RAM) when they first came out as my primary machine. For productivity purposes, it's a great little workhorse. It certainly can't compete when it comes to any serious gaming or graphics work, but that isn't my typical workload and it doesn't sound like it's yours either.
I use mine daily 6+ hours a day with a typical workload: * Running a windows VM for specific applications * Running a Linux VM * Software development IDE * Remote device management * 3-10 browser windows open
The only task that brings the machine to a crawl is when I have 5 or more 10,000+ row excel files open, which I attribute more to Microsoft than the MacBook.
I know macs get a lot of flack here (often times deservedly so), but they can be a great tool if you dedicate the time to learn the benefits.
EDIT: Most Linux dev/admin tools you can install on OS X with home brew or macports. I use homebrew personally. If your a windows centric user, you may be out of luck though.