[Jon D]

Originally Posted by briers

Yes i picked it up last thursday, the base 13" model

Love it, it's quicker than my MBP from last year and so light and quiet. Never hear the fans on it... apart from when spotlight is indexing or time machine is doing its thing.

Lion is a really nice addition too, very pleased with the overall package. Everything is instant and works which is what you want and what apple are renowned for.

Perhaps not a beast for video editing like the quad core MBP is but i don't do much of that.

Faster than last year's MBP - that sounds pretty impressive. Is your MBP better specced than my 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM model?
If so the Air would be very tempting.
Do you find the difference in screen size (15" to 13") particularly noticeable?

[TMP]

It seems the i5 is more than twice as fast as the core duos, although your MBP is a high ghz one...

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles...ir.html&page=1

http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/25/m...view-mid-2011/

[briers]

I've always been a mbp fan too and always had 15" screens

The 13 does take some getting used to but the Lion gestures and full screen recovers some of the space and makes it super easy to switch between apps. And it's so fast, everything is literally instant. No wheels and waiting.

I needed something more portable, whilst it is crazy to think the mbp is heavy and chunky, it isn't, the air certainly makes it easy to keep working on the move which is quite important to me. Have a 3g phone tether and i can keep an eye on things where ever i am so sacrificing the screen size has been worth it.

I still might get a big screen when i'm at my desk just for convenience.

I can't imagine anyone needing any more power than what this has unless you do a lot of video editing. For 1k it's not bad considering the mbp's chip in now at around £1,700 as i think it is vital to get an SSD instead of a HDD. They make the world of difference.

Just to confirm the spec, it's just the base 13" model, sandy bridge i5 1.7ghz with 4gig ram and 128gb SSD drive. It's the SSD drive that makes the apps instant and the CPU is impressive, kicking out no heat or noise yet churning through regular tasks without breaking a sweat.

[urfankhaliq]

Does any one have experience of a speed increase in their aluminium body mbp after upgrading to lion?

[rs939]

No not really, Firefox and safari seem to be slower if anything, also the machine kills the battery in half the time, after a bit of googling it appears these are some "undocumented features" others have as well.

I have swapped back to SL and its running fine, I will wait for the first of many patches to be released.

[TMP]

Originally Posted by briers

I've always been a mbp fan too and always had 15" screens

The 13 does take some getting used to but the Lion gestures and full screen recovers some of the space and makes it super easy to switch between apps. And it's so fast, everything is literally instant. No wheels and waiting.

I needed something more portable, whilst it is crazy to think the mbp is heavy and chunky, it isn't, the air certainly makes it easy to keep working on the move which is quite important to me. Have a 3g phone tether and i can keep an eye on things where ever i am so sacrificing the screen size has been worth it.

I still might get a big screen when i'm at my desk just for convenience.

I can't imagine anyone needing any more power than what this has unless you do a lot of video editing. For 1k it's not bad considering the mbp's chip in now at around £1,700 as i think it is vital to get an SSD instead of a HDD. They make the world of difference.

Just to confirm the spec, it's just the base 13" model, sandy bridge i5 1.7ghz with 4gig ram and 128gb SSD drive. It's the SSD drive that makes the apps instant and the CPU is impressive, kicking out no heat or noise yet churning through regular tasks without breaking a sweat.

You are swaying me away from the £999 MBP!

I am on London today, so going to have a play in the Covent Garden store

Only snag i can see is lack of optical drive..will have to get a portable

[Jon D]

Has anyone here, who's downloaded Lion, made a back-up copy onto a DVD or is it somehow locked to prevent this action?
I like the look of Lion and reports are good, but my only reservation is that you don't have original OS disc to re-boot from.

[Jon D]

Originally Posted by briers

Just to confirm the spec, it's just the base 13" model, sandy bridge i5 1.7ghz with 4gig ram and 128gb SSD drive. It's the SSD drive that makes the apps instant and the CPU is impressive, kicking out no heat or noise yet churning through regular tasks without breaking a sweat.

Do you get an original OS instal disc with a new Air? I'd be concerned about re-booting - ok, you'd need an external drive or another computer, but at least you'd be able to do a complete re-instal in the event of a system failure.

[briers]

With Lion and the Air there isn't even a USB re-install key

You get a 640mb partition on the drive for recovery.

If you need to recover the drive you boot into recovery mode and you can re-install from there. It then downloads from the net the remaining files, up to 4gb i believe without programs.

You would therefore need wifi access and providing you have time machine running you can restore everything else from that too.


Just to clarify what i said earlier about the mbp v air. The processing power of last years core2duo mbp's is still a tad faster than the current air, despite the difference in clock speed. The reason why i think it is faster is down to the ssd drive which makes apps open and operate instantly. If you put an ssd into a mbp it would be a faster machine. Still, impressive considering the size and clock speed.

[Jon D]

Many thanks for such a detailed reply. On balance I think I'll get a 13" Air, but I'm in no hurry so I'll wait a few weeks and watch the forums for user opinions.
I'm sure that you'll be familiar with Apple's support forum, but in case not, here's the link: https://discussions.apple.com/index.jspa

[e92liv]

I had been thinking of upgrading my almost 5yr old macbook to a new macbook pro for the past year.. tempted by a 13" macbook air now!

[Mud]

I wouldnt get the new Air. They have a crippled thunderbolt port in them, only allows one screen to be attached apparently.

Also strong rumours that a super thing new 13/15inch MBP coming out soon.

[e92liv]

Jut did a quick google on these super thin MBP's

Seems like they are in the pipeline, how much would these cost though, I'm thinking at least 1500..

[TMP]

Picked up a 13 air...in classic apple stlye, a very slick piece of hardware.

Sees to be very quick for the spec, and takes some abuse before the (quiet) fan comes on. SSD does make it IMO.

But am I thrilled..no, as it's just a laptop rather than something new like the iPad was. Also having issues adjusting to os x from win7- but thats another thread!