MacBook Airs are fast!
Monday, May 9, 2011 at 10:47AM Whilst trying to sort out my website (see previous post), I found I needed to have two instances of Rapidweaver open. I have Rapidweaver installed on my MacBook Air for portability, so that I can publish or update my websites from anywhere. I've tried to share Rapidweaver between my Mac Pro and MBA but with version numbers and versions of plugins etc, that quickly became a nightmare. So, it stays on the MacBook Air.
Getting back to my original point, I needed to do lot of comparisons (and copy and paste) between the two websites loaded in Rapidweaver, but the 13" screen just wasn't cutting it for me. Not enough real estate to see both websites easily.
Luckily, when I bought my previous MacBook Pro, I stumped up for a MiniDisplayPort to Dual-LInk DVI adaptor. It wasn't cheap (is anything from Apple cheap?) but it allows a machine with a Mini Displayport to drive a huge 30" monitor at full resolution.
I dug out the cable from my box of tricks - actually, it's a cable and a large flat box - connected up the MacBook Air to the Dell 30" and voila - now running my MBA in 2560 x 1600 resolution. Plenty of real estate.
The funny thing is, I'm using the MBA at my desk using the usual monitor I have connected to my Mac Pro.
You know what, it actually feels faster than my 8 core Mac Pro!
I knew it was fast, but sitting in my usual place with the same monitor and same keyboard, it's quite amazing just how fast it feels compared to the Mac Pro.
Reader Comments (10)
Proof that even the Core 2 Duo is "fast enough" for most tasks. Paired with the SSD, it really is a great machine. I use an 11" for day to day computing. Best Mac (portable) I've ever owned.
Hi Don,
does your Mac Pro have a SSD build in? If not - that would explain it ;) Too bad the "speed" goes from "nice fast and fluffy" to "unusable" when you want to use it with a bunch of RAW files in Aperture.
i thought you had an ssd in your mac pro too?
as soon as i got the new air, the ssd spoiled me so i had to run out and get one for my pro too.
did you find that running the 30 inch made your air fans go crazy?
I did have an SSD in my Mac Pro but I had some stability issues so I ended up removing it. Should really get around to sorting that out!
No, no issues with the fans kicking in using the large monitor.
@don so just as a data point i have a 2008 mac pro 8 core and i got the vertex 2 3.5 inch 240 in december and it's been cranking along with no problems to this point (fingers crossed).
and great to know about the fans. the original macbook air had *so* many problems with that. look at it whilst it was asleep and the fans would kick in ;)
Hello,
Which Macbook Air do you have ? Is it possible to use them to build large XCode project ? (around 5OO Mb source code. I just build the Mac version of the software, I'm not a developer :))
I have the bottom of the line Macbook Air and it runs many, probably most, things faster than my quad core i5 iMac. I knew that the processor was not the bottleneck for most apps, but what has been really surprising is how well it runs with 2GB of RAM. I routinely tun Spaces with six spaces, and it runs well. The swaps to disk when it runs out of real memory are lightning fast because of the SSD, I have done a lot of audio editing and even some photo and video editing without performance issues.
Using Macbook Air to build Xcode - no experience of that but I know a few Mac developers who do just that.
Hi Don,
Is there a compatibilty issue?
Picking up on your MiniDisplayPort to Dual-LInk DVI adaptor comment, I purchased one to link my four year old Apple Cinema Display30" to my new MBP (not the current version) and experienced coloured lines across part of the display. How to correct this? This was never a problem with my previous four year old MBP so are current MBPs not compatible with older monitors?
Hi Dave,
Sorry to hear you're having issues. As long as the ACD is DualLink DVI I can't see what the issue might be?
One for Apple?
Don