New 11" MacBook Air...
Tuesday, August 2, 2011 at 1:47PM 
After careful consideration, I ended up replacing my existing 13" second gen MacBook Air with a new third gen 11" MacBook Air. This post really isn't an exercise in justifying the machine upgrade to myself, I don't really need to do that, but more to answer some of the questions on Twitter on why I upgraded.
Previous MacBook Air
The previous MacBook Air has been a dream machine, with very few faults and with an impressive responsiveness and turn of speed. I've been using it as both my primary mobile machine plus as my dedicated ScreenCast recording machine. It has a 256GB SSD drive and is repartitioned into three separate partitions:
- My primary work partition
- A test Lion partition
- A dedicated ScreenCast build to record
Performance has been superb, with the exception of background rendering on Final Cut Pro X. Not that I expected to do any serious work using FCP X on the machine, but I did record both episodes of my FCP X tutorials on the machine. The machine runs FCP X just fine if you are prepared to wait for the rendering to catch up.
Portability has been great, although the 13" MBA is just a tad too big to use on a plane seat tray (economy or coach of course). I've mentioned before my frustration of wanting to do some work on the 13" MBA on a long haul flight to SF but couldn't, whilst across the plane, someone else was working away on an 11" quite happily.
One thing I really missed, which I wasn't really expecting to, was the back lit keyboard. A really strange glaring omission by Apple on the second gen MBA, especially if you'd been used to it on the MacBook Pro.
Connectivity wasn't really an issue with the addition of a second USB port on the second gen MBA, although, the Apple USB ethernet connector was a bit of a poor performer. The number of times I forgot to pack it..... The 13" does include an SD card slot which I've used two, possibly three times.
So on the whole, I was delighted with the 13" MacBook Air, so why change?
New MacBook Air
The spec I went with was the top of the range 11" - 1.8GHz i7 processor, 4GB RAM, 256 GB SSD. As far as I was concerned, this was only available BTO (Build To Order) from the online store, but being in close proximity to my local Apple store on Sunday, I was delighted to find that they had that build in stock!
Reasons for change...
Well new and shiny had a lot to do with it but....
Performance - The boost in processor power means it is a serious contender to be a portable editing machine. In the tests I've seen, it looks like the processor can crunch though some tasks at between 1.5x and 2.5x my current machine. Still need to do some tests, but for my purposes (HD ScreenCasts) editing and rendering should be fine at a pinch. I probably wouldn't want to edit RED footage, but I should be OK.
Portability - The 11" form factor will allow me to use the MBA in places I couldn't before. My carbon footprint over the next 18 months may well be excessive as there is a lot of business (and leisure) travel on the horizon.
Backlit Keyboard - Welcome back, I really missed you. Working when travelling involves early morning starts to catch up on emails, inevitably in darkness, with Mrs Don still in the land of nod. Surprising easy to work without switching the lights on with the backlit keyboard ;-)
Connectivity - Hello Thunderbolt! This is really investing in the future.
I've never paid the Apple tax on monitors (except for a 20" Cinema Display bought 5 years ago - which is still in perfect working order by the way), deciding instead to go with Dell monitors. These are now 4 years old and starting to show their age. I can well see in another year or so swapping my primary 30" Dell monitor with an Apple Thunderbolt monitor and utilising all the built in Thunderbolt goodness. Also looking forward to the release of Thunderbolt enabled audio gear to create the ultimate portable screencast studio with the MBA.
As far as what to do with the current 13" MacBook Air, well Mrs Don has dabs on that. We have two desktop machines setup in the studio, one for me and production and one for her for email and customer service.
Unfortunately, when I'm recording, she get's evicted!
So the 13" MacBook Air becomes her primary machine so she can work in or out of the studio.
Sorted!
I'll report back on real life performance, battery life and working with an 11" screen once I've had the change to use it for a while.
Reader Comments (9)
Will be interesting to see how easy it is to edit video on that screen size, I find I want more space even with my Macbook Pro 15" when I'm out and about, maybe it's just because I'm so used to working with external monitors though.
I have the second gen 11" MacBook Air, came from a 15.4" MacBook Pro, and I absolutely love the portability for running between work and phone, or meetings here and there, especially travel, so easy. At home I connect it to my Apple 24" LCD and at work to my Apple 27" LCD, so if I need more space I have it.
LOVE THE FORM FACTOR
I bought the maxxed out MBA 11" at Xmas. I'd love to swap it for what you've just bought but, I have to say, I have absolutely no complaints on performance. Working with a small screen is easy. It's the perfect netbook, and more.
I have just done exactly the same - 13" Ultimate -> 11" Ultimate. Sadly my Apple Store did not have one and 9 days later I am eagerly awaiting my BTO delivery!
Enjoy!
I went from the 2010 C2D 2.13/256SSD/4GB to the BTO 2011 Core i7/1.8/256SSD/4GB. So far loving this machine and feels a lot more powerful than the 2010 model especially since I'm working with hi resolution images.
It sure is tough to keep needing/wanting all the new cool apple stuff. I wish we could lease gear with an upgrade option.
I'm thinking of going the other way. From an 11' to a 13'. The main reason being battery life.
Is that not an issue for you ?
Battery life... not really. I'm pretty much always near power and if I can get the stated time out of it, that should do me fine.
Don, Just did the exact same thing, just wish the 11" had the sd card slot. I found it really had to make the choice, I wanted the 11", but the was worried about battery life and the lack of the SD card slot.
I have had it 2 days, performs well, I use Sketchup and rendering programes such as Podium and Shaderlight, it drives these quite well, 2-4 mins for a decent render, which is ok.
The battery life is a little disappointing, my old mid 2010 13", seemed to last forever!
Like you, looking forward to thunderbolt, all seems a bit delayed?
I think the MacPro is on the way out. the 8 core iMac, 2GB graphics and a thunderbolt raid, will be here soon.