Is the MBA the answer?

Hi,
I've been searching through the forum to answer my questions, and have gleaned a few tips. I'm looking to get a new laptop for a specific purpose and wondered if anyone else has used it for the reasons below, and would it be a good solution for me?
I currently use a MacBook Pro as my only computer and my new job are supplying me with some peripherals so I can set it up as a desktop computer at home. I'm going to be doing a lot of travelling now for the job, and would like a super-light laptop to take around that doesn't give me back ache! The MBA seems ideal for this. This is what I would need to be able to do on it:
- Hook it up to a projector to deliver Powerpoint/ Keynote presentations (very important),
- Extract some clips from my company's educational DVD to include in the Power Point (very important also!),
- Wifi - email and internet on the move. (Not particularly UTube or video streaming),
- Using Office suite (mostly Word, Excel and Entourage),
- Be able to print,
- Back up work docs to my MyBook hard drive,
- Connect up to my home office internet connection via ethernet cable,
- Use a music software programme such as Sibelius
- Very light usage of Logic Express and playing back wav files or mp3s
All my 'serious' usage will be on my MacBook Pro at home.
I'm terrible at waiting for updates, but I wonder if an updated version is round the corner that might be worth holding out for? I've read the rumours and there's nothing concrete....
Thanks so much for any help you can give me - this forum is a life saver!
Francesca

FranMatt80 wrote:
I'm going to be doing a lot of traveling now for the job, and would like a super-light laptop to take around that doesn't give me back ache! The MBA seems ideal for this. This is what I would need to be able to do on it:
- Hook it up to a projector to deliver Powerpoint/ Keynote presentations (very important),
- Extract some clips from my company's educational DVD to include in the Power Point (very important also!),
- Wifi - email and internet on the move. (Not particularly UTube or video streaming),
- Using Office suite (mostly Word, Excel and Entourage),
- Be able to print,
- Back up work docs to my MyBook hard drive,
- Connect up to my home office internet connection via Ethernet cable,
- Use a music software programme such as Sibelius
- Very light usage of Logic Express and playing back wav files or mp3s
All my 'serious' usage will be on my MacBook Pro at home.
I have an Windows-free home (ie all Mac) and recently traded up for my wife from a MacBook to an Air, and I've never seen her happier with a computer, not even close. Her "specs" are almost identical to yours, except for the music apps, and the weight and size factor is a huge positive for her as she has problems with hand strength (and women look so bad with that hunchback thing). PowerPoint to projectors works great, better than some of her colleagues with WinXP laptops actually. The Office 2003 suite works fine, she uses Word, PowerPoint and Excel; haven't tried Entourage or the new Office as we see no advantage.
You'll have to buy a little cable adapter to hook up to wired Ethernet at home, which might cost you almost as much as a simple wireless access point but either way works. Also no problem with WiFi away from home.
Not clear to me how you plan to do the DVD extract...you can buy an external drive, or port the clips over from the Pro.
No problem at all transferring files from one 'book to the other, we do that all the time.
One word of caution - be sure you are willing and able to live with the one USB port and a lack of any optical drive inside. If you had to lug around an external optical and a USB hub to do what you need, then the advantage rapidly evaporates. That said, my wife finds the lack of ports an ADVANTAGE - less to worry about learning which is which so on. Performance is modest too, but for email and modest office docs, you really can't tell a difference.
Best wishes!

Similar Messages

I joined iTunes Match on my MBP and added our MBA to the same Match account. What should the iTunes Media Folder Location be for iTunes on the MBA?

The iTunes libraries on both machines appear to be in sync, though I don't know if Home Sharing or iTunes Match is to thank for the consistency. But the iTunes Media Folder locations are different on the MBP and MBA, and I don't know if they should point to the same storage location (it's been on a drive connected to our Airport for years). I also don't know what options for Copying Files and Keeping iTunes Organized should be on the MBA. I certainly don't want the media files duplicated yet the devices sharing a cloud version.
I hoped the MBA would act like an iOS device using iTunes Match in that music would stream unless downloaded. Then downloaded music would have to be managed (deleted from the MBA's iTunes) for space reasons at some regular intervals-- just like we now do on the iPhones and iPad. The library entry for the song would remain... just the locally stored file would be deleted and the iCloud download would change back to the download symbol.
But if a purchase is made from the iTunes store on the MBA, the file is stored on the local MBA machine as well as the external drive because the MBP receives the song via Home Sharing and downloads the file.

Each iTunes client will expect a discrete iTunes library location. The iTunes Match service will allow the libraries to be automatically synchronised along with any IOS devices that are also registered for iTunes Match.
Following making a secure backup for any given library it is possible, once Songs have been 'matched' or 'uploaded' to remove the local copies and play the Songs from the Cloud. The behaviour on IOS devices is different, they will download each Song as it is played.
Note: Apple is very clear that the responsibility for maintaining music files remains with the user - so it remains essential to ensure that you have your own Songs secure backed up prior to relying on the Cloud. Should there be an issue with the Cloud resulting in loss of Songs you will need your own secure backup.

I'm confused...think the MBA had anything to do with this?

Hiya,
All righty...well, it's been about a week since I've had my MBA, and I have to say, this computer is awesome. However, I've had this very odd Internet problem and I'm not sure if it's the MBA'S fault--or, rather, my fault, given the way I used the MBA at home, in this case--that this happened. I don't know if anyone here would have any idea of what happened, regardless of whether it was actually connected to the MBA and what I did with it to get it online, but here goes....
I currently don't have working wi-fi so I'm stuck with one computer that can go online via ethernet and the DSL modem at home. When I went online with my MBA for the first time this week, I just unplugged the Ethernet from the home PC and plugged it into the MBA with the usb-to-ethernet dongle. The Internet worked fine on the MBA. And for a few hours, the Internet also worked fine on the regular home PC as well. But the next time I turned the PC on, something strange happened: Almost no Internet pages would load on Firefox or IE. Oddly enough, MSN worked, and YouTube worked, of all websites, but neither browser wanted to load up any other kind of webpage.
At first I figured that spyware/adware must've had something to do with this, so I started running my usual virus/spyware/adware checks to see if they would find anything. In the meantime, I plugged the Ethernet cable into the MBA and assumed the Internet would work just fine on it. It didn't--it had the exact same problem as the home PC! It was very odd--I was having the same problem across two different computers and two different platforms.
Long story short, my spyware/adware/virus checks on the PC came up clean. I was able to get one of my more computer-savvy friends to come over to my house and help fix the problem. We worked with the home PC and tweaked the firewall slightly. Oddly enough, after we tweaked the firewall on the home PC and got the Internet to work properly on it, the Internet also started working fine on the MBA as well when we tried plugging it in. My friend was left as confused as I was about all this--we really don't know what caused this problem to start with, since I hadn't encountered this problem at all until I plugged the MBA into the DSL modem. My friend's best guess is that perhaps, something in my PC had "told" the modem to not allow either computer to properly access the Web after I plugged in the MBA, but he really wasn't sure because he'd never encountered a problem like this.
All in all, I've had an exciting but very strange week. For anyone more computer savvy out there--anyone encounter this kind of problem before? I'll be happy to provide other details on the kind of PC I'm using, along with security programs and my current Internet setup. If needed, I'll get more specific about what me and my friend had done to attempt fixing the problem too.

Hiya!
Thanks for the suggestions, Sagesse and Brian. Um...actually, on the day this had happened, my DSL modem got restarted at least three times--twice in my own attempt to fix it and once when I brought in my neighbor to help me fix the computer. I think I've got quite a bit more time to explain specifically what I and my neighbor did, so here goes....
First, as I said earlier, I plugged the MBA into my DSL modem and the Internet worked great. It worked great for a day or so before the Internet went wonky on me last Monday.
When I plugged the modem into my PC and booted up last Monday, then saw the Internet wasn't working right at all, the first thing I did was turn off and unplug my modem from my PC and from the wall for about five minutes. (Overkill, I know now--the neighbor who helped me fix my connection told me that all I needed was a minute and I didn't necessarily need to unplug it.) That didn't work. So I did the following in the next day or so till I could get ahold of my neighbor:
--ran spyware/adware scans using Spybot, Ad-Aware, Spyware Doctor. I found two cookies, all in all, and quarantining them both didn't solve the problem.
--ran McAfee's virus scan, which came up clean
--launched Windows Live Messenger--when it didn't log me on and launched its troubleshooting utility instead, I tried letting that run so it could try telling me what the problem was. It kept saying there was a problem with my hosts file, and I clicked on "Repair" several times to get the utility to fix the problem, but no dice--it just didn't work.
--I checked my network connections in Windows and found my Ethernet connection, then clicked on "Repair" and tried to have Windows attempt to fix the problem for me. It sort of helped--I could log onto Windows Live Messenger, but my Internet browsers (IE and Firefox) were acting very strangely. Basically, only one of the two browsers would semi-work. For example...after having Windows attempt to repair my connection, I opened up Firefox and it didn't work at all--nothing would load properly on it. Then, out of curiosity, I opened IE and tried going to a variety of sites--a couple of banking websites that require login information to access personal banking info, cnn.com, consumerist.com, gizmodo.com, youtube.com--and out of all of those, only youtube loaded properly. IE definitely didn't like anything requiring a login. It didn't like "complicated" sites like CNN's or AOL's site either--when I tried loading either page, what I got were really simple-looking sites that resembled the kinds of pages I'd see on my BlackBerry when I'd load the mobile versions of either site on it. And it got weirder after a few hours of just leaving the computer alone--after a while, IE didn't want to work properly, but Firefox would suddenly start working somewhat, but it would act the same way IE did when it was working.
--When none of this stuff worked, I finally tried resetting my firewall back to its default settings. This didn't improve things for me either.
After trying all this out on Monday and some of Tuesday, I finally got ahold of my neighbor. After hearing how freaked out I was at all of this, he suggested that we go out and get some lunch in the neighborhood so we could talk, I could calm down, and I could tell him all about what had happened. We settled on a place with a wi-fi hotspot and I brought the MBA along--we both agreed that if the MBA worked perfectly fine at this restaurant we went to, then the problem I was having was most likely isolated to my house. Lo and behold, the MBA worked just fine outside of my home, so we were more certain now: The problem was at my home.
After lunch, my neighbor went back to his house and brought me a spare modem and a spare Internet cable in case there really was a problem with my own modem. And then he got a look at my PC and did some of the same things I already did. He turned my modem off and on, and that didn't work. He tried taking advantage of Windows Messenger Live's troubleshooting utility to have it attempt to fix my problem. (No dice--didn't work.) He tried repairing my Network connection. (Didn't work either.) And then he went into my firewall and started tinkering around with it. We learned one big thing about McAfee's free firewall that AOL provides: It is COMPLICATED. And no wonder, we both figured, as we stumbled through screen after screen, trying to figure out what might've been wrong: We figured that McAfee probably made things really hard to understand on purpose so that I'd be forced to go talk to them--and to talk to them, I'd have to pay for it.
My neighbor accidentally fixed the problem in an attempt to turn off my firewall, actually. He clicked this one checkbox in a list of "ignored problems" and assumed he had turned off the firewall. But he didn't--he fixed the problem instead. We don't actually understand how the item he had checked ("Firewall protection is disabled," which was originally not checkmarked and was not an ignored problem until we checkmarked it...) had solved anything. But the Internet just started working fine on either browser, and we don't understand how that fixed anything at all, but okay...that's for McAfee to answer, not the folks here. As my neighbor and I tested out IE and Firefox, loading up various sites, he said that the only thing he could guess in terms of what happened was, maybe my PC had "told" the DSL modem to not let any computer go online after I plugged in my MBA. And even that was a pretty wild guess for him--he admitted it readily--but he couldn't understand how that could have really been the problem here.
And...for now, that's all that's happened with my Internet connection. I got my connection fixed Tuesday night, after about two hours of me and my neighbor stumbling through Windows and, in particular, McAfee's security suite. I haven't had any problems with the Internet since then, but I'm still baffled at what had happened to start with. At this point, I still don't think this happened because of the MBA specifically, but I don't know what did happen to cause this problem. I do know that I had never had this kind of problem before until I plugged the MBA in, though. So in a vague way, I think the MBA had something to do with all this. I don't know what, though. :S
Message was edited by: Sayuri Nitta

What can I migrate from my 13" MacBook (white 2007) to a new MacBook Air 13" using an ethernet cable and a USB ethernet adaptor for the MBA?

I have, on order, a 13" MacBook Air (128Gb) and intend using Migration Assistant to transfer data from my 4 year old MacBook 13" (White) on set up.
I have ordered an Apple USB Ethernet adaptor and have today purchased an Ethernet cable.
I will want to transfer;
Mail........Mailboxes, their contents and account settings. In fact the lot except the application itself.
Safari..... Bookmarks, Cookies, Saved Passwords etc. As above
Google Chrome.........same
Address Book
iCal
iTunes
iPhoto
Documents. Excel, Word, Powerpoint & pdf's (a clean install of Office for Mac 2011 will take place on the MBA)
MacBook and applications are currently up to date and I've read about disabling the energy saver to sleep option.
Is it all that simple or am I missing something?
Can Account Information in Mail be migrated?
Will saved links be transferred in Safari (especially that of my ISP's customer area)? You have no idea what navigating around Orange France is like !
Sorry if I sound a little naïve but I'm English, retired and living in France and the nearest Apple Store is a 3 hour drive away so I'm doing it all myself.
Thanks
Richard

Use Setup Assistant when your new Mac first starts up. See Using Setup Assistant on Lion (it's a bit more complete).
Unless you choose to omit things, that will set your new Mac up exactly like the old one, except for a few preferences, etc., that may be different for the different hardware.
If your old Mac isn't running Lion, there will be some other differences, too. See Changes in Lion from Snow Leopard.

Creating a bootable Volume for the MBA

This post is kinda a follow-on to post http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1386691&tstart=0
I used Disk Utility to re-partition my internal SSD so that I could clone my Time Machine backup USB disk Volume to it using SD! version 2.5 (Leopard compatible). After this I disconnected the Time Machine USB disk from the MBA and re-connected another LaCie 40GB USB disk instead.
I now did a remote boot from my G5's optical device and used the Installer to restore the SSD Time Machine clone to the direct attached LaCie disk. This went smoothly.
I then restarted the MBA and held down the Option key and was able to select the attached LaCie USB disk and the MBA booted up nicely from it.
So, now I have an alternative external means of booting my MBA is the internal SSD goes south or get corrupted in weird manner.

Spinland wrote:
Then what CSound1 said: use CCC to clone your drive to another disk for safekeeping, then install Lion and enjoy. All of your apps will still be there after the upgrade.
Have you checked to make sure your apps are Lion compatible? This guide can help you find out:
http://fairerplatform.com/2011/07/are-your-apps-lion-compatible-how-to-check/
Hi Spinland
That is not what I said exactly ......
1 Clone the SL (internal) to the external.
2 Boot from the external and install Lion on it.
3 Run Lion from the clone until you know it works (and you can identify any incompatible apps).
4 Clone the Lion external back to the internal.
5 You're done.

Is there a way of transferring a purchased app from my iMac to my MBA if the MBA does not have internet connection?

I am relatively new to the Mac world, and so please excuse me if this sounds like a dumb question. I have a iMac running 10.6.8 and hard wired, not wireless.
I recently purchased a MAB with the intention of NOT hooking it to the internet but just stand alone, for writing purposes. I needed an app for it, so I purchased it through the app store on the iMac with the intent of transferring to the MAB via flash drive. Now in retrospect, its probably not the way its supposed to happen, due to licence rules, etc. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can get the app on my MAB or will I have to get it online to do a transfer from the iMac?
Thank you in advance your suggestions.

Apple is relying heavily on the Mac App store to make purchases and install applications. Of course, this requires an Internet connection for all purchases and installs. If you connect the MBA to the App store online, you should be able to download an install an additional copy, provided the MBA and the iMac share ownership information (registration, Apple ID).
Apple's long term plan will just about require all systems to have Internet access to function in app installation and updating, if you buy the Apps from Apple..
Alternatively, some Apps can be copied in whole, by simply copying the particular App folder in the Applications folder of your iMac system, then pasting that App folder in the corresponding Applications folder on your MBA. The rest can't. The reason; they install library and other files elsewhere on the computer. It all depends on the Developer's structure of the App.
You can try the App file copying, and if it does not work, you will simply have to establish an Internet connection for your Air, and use the App store.

Does the MBA have an optical audio out (toslink)?

Does the MBA have an optical audio out (toslink)?

The MacBook Pro and iMacs have digital audio out routed through the headphone jack. A physical converter (costing a few cents) must be used to connect a regular TOSLINK cable.
The MacBook Air apparently does not have this feature.
As to true Thunderbolt 'adaptors' I have yet to see any hit the market. I would suggest not holding your breath while waiting for useful Thunderbolt technology to appear--one day perhaps, but not now. I would love to be proven wrong about this--I could really use the Thunderbolt<->FW800 adapter

Samsung SSD is no longer available in the MBA?

I was told by Apple today that the Samsung SSD is no longer being installed in the MBA. Now the only SSD in the Toshiba. Can anyone else confirm this?

I just got a MBA last week, and when it arrived the first thing I did was look to see what SSD it was. I got one with the Toshiba SSD. So I called Applecare to get an exchange. They seemed very helpful and were going to do the exchange. I kept getting transferred up the ladder and talked to Kim in customer support and she told me it would do no good to send me another MBA just to try to get the Samsung SSD because Apple had discontinued putting the Samsung in the MBA. And now all MBA were being shipped with the Toshiba. It kind of sounded bogus to me, but just wanted to get other peoples take on it. Thanks for responding.

Need advise: Is the MBA right for me?

I currently have a MB, I am thiniking about the MBA but don't know if it would work for me. Here is what I would have to be able to do (every day) with the MBA:
- Access internet and email (WIFI or verizon USB card)
-Use iChat and Skype
-Have parallels or VM fusion with WindowXP
-I need about 300 pix in iPhoto (not editing just family stuff)
-Have about 1000 songs in iTunes
-need to access data from a USB portable drive.
-Need to be able to watch a DVD from time to time.
I guess the usual traveler stuff.... Also for those of you travelers, using the MBA, how do you protect your computer (airport, airplane etc) from damages?
Thank you.
Frederic

Here are comments based upon my experience having had one for months:
Wifi is unreliable and this is a big disappointment. My AT&T 881U (cellular broadband usb modem) works great and I use that when not at home. Wifi seems to work great when you have a router that just has 802.11n connected devices using WPA/WPA2. You won't find these at public hotspots.
iChat and Skype work without problems, even the video chat is great. Camera needs good lighting but considering it is video chat, work well. Sound is very good even without a headset.
I'm running Fusion with a WinXP guest os. It works. The MBA runs hot, disk intensive programs like virus scans take quite a long time. It won't break any speed records but I'm able to use MS Project, MS OneNote, Outlook (VPN to company network).
iPhoto works great. Have about 500 pics of the kids and the screen is very nice.
I keep my iTunes songs on a home server and run iTunes on the MBA. No problems, works well with about 6000 songs. All ripped from CD and encoded with a high (extreme preset) mp3 bitrate.
I haven't tried it with flash memory.
People have reported on this forum, even with the latest software update, playing videos causes the MBA to run hot. The shuts down one processor core and the machine runs too slow for playback.
Best bag for me has been the Incase for a MBA. I wanted a bag with a shoulder strap as I carry mine around NYC and need free hands for coffee and blackberry This case is light and thin.
Regards-Michael G.

Is the MBA 256gb right for me?

Hello all,
Let me start by saying Im going to be buying a Macbook soon and Im leaning toward the MBA because of the portability and speed it offers. This will be my first Mac. I am a High School Teacher and Im also going to school myself so I need portability, but money is also tight. Primary uses will be for Word Documents, Spreadsheets, Internet surfing, Emails with PDF downloads and a "homebase" for my iTunes account. I cant think of any use where I would need a CD drive.
I guess my question is, will the MBA be enough for me or should I opt for the Macbook Pro? Any suggestions?
Also, Macrumors says the MBA is due for an update soon? Should I hold off my purchase? My HP is on its way out!
Thank you for any help you have to offer!

MBA should do you just fine--do make sure you get 4gb RAM. The Pro is really for people who either need that disk drive, or might need something larger/expandable in the future. That doesn't seem likely with you (i.e. they're doing heavy duty programs, animation, videos, etc.--or might be doing that in the future.). And though some may say otherwise, having switched from a Pro myself, I can say that I very much notice the weight difference--and how much easier and faster it is to slip my computer in and out of the bag. Also that I can carry around a thinner bag You can't imagine the bulky backpacks I had before I got the air. Packing and unpacking are very speedy as I can manage my MBA with one hand, which means I get where I'm going and get to work that much faster. You might think that a pound or so less in weight and half-the-thickness wouldn't matter, but it really can be a huge difference.
As for whether you need anything bigger or more powerful: the thing you have to remember is that the common wisdom for computers of yesteryear really doesn't apply any more. That wisdom was to get the biggest and fastest, because everything in your life was going to be on it--mail, documents, programs, pictures, music, movies, games....
But the fact is, between what we put on our phones, renting rather than buying movies, external hard drives (always a good idea to have so you can back everything up in case!), clouds, the internet, iPods, iPads, etc, most of us really don't need ourlaptops to be able to hold everything. And, in addition, many of those things have significantly shrunk in recent years, while hard drives and SSD on laptops have gotten larger. So music takes up far less space than it once did on hard drives, yet you've got more hard drive than you did back when the music was taking up so much space.
Which all means you really can have a laptop as thin and light as the MBA that does all you'd want a laptop to do. Just check how much HD you'll need for all you want to put on it. If the amount is less than 256g--i.e. you'll be able to put it all on and have some wiggle room--you're golden.

How do City Building Games Run on the MBA?

Dear Reader,
*You can skip this part if you want to directly reach my point , if you like a bit of introduction.. then please don't stop and read on*
Yes, I know... a lot of questions have already been asked on gaming and the MBA. I even looked into the whole 'use the thunderbolt port to run an external Graphics card'. But after I saw the pictures and everything you need for it, it seemed rather silly to try. Why not take a gaming laptop like Alienware, if you are into that kind of building. Anyway, I love the people who try this, but I'm afraid that it's not for me. The whole... should I take a MBA or MBP or maybe a completely different budget laptop after all, is really starting to swirl around in my brain. And not the good kind of swirl, that is. After some serious pro and con listing, youtube reviews, many... many articles... I am still not much further in my decision proces than I was few weeks back. Maybe it is because of that annoying habbit to want the best of the best for as little money as possible. Apple products are not little money, however, but if you want the best of the best... it's often where you end up. FYI... here is what I plan on doing on/with my future device:
- daily use (e-mail, web browsing, research, youtube, vid streaming, dowloading)
- writing (editing, pages, word..)
- travel
- presentation (keynote, ppt...et cetera)
- gaming (city builders... =) )
This is what made me seriously consider the MBA. Its portability for my writing on the go needs, it's beautiful design, its fast start up, and still enough power to run programs at the same time without any hiccups. Plus, I have an iPhone and it would be nice to have my laptop corresponding with my future device.
*Start reading here if you skipped the introduction =) *
I am a big fan of city building games (old ánd new) like SimCity, Banished, CivCity Rome and Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom. Will I still be able to play them if I go for a MBA? If yes, can you please advise me on what specs to go for? I understand it will run most smoothly with the highest specs available, but maybe someone here can tell me if it is necessary to invest in 8GB RAM or not, or to go for a better processor. I just wish to run the games smoothly.. the settings don't have to be at their highest.
Thanks in advance!

I'm running an early 2008 Mac Pro 10.9.3 and I'm trying to play Simcity now that it has offline mode, had fond memories of it on PPC.
It's really disapointing. I do a lot of audio on this computer and I can stretch it pretty far in that regard, but I had no idea how horrible core video support actually was. To have to turn every graphic feature to low in order to just get by with delayed scrolling and awful FR, quirky rotate and pan glitches, it's exposed some things about my system.
I wonder if a more powerful modern Mac Mini would do a better job, it would have to be maxed for audio anyways.
Or perhaps likely this is not a great job by the developers with regards to optimization? It's possible that Simcity just no longer works on a Mac. There is very little suport on EA forums on this issue from users with the same problem - as there are of course a lot of users that didn't follow the very simple instructions, which makes it hard to get a legitimate response from the support on the actual matter.

Is the iSight camera in the MBA a lower quality one than the MB?

My friend just bought a Macbook Air from eBay, the model identifier is "MacBookAir1,1". It's had a fresh install of Snow Leopard on it and all the updates have been installed. It might be my imagination but the built in iSight image seems way below par compared to my old white MacBook. When I load Photo Booth it just looks grainy, even in good light.
I wondered is this because the camera in the MacBook Air is simply not as good as the camera in the regular MacBook? Or are the cameras the same, and it's just that the software needs something doing to it? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

ncl47 wrote:
My friend just bought a Macbook Air from eBay, the model identifier is "MacBookAir1,1". It's had a fresh install of Snow Leopard on it and all the updates have been installed. It might be my imagination but the built in iSight image seems way below par compared to my old white MacBook. When I load Photo Booth it just looks grainy, even in good light.
I wondered is this because the camera in the MacBook Air is simply not as good as the camera in the regular MacBook? Or are the cameras the same, and it's just that the software needs something doing to it? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
You are probably correct that iSight hardware resolution is lower on MacBook Air (MBA).
BTW, the lower resolution cameras are not limited to MBAs. My 13" MacBook Pro has the lower resolution camera, too.
Many MacBooks (with possible exception of the MBA) have 1.3MP (1,280x1,024 pixels.) To determine whether a built-in iSight is the 1.3MP camera or the 0̸.3MP version, you may be able to use the test explained in this page:
http://macdaddyworld.com/?p=19
If your Mac will not run that software, you can test by recording a short video test clip using QuickTimeX (Snow Leopard users only) or iMovie 8 (the iMovie version called iMovie '09 in Apple's iLife '09) at maximum resolution to see if you can capture video larger than 640x480.
iMovie 8 can use my LED Display's inbuilt iSight to record at resolutions of either 640x480 or 1024x576, but any iSight that can capture greater than 640x480 images with any software must have the 1.3MP iSight.
For info of other readers: All external iSights were 640x480 cameras.
Everything discussed so far has dealt with hardware resolution. The only thing you can do about hardware resolution is to use a different camera. This link gives info on camera alternatives:
http://www.mac-compatible-web-cam.com/
Understand that software runs all iSights. Therefore, even if Macs with the higher resolution camera, you only get higher resolution images if the software you are using accesses the additional pixels. Therefore, don't trade Macs or cameras solely for increased resolution unless you know that the software you want to use can use the additional resolution.
For example, Photo Booth can only produce a 640x480 image, even with an iSight that offers higher resolution. If you are looking at the images on the respective Macs that captured the PB images, the difference you see may be largely due to the differences in the displays. To remove that variable, copy both images to both computers to judge whether the disparity is in the camera or the display.
If you want more info about iSight resolution, try this search of Discussions :
http://tinyurl.com/2bkv9wh
Here is one representative thread from that search that will give you a good overview:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=11592569
EZ Jim
Mac Pro Quad Core (Early 2009) 2.93Ghz w/Mac OS X (10.6.4) MacBook Pro (13 inch, Mid 2009) 2.26GHz (10.6.4)
LED Cinema Display G4 PowerBook 1.67GHz (10.4.11) iBookSE 366MHz (10.3.9) External iSight

Does the MBA 2012 support SDHC and SDXC Cards ?

In the store only SD-cards are mentioned in the tech-specs for the MBA.
In comparison to that : The specs for the MBP are talking about SDXC-card reader.
Thx for your answers
regds
Mirco

The MBair supports SDXC cards at least back to 2011. It's not mentioned in the store but is mentioned in the user manual.
From the 2011 user manual:

Three questions about the MBA...

Hiya,
Here's my first question: What is the resolution on the iSight camera that's built into the MBA? Is it the same as the ones on the other MacBooks, or is it different? I was reading AppleInsider's review of the MBA and they say that the MBA uses "a similarly lower end video camera" that seems to have a lower resolution than the 1.3 megapixel iSight cameras on the other MacBooks and MacBook Pros. Also, Apple's own specs for the MBA doesn't say specifically what the resolution is for it. But AppleInsider is claiming that pictures taken with the MBA's iSight camera are "visibly softer" and don't work in Photo Booth for some reason. :S (If you'd like to see the AppleInsider review I was looking at, here it is: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/02/04/macbookair_hdd_model_an_in_depthreview.html. Please go to page 5 of this review to see what AppleInsider is talking about with the iSight camera--it's pretty much the first thing they address on that page.)
Also: Is it true that it's not possible to turn off the wi-fi on the MBA? I was doing some window shopping at a Micro Center in my neighborhood and happened to talk about the MBA with some salespeople in the (Windows) laptop department, and they claimed that the wi-fi on it couldn't be turned off. Or, rather, they said that there was no visible, physical wi-fi button on the MBA, so they took that to mean that there was no way to turn the wi-fi off at all. Personally, I find this really hard to believe--surely there's some internal system preference that allows someone to turn off the wi-fi because it's obviously not going to be needed all the time?--but I want to hear from MBA owners here and see what you guys have to say about this.
And finally...assuming the wi-fi can be turned off, how many hours the MBA run? I haven't seen anyone answer this question yet, and I'd really like to know because I don't think I'll be using an MBA with the wi-fi always on.

LOL! I figured as much. I figured that the MBA's like my iPod touch and the wi-fi controls are in the system preferences somewhere. But yeah...those salesmen at MicroCenter were really digging into the MBA as they struggled to turn off some security controls that they'd tripped in their own department and had to talk loudly over their security alarms. To be fair, some of what they said is true:
--for the kind of money you'll have to pony up for even the cheaper MBA model, you can easily get a lot more laptop for the money. Of course, these (Windows) laptop salesmen weren't going to name any MacBooks that were in a different department in the store, but they started naming Sony Vaio's and such.
--there's no built-in optical drive. (Well, DUH. I thought this was understood? And to be fair, a lot of ultraportables don't have optical drives either, right? So this is nothing new.)
--the MBA is underpowered. And...yeah, I suppose that's true if you want to compare the MBA to other MacBooks or some other laptops in general. But if we compare the MBA to ultraportables or other slim/light notebooks, the MBA is still more powerful than them, isn't it? And speaking in terms of what I already have (a 5-year-old HP laptop running Windows XP), I'm sure that the MBA is more powerful and it's gonna run faster than this computer that I'm already using.
And then those salesmen just had to throw in the wi-fi comment. I went "Uh-huh" and walked out and let them keep talking and figure out how to turn off their security alarms. I'm not sure what these salesmen actually know about computers, but one thing was clear to me as I walked out of their department--they're willing to say just about anything to get a sale. I'd hate to think what they would tell me if I was honestly shopping around for one of their Windows laptops--I'd hate to hear the kind of trash they might tell me to make me buy a laptop and/or other products for it. :S

Using an ipod as an external HDD for the MBA and also as an ipod

I have 120gb of media that I would like to carry on an ipod which I then connect to an MBA.
Is it possible for the MBA to use the ipod as an external HDD to store media on, and also use the ipod as an ipod?

With the exception of the iPod Touch and iPod Shuffle, yes. See:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61131

Is the MBA the answer?

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