Mac book air

john starkey

john starkey

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Hi all,
I don't want this to turn into a debate about macs v another make,
all I want to know is, would the above laptop be ok for photo editing,I am only a keen beginner not a pro and never will be,I thought about I mac but want something more portable and I want it to be a mac,
regards john.
 
It should be, it's essentially a netbook and as long as you don't put try and process huge panoramics it'll be fine. :)

Why the Air over say the Macbook or Macbook pro (as you want a mac), which are both far more powerful? Also I would suggest getting one with an SSD (or at least fitting one) as the standard HDD is preeetty slow. :)
 
Im looking at the Macbook Air and the Macbook pro. I love the size and feel of the air however it doesnt have as much memory as the pro also its lacking ports and a DVD drive. Depends really if you want these. if you are doing photo edditng then i would consider getting more memory it depends on how much you want to go in to it.
 
Personally I've never seen much point to the Air, didn't even come into it when I bought my Macbook Pro.
 
The thing that would get me with the Macbook Air is the lack of ports. When I'm downloading photos from my camera I usually also have an external hard drive attached and my iPhone plugged in. A 13" Macbook pro would certainly be my choice for the best balance between portability and power.
 
I don't think it'll be any good for RAW editing, especially with Aperture. I have a 2007 macbook pro and even that tries to take off when I try editing photos. Main concern is RAM, you want lots of it. A 13" macbook might be a better option?

Otherwise you could possibly take some files to pc world / apple store and tell them what you're trying? Or just play with iphoto.
 
Have a look at the 13" MacBooks. OK they are not as slim as the Air but they are probably a better bet. Plus the longer battery life may make them a better option.

A trip to the Apple shop may be in order. I can't see PC world letting you load files onto one of their machines. The Apple store should have no problem, Well the one in the Trafford center didn't. And they had Photoshop and Aperture loaded on the Macbook Pro's
 
I have just bought an Air to work along side my 15" Macbook Pro. The Air is great as it is very portable. Aperture runs ok, but it does slow down when i am processing raw files from my 5d mark ii.

If i am doing anything processor intensive then i switch to the pro, but i seem to be using the air more and more these days.

Just installed a trail version of Photoshop Elements 8 on it this weekend and that seems to run fine.
 
When I had a look for my next portable Mac I gave the Air a good going over, a few things concerned me from an image editing/performance point of view.

RAM - not upgradeable.
Video Card - reasonable but shares it's RAM with main RAM ie it nicks at least 256mb of your already precious 2048mb.
Hard Drive - 120gb or Solid State 128gb - pretty small in this day and age.
Performance - Due to it's very tightly regulated thermal performance, it automatically throttles the processor back when it gets HOT - Unfortunately, heavy duty image editing makes the Air get hot... so... y'see where I'm going with this?
Non User Replaceable Battery - make your own mind up - I didn't like the sound of it in the medium term - I keep my Macs running a l-o-n-g time (11-12 years on the PowerBook G3 beside me and it's been through 3 batteries).

I love the polycarb MacBooks - I haven't managed to destroy mine yet, and get 4-6 hours battery life depending on usage.

-Rob
 
Also remember that the normal HDD is only a 4200rpm drvie, designed for mp3 players, a major bottleneck when dealing with larger files (and files in general).
 
I would look at an aluminium macbook rather than the macbook air to be honest. The macbook is not much bigger, faster, cheaper and more expandable.
 
john starkey said:
Hi all,
I would like to thank you all for your advice,I have ordered a mac book pro 15in,4g spe. so dly next mon/tue,total cost was £1339,
john.
Click to expand...

You will not be disappointed with the decision I would suspect. The machine you have ordered is technically much better than the macbook air. The air is great is you just want to look flash.
 
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