11" MBA and 27" Cinema Display?

I just bought a 27" Cinema Display (which I'm in love with) and it started to get me thinking if I could actually get away with using an 11" MacBook Air as my primary machine. I currently use an old 15" MacBook Pro (the first version of the unibody style). However, I'm on the move with my computer a lot, and I'd really like to down size for portability. I would basically then just close up the MacBook Air, dock it to the display and work with an external keyboard and mouse in a desktop setup.

So my main question is, can the (maxed-out) 11" MBA comfortably drive the 27" Cinema Display? Things like running Photoshop fullscreen, playing back 1080p video fullscreen, playing back Hulu fullscreen, etc... Looking at the specs, it seems like really the only place where the MBA would fall behind my MacBook Pro would be with the processor (and obviously the 9600m GT, but I'm comparing the 320m to the 9400m). Is that correct, or would there be other bottlenecks?

Thanks for any help!

 

Honestly anything to get away from a 9600m would be beneficial in my eyes. I really dont see any issues with the MBA being able to handle that screen. The really only issue would be the CPU and how it handles photoshop. Im not familiar with that applications requirements or hardware uses, but I can say that my C2D ULV CPU does everything I need it to do and very well at that. I must admit the ULV and 335 in my m11x run cool even when gaming or at full tilt, so heat shouldnt be an issue. Although its no ATI, the 300 series lower end GPUs do run decently cool.

Now if noly they had something like the MBA 11in that had a non chicklet keyboard and ran windows 7 natively....

 

Why do you say to get away from the 9600m? Something wrong with the line? (Don't laugh, I don't keep up to date with GPUs ).

 

The 9600m is in the same boat as the 8600m. Both had a bad sodering process and run hot. I still have my 8600m GT rig but I run it as a linux server as a CLI only computer. The 8000 and 9000 series is what turned me off from nvidia. But if youre not having issues dont let me scare you . But yeah Id take a MBA 11in over the MBP 15 you have, but then again I am obsessed with ultraportable laptops.

 

MBA as a primary machine ... I tend to say no I find it more of a portable compliment to a more powerful laptop or a desktop.

can it drive the cinema display ... Yes

Photoshop - if your not doing it professionally and just using it for quick and simple edits yes. if your using CS4 or CS5 and want to do alot in photoshop you WANT a full volt C2D, i core or SB based CPU. 1080 video ... very debatable, if its Flash based such as Hulu ... not very well.


bottlenecks: the ULV cpu is decent but still pretty light for a main machine. secondly, depending on what all you will be doing you will find that SSD way too small, photoshop is a RAM lover and hard drive hog.

 

Well currently I do user interface design professionally, and so I use Photoshop and Illustrator all day long, pretty intensively. My MBP has 4GB of RAM and a 120GB SSD, and I don't have any problems with running out of space. In addition, I usually work fine on the 9400m (to save battery when I'm on the go) and so that's why I was thinking the CPU in the Air would really be the only main bottleneck compared to the system I use now. My question is, is it enough of a bottleneck to make it impractical for my usage, or can the SSD make up for the performance?

 

interface design should be pretty light. you will notice some speed drop going from your C2D to the ULV ince you already have an SSD, (and possibly a faster one) esentially you will have your existing laptop with a bit slower CPU. but in a much smaller form factor.

 

Blabus,

Maybe this may help....
Twelve South's BookArc for Air stand cozies up around your MacBook Air -- Engadget

 

I dont think you should go to a MBA for a primary laptop, since I find that Ultra portable's tend to be slower as they age, even though you have an older MBP I think that it is a better computer for a primary use, I would get the MBA as a portable to run with.

Now this also just depends on if you are looking to sell you MBP to get the MBA then you would have to make a decision on one or the other.

One other thing to remember, since your laptop is about 2 - 3 years old, are you going to keep the MBA for that long as well? If so, then you may want to think about getting another laptop to power that screen, since the processor is weak, and in the long term ownership you may regret not getting a faster processor (for the amount you are going to pay for a loaded MBA, you could get a nicely loaded MBP 13, which would still be a very nice sized laptop for portability)

 

I have been running a base 11 MBA and a 27 in cinema display since Thanksgiving as my primary personal computer.

I had reservations in the beginning, and I still question the 2GB vs 4GB of ram from time to time, but not enough to regret the decision. I don't use any heavy apps on this machine, but if I get a little tab happy in Firefox I can tell the difference.

It is not as fast as my HP 8540w that I use for work, but it gets the job done. I like the fact that I can grab it and go when I am on the road and I don't even notice it in my bag.

 

I think it depends on the application you're running. I don't know what you do in Photoshop but if it's the basic mickey mouse stuff like cropping then you should be fine.

If you're thinking of stitching panoramas and doing layer blending @ 100% actual pixel view than forget about it.

 

The 11.6" MBA will more than competently play any video put to it... flash, flash HD, or anything VLC can play. Promise.

Also, it should handle Photoshop just fine for small things, like nothing seriously professional. It would probably even appear slightly more responsive than the MBP's with HDD's, seeing as how the SSD is light-years faster in IO response.

 

Once Photoshop is up and running, the physical disk no longer has nothing to do with it. Speed of Photoshop commands are all about the CPU, GPU, and available memory.

 

Photoshop still uses a lot of cache files that are on the hard-drive. Yes, CPU is a big part of it, but HDD too.