09-17-2009, 06:07 AM
I like the Air, but it's still a little pricey for the mileage I'd get out of it.
Since the display is the same size as my MB, it will be a 13" MBP for me.
I would go with a faster HD than the 4200. If the HD is easy to swap out, I'd get a SATA compatible Air. You can always upgrade to a bigger HD or an SSD later.
I don't remember what the minimum graphics card is to take advantage of all Snow Leopard goodness (OpenGL and GSD) but I'd want that in the Air, if it's available. The 9400M is needed for QuickTime H.264 acceleration. Such a graphics card would allow Snow to had of some of the computing to the graphics chip, helping out the CPU. This might help the Air run cooler, as some people complained about it getting hot and slowing down considerably.
PATA drives top out at 320G and I think the SSDs are SATA. PATA HDs are so last week. Some light reading about PATA vs SATA.
The Air just had a refresh when the 13" MPBs were introduced, so I don't see an update coming anytime soon.
Regardless, you don't want a 4200rpm HD, so PATA is out anyway.
If your wife is happy with computing-lite, the Air with a 64GB SSD looks to be a good move. While it *is* a computer, it's forte is being a very lightweight "Internet device" . Surfing, email, syncing your 'Phone, etc. I'm sure it will run Excel, Numbers, Pages, Keynote, PowerPoint, and Word but again- computing-lite.
Since the display is the same size as my MB, it will be a 13" MBP for me.
I would go with a faster HD than the 4200. If the HD is easy to swap out, I'd get a SATA compatible Air. You can always upgrade to a bigger HD or an SSD later.
I don't remember what the minimum graphics card is to take advantage of all Snow Leopard goodness (OpenGL and GSD) but I'd want that in the Air, if it's available. The 9400M is needed for QuickTime H.264 acceleration. Such a graphics card would allow Snow to had of some of the computing to the graphics chip, helping out the CPU. This might help the Air run cooler, as some people complained about it getting hot and slowing down considerably.
PATA drives top out at 320G and I think the SSDs are SATA. PATA HDs are so last week. Some light reading about PATA vs SATA.
The Air just had a refresh when the 13" MPBs were introduced, so I don't see an update coming anytime soon.
Regardless, you don't want a 4200rpm HD, so PATA is out anyway.
If your wife is happy with computing-lite, the Air with a 64GB SSD looks to be a good move. While it *is* a computer, it's forte is being a very lightweight "Internet device" . Surfing, email, syncing your 'Phone, etc. I'm sure it will run Excel, Numbers, Pages, Keynote, PowerPoint, and Word but again- computing-lite.