The display is great, as I expected, but what keeps striking me is how the Airbook (sorry, "MacBook Air") running this huge display doesn't feel at all like a compromise in power. Sure, I haven't tested big photoshop or video files, but certainly with day-to-day work it's not only adequate, it's quite zippy. Just a delight. They say the processor itself is modest, as befits the tiny 1-kilo frame, so much of the nimbleness must come from the solid-state drive, I guess. Anyway, it's nice. It runs totally silent, and of course when I unplug it, it's the ultimate in portability if you want a full-sized keyboard.
It's seen here running lid-closed, but if you open it you can use the external screen either as mirroring the built-in screen, or for extending the desktop.
Did you confirm that the ipad will not handle large files because of its flash memory hard drive.Did you test how large a file must be before the ipad will slow down.Is the solid state drive on the airbook also based on flash memory.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing: this seems to be true of hand-held devices in general, though I have no idea why: they seem to download big files much slower and with much less certainty than desktop computers. It's very odd. I tried to download the Apple Keynote (850MB) to my iPad... after nearly an hour it failed, having downloaded and then lost 2/3rds of the file. I've now downloaded it to iTunes on my desktop machine (for transfer to my iPad), and it took less than five minutes, hitch-less.
It's weird: I can understand why the smaller processors can have trouble using big files (playing large videos, running big apps), but why should they have trouble downloading the bigger files? (Update, it seems to have to do with the writing speed of flash memory, see comments.)
Eolake
ReplyDeleteThis is fun
http://weatherspark.com/#
Eolake
ReplyDeleteDid you ever test your ipad to see how big the file has to be before it has trouble downloading it
Nice find Scott, thanks! :-)
ReplyDeleteScott,
ReplyDeleteHow do you use that site?
I have not made real tests, I have just noticed that videos download markedly slower to the iPad than to my Mac, on the same connection.
Wow, Weather spark is very sweet.
ReplyDeleteThanks
Eolake
ReplyDeleteYou may need the latest flash on your computer to get the site to work.
http://weatherspark.com/#!graphs;q=Lancashire+United+Kingdom