Leica M9 and the MacBook Air - Perfect Partners?

[MikelM10]

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Does anyone else have experience of using the 11" Apple MacBook Air as a field laptop with their Leica? I have prepared a brief review at The Intuitive Lens recording my impressions. In a word - Brilliant! What do you think?

 

Mike

[usayit]

I almost bought one.....

 

 

. Screen too small to be comfortable running LR3

. A little to anemic in performance.

. Priced the same as the lower end MacBook pro. The Pro is better suited. My cheapy hackintosh net book has the same performance from several years ago.

. 11 inch looses the ad card reader found on the 13 incher

. It lost the backlit keyboard from the previous generation.

 

It's great for web content consumption but then again, so is the iPad. I think even the low end macbooks are better for this type of use.

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[Ecaton]

Does anyone else have experience of using the 11" Apple MacBook Air as a field laptop with their Leica? I have prepared a brief review at The Intuitive Lens recording my impressions. In a word - Brilliant! What do you think?

 

Mike

 

Nice write up. I like your web page.

I would go for the 13" top of the line MacBook Air. I think the 11'' performance is border line for PP. However, for the time being I will hang on to my last generation Air and hope Apple is coming with more powerful "Airs" next year.

Edited December 16, 2010 by Ecaton

[Shade]

It's alright, but I think it's not suitable for working with many photos for long periods of time. It takes some occassional editing, nothing too serious perhaps. And also the screen is a tad small on my tastes to accomodate comfortable editing.

 

The loss of backlit keyboard is a bummer, as it's great since I can edit and type properly with the lights are off when my wife is asleep.

 

For travel, I still prefer the old 13" macbook air. I think it has the same internals and you can get a preowned one at a very affordable price, rather than getting the 11".

 

But - it's useful for some people nonetheless, and I suspect it will be a great travelling partner for many people.

[MikelM10]

Hi Shade,

 

Yup, I agree with your general comment about it's suitability as an occasional editor, and I absolutely agree about the backlit keyboard. I'm still relatively new to Macs and I've just got very used to using that facility on the 17" MacBook Pro. I wonder why they omitted it? Maybe battery life was at risk, so perhaps we'll see it back again on a later iteration, when maybe battery technology has evolved again or chip sets need even less power.

 

Happy New Year!

 

Mike

[batmobile]

I have the new 13 inch macbook air with the std processor and 4GB ram, after considering the 11. The latter struck me as too small and the processor is slower, while the 13 is so light and thin travel is a breeze, while not much more expensive than the 11 and faster. My machine is used for travel and while I would not dream of suggesting it can compete with a macbook pro for performance, lets not fool ourselves into thinking the macbook pro competes with he air for lightness/compactness. Just pick one up after the other and the difference is glaring, just as it is when you slip them into a light travel bag.

 

Horses for courses and IMHO the macbook is plenty fast enough for messing with my 5dII files, so unless you want something to munch through heavy duty editing, or batch processing of lots of files, the air is more than good enough if you accept speed compromises in lieu of weight.

 

Getting the air was the best computing move in a long time. I am sure some would say the same of the macbook pro, but they prob have different priorities.

[MarkP]

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Recently travelled through Europe with the family and used my wife's 11 inch MBA (basic entry level model). M9 images were backed up on the computer AND a Colorsafe UDMA Hyperdrive with 500GB HD (crap screen but fantastic storage device).

 

Very happy with the MBA even with the slower processor and less RAM. LR3 ran with NO problems and is good enough on the MBA for reviewing, deleting, and basic editing. The MBA screen is not good enough or large enough for detailed work (I would say the same of the 13-inch MBA) - my 15inch MBP i7 with high res anti-glare screen is MUCH better but is too heavy for lightweight travel. As Batmobile said it's for different priorities.

 

Everything is a compromise but the advantages of the 11-inch MBA certainly outweigh any limitations of screen size/quality and processing performance.

 

Mark

Edited May 1, 2011 by MarkP

[barcoder]

I use a Macbook Air everyday with LR3 and M9 compressed DNG's. It's the 2.13 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4 GB of RAM. It's rock solid and super fast. The SSD is amazing. Booting up and launching apps is almost instant. Importing SD cards using the built in card reader is amazingly fast. Enjoy!

[phancj]

Does anyone else have experience of using the 11" Apple MacBook Air as a field laptop with their Leica? I have prepared a brief review at The Intuitive Lens recording my impressions. In a word - Brilliant! What do you think?

 

Mike

 

I do not have the M9 but have been running LR3 and PS on my 11" MBA with ram and processor speed rammed to max. Works like a charm, and in many instances quicker and more nifty than my MBP.

 

The MBA has to be the most enjoyable laptop I have ever used. Super lightweight and capable.

 

CJ

[StephenPatterson]

I use and love the 11" MBA. I have the RAM and processor maxed, and it runs Lightroom 3 and Silver Efex Pro like a champ.

 

What I really love is that it fits into the rear sleeve on my Domke F803 bag, so I don't need to carry a camera bag and a laptop bag when I travel. I wish the 11" had an SD card slot, but I purchased a small USB card reader which works just fine.

 

The 11" MBA is amazingly portable and powerful. Sure when you are home use something bigger and better (a 27" iMac for me) but on the road this combo cannot be beat. MUCH for versatile and powerful than using an iPad.

[macjim]

If I were going to replace my MacBook Pro 15" today, it would be an iMac 27" and an MacBook Air 13" to take with me when out photographing.

 

 

Cheers, Macjim.

[kdriceman]

I got rid of my MacBook Air and got a MacBook Pro 13 and put in an SSD for better performance. The MB Air just doesn't have the horsepower for serious editing.

[ericperlberg]

Sometime in June Apple will update the MacBook Air with a Sandy Bridge CPU, the same CPU used in MacBook Pros. Even the low end Sandy Bridge CPU is very fast compared to the fastest current core 2 duo chip. The MBA will also reportedly receive a Thunderbolt port for very fast i/o (hard drives and the like), 10gb/s bidirectionally (total of 20gb/s). The only limitations to MBP level performance will be RAM remaining likely at 4gb and the graphics card remaining at entry level specs. None the less, for the lite-traveler it should be a much more promising set up.

 

And the release of Lion in June will finally bring *trim* control to the Mac for managing the gunking up of SSD drives over time.

[Rick]

I have had the 11" MBA from its release and as a secondary laptop it has been fantastic. It is compact and light for travel and runs LR3 well enough for travel and it has taken over 100% as my all around net/email/reader/calendar etc... computer from my MBP 17 which is still the editing workhorse. And, the 11" MBA reversed my Carpel Tunnel in my hands completely which was caused from holding and using my big MBP 17" as the couch computer. I assume when people are dogging the little Air they are not assuming anyone is using it as their primary laptop.

[PaulOD]

I have an MBA 11' with maxed out RAM and processor speed and have taken it to Antarctica and Europe, with a small WD portable HD for backup. I've been very happy with it and it is more than adequate for sorting and light editing using LR3. While I like the 13" bigger screen, the smaller size has been great for travel and I would get the 11' model again.

Edited May 9, 2011 by PaulOD
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[JMacD]

As ericperlberg wrote, wait six weeks. The next MacBook Air wil be out with sandy bridge for thunderbolt. Probably with a fresh Lion.

I am waiting too. My studio machine is a 2010 iMac with quad core and 16gig ram, but for on the road the lightness of the air would be welcome over my long in tooth MacBookpro of old. The reason I have waited for Thunderbolt is that for tranfering files to an external drive, USB would have taken a year. Of course, I need that external drive too.

[Guest Wolfgang Sch]

Perfect will be the Macbook Air 11" when it gets a port for memorycards. Now its only great.

[wattsy]

Yes, and even more perfect with a 3G card slot.

[Rick]

Yes, and even more perfect with a 3G card slot.

 

I agree. But, why not dream of on internal 3G/4G?

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[wattsy]

I agree. But, why not dream of on internal 3G/4G?

 

I'm not sure what the difference is. Would internal 3G/4G negate the need for a sim card? I'd be happy with a sim card 'slot' like the one found on the 3G iPad.