So guys I'm looking into buying one of the new macboook airs, specifically the 13' with the 1.8ghz core 2 duo and hopefully 4gb ram. my operating system of choice is Windows 7 and i want to be able to use this like any normal pc if i purchase a macbook air. I know apple provides all the drivers needed for this and i could easly install it with bootcamp. I am just wondering if anyone else has done this and how performance is? I am interested in battery life, shutdown and startup time and any problems that may occur as a result of installing windows. Pretty much anything that you think i would want to know would be great. Thanks for your help.
FIrst of all - waste of a machine. Windows 7 want it or not does use more resources.
I'm using Windows at work on my MacBook (unfortunately). Battery life is significantly worse than in MacOS (about 2 - 3 hours). Also, Windows 7 doesn't seem to recognize that MacBook Air is running SSD and isn't enabling it's "SSD optimized features" (should disable defragmentation, enable TRIM etc.) this doesn't happen.
Performance is ok, thanks to SSD and CPU (i'm using 2.13 Ghz), it's not a speed demon.
MacBook Air is incredible machine, it's a shame to use Windows as it's primary OS, degrading it to average ultraportable.
I would strongly suggest having a look at Dell Vostro V130 or other ultraportable Windows machines. I think both you and Apple will be happier with that...
Okay thank you for your response. I am waiting to see multiple opinions and reviews on this. I have heard of other people saying great things about the new MacBook air with windows. Really there is no windows machine that can compare aesthetically, and also in size to the air.
I have to agree with the previous poster, if you really like the MBA for the best performance and experience use OS X. Running MS Windows on it exclusively is like putting a Ford engine inside a Ferrari. It would work but it sure would make the experience less satisfying.
Just one more thing - touchpad works rather odd in Windows, every since BootCamp came out, despite plenty of updates for it's functionality. Tap-to-drag seems to make single taps often being confused as dragging, it's very irritating sometimes. No such problem with MacOS X or on any other Windows machine i've ever used.
I wonder however - have you ever worked (for longer period of time) with MacOS? Maybe it's worth to give it a try. I must say that I personally don't know anyone who wouldn't like it over Windows, and that ranging from people for who computer is a facebook interface all the way to ruby on rails developers...
Alec Barnard wrote:
My operating system of choice is Windows 7 and i want to be able to use this like any normal pc if i purchase a macbook air.
Well, space is pretty tight on the MBA, but if you get the 256g, you could consider keeping both OS X and Windows on the MBA, that way you could try OS X. If you have no need to even try it, then, as suggested, you're probably better off with a non-Mac PC
I have done exactly what you are thinking of doing. I primarily use Bootcamp, and spend almost 100% of my time in Windows 7, 64 bit. I had no problems at all with installation, and have it attached to a external monitor (Cinema Display), with a USB hub, and a USB to Ethernet adapter. I previously used a Sony Vaio (2.8 lb), with a similar speed processor, and only 2GB of memory, and an 80GB hard drive. The Macbook Air is much faster. I get 4-5 hour of work under normal conditions with using the wireless. If I'm just working on documents at 50% screen brightness, I get about 6 hr. I partitioned the 256GB hard drive to 60:40 Windows : Mac, however I use Mac Drive 8 for Windows, and can access and use all of the Mac partition for data storage, so really I have access to all of the SSD. Shutdown and startup times are very quick, about 10 - 20 seconds, much faster than anything that I have ever experienced. All in all, I'm very impressed with the engineering of the Air, its light, thin and fast, and Windows 7 works great on it.
Not exactly what you are planning on, but let me share this:
I had a MBP with W Vista under VMWare - it was quite satisfactory. Upgraded to a 2010 MBA. Was concerned that the MBA might be a bit slow.
MBA 2.13 with 256Gb flash and 4Gb: installed W7 32 under VMWare. I have to say it's surprisingly fast: takes me 10 seconds to launch VMWare and 'resume' W7. A 'restart' of W7 takes a minute.
I can run W7 at 2560 x 1440 using my 27" iMac as an external monitor, via Mini-DP.
Windows Experience index 4.4:
Processor 4.4
Memory 4.5
Graphics 5.4
Gaming graphics 4.4
HDD: 7.6
I only run MSOffice apps and some car diagnostics/maintenance software, but it is all very fast. Stable as well and all the USB 'connections' I have used work fine - e.g. proprietary CAN-BUS car diagnostic interface.
Haven't checked battery life but will do now the Q has been asked.
Here's another opinion. My wife has used a previous-generation MacBook Air (C2D 1.8 + 120 GB HD) for the past 1-1/2 years exclusively as a Windows XP machine. Of course I was the one who convinced her to use this setup so I do the tech support 🙂 I kept the MacOS partition at a bare minimum, still running Leopard because WinClone (now no longer in active development) does not run well in Snow Leopard.
My observations. It's noisy. The fan is on a lot and it runs fast. WinClone stopped working about 6-9 months ago. Sleep was unreliable - would wake up on its own. 4 days ago WinXP slowed to a crawl and after wasting a lot of time troubleshooting I just wiped the Boot Camp partition and reinstalled WinXP SP3 fresh. About 2 days of backing up data, reinstalling software, and restoring data.
IMHO, if your intention is to use Win7 exclusively then it is not worth the expense and hassle to put in on a MacBook Air. Little details like sleep issues and lack of optimization for battery life are deal-killers. And that's coming from an admitted Apple FanBoy.
I am doing exactly what you are asking about. For starters, my intent was to run OSX for personal use and also run Windows 7 for work stuff. I am using Bootcamp so that I can leverage all of the system resources regardless of the OS I am runing. As it turns out, the battery life is very close. The drivers for Windows 7 on the MBA are not nearly as poor as the drivers on the MBP.
After using both for a couple months, I am now running Window 7 90% of the time now. I am still playing with OSX too, but there are just too many things that are better thought out in Windows 7.
The touchpad works pretty much equally on both operating systems. The two finger scrolling is great, two finger right click, works perfectly. My advice, install Windows 7 in bootcamp and leave some space for playtime with OSX.
The bottom line is the MBA is a phenomenal Windows laptop. It's portable, sleek and fast.
The reason why I purchased the MBA (2.13) is for this exact reason, and in addition to use OSX for itunes, imovie, idvd etc. I have a ZuneHD for music in Win7, I can tell you that this is now my "only" machine. I went from a 15" i7 2.66, 8GB, with dual internal HDDs ( 256 GB OWC SSD, 500GB Seagate Hybrid HHD and moved the superdrive to an external enclosure) and this thing has met my expectations and continues to do so. I absolutely LOVE the weight. I have both OSX and Win 7 on it. I do not use parallels or fusion, I just boot to one or the other. I also use the new Crucial USB 3.0 124GB stick as a external drive to store things, it too is just as fast as my internal SSD. I have ZERO issues with this machine. I have ripped music, converted to different formats in both OSX/Win7, and ripped, converted movies. I too thought about purchasing a thin, lightweight windows machine, but then again I kept coming back to the fact of Apple's build quality. It simply cannot be beat. The funny thing: I went back to an older macbook ad, read about the 2.13 GHz Core 2 Duo and how its was X-times faster, better graphics, plays games, edit iMovies, make your own DVD with iDVD etc, and thought to myself if this can do it then with inferior memory technology, why not now? Is it just because we now have the "i" series CPUs? Nothing is really written to use the full potential of the new CPUs anyway. So if I am getting marginal gains, whats the point? If I saw a 50%+ increase I can see not getting the MBA. I can tell you that this MBA (2.13 4GB 256GB SSD) rocks.
Thanks guys. Any other opinions on this? Also, those of you who have had success with windows 7 did you just use the standard bootcamp installer and apple drivers?
Yep. I used bootcamp and the Apple provided drivers.
I was pleasently surprised. Apple has written horrible Windows drivers for the MBP and as a result battery life for Windows 7 is very poor. With the MBA that is not the case. Battery life is pretty similar on either platform.
I've faced the same situation as you and I'm now Using a Mac Book Air 13.3 inches Model with the 128 SSD and 2 gigs of ram, running Windows 7 Ultimate and using it as my main machine at work.
My main work horses were a Vaio 15 inches for the road, and on my work desk I also had an Asus G73 (monster of a laptop, priced around the same as my mac book air).
I was looking for something ultra portable and the mac book air had been in my head for some time, however, I was not sure if I would like OS X. For weeks, I was reading articles on Mac Book Air alternatives. I'm very anal when it come to Keyboards and I need a great track pad and keyboard, and I am in love with chiclet style keyboads. The asus G73 sucked for that (for sale now). VAIO I always liked, but nothing (IMO) matches the keyboard and track pads of the new macbook pro and airs. So, one evening just for fun I googled Windows 7 on Macbook Air, and after a few hours of reading found out that it get about the same battery life. So I bought it as my "portable laptop"...
2 Weeks later, SURPRISE, I realized that my main working laptops were collecting dust and I was most of the time working on my 13.3 air.
The performance is quite impressive. Comparisons I have seen in this threads are somewhat ridiculous. Why would the mac book air be a Ferrari with OS X and a Ford with Windows 7?
Here are my comparisons between OS X and Windows 7 on the Mac Book Air:
Sleep / Wake UP
----------------
OS X: Really fast, you flip the lid open and OS X is there in about 1 or 2 Second
Windows 7: Fast, about 3 seconds usually.
Boot UP
-------
I'm including here the boot up, however with the air you most of the time just close the lid to put the computer to sleep, you will only boot when you want to turn off the computer for some time or when you install new drivers etc..
OS X: Very fast, about 15 seconds
Windows 7: The system seem to hang for about 30 seconds before the Windows startup screen shows up. I guess this is because of boot camp bios stuff needed by windows. Total is about 45 seconds to boot Windows.
Trackpad
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OS X: You get 2 fingers scrolling, 3 fingers and 4 fingers and also scrolling inertia (you swipe your fingers just like on the iPhone and there's momentum to it. )
Windows 7: You only get 2 fingers scrolling. However, even in OS X i don't really use the 4 fingers, and 3 fingers for back/forward I use ALT + 2 Fingers left or right which does the same thing. You love the momentum scrolling, this is the biggest loss in my opinion
Mouse
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Unless you are using a Magic Mouse (which is a bad mouse in my opinion, i returned it after 1 week), I feel Windows is better. There's some kind of acceleration mechanism that seem to be built for newbies in OS X that I absolutely can't stand. I've tried many many 3rd party apps in OSX to try to overcome this, the best was USB Overdrive, still, I find Windows 7 precision can't be matched. But I guess with time, you get used to it in OS X.
Battery Life
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I lose about 30 to 45 minutes of battery time in average when using Windows 7. Not a big deal with the generous battery life of the 13 inches model (6-7 hours)
To sum it up, I do not regret at all using Windows 7 as my Primary OS on the Mac book Air 13, I like it so much that The air became my main machine. I bought the 27 inches Cinema Display and a mac keyboard as my dock station at the office.
