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what is your experience running Final Cut Pro X on a MacBook Air?

thanks, udo

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I'm going to flag this as too vague to be of use. Of course everyone has a valid experience with X and Y - It needs much more detail to be answerable in the spirit of this Q&A site. Specifying which air, and some sort of context how the app should run might make this worth keeping as that could be more objectively answered. – bmike♦ Aug 3 '11 at 14:03
which air? context? are you kidding me? I agree that this question is quite general but it contains enough info that at least Justin was able to answer it. in case you have experience with this product combination your input is highly appreciated. I do not use neither product and would also base my decision on the answers received here. thx – udo Aug 3 '11 at 15:28
@udo Unfortunately, we can't just ask people "what is your experience." That's way too broad. Questions on Ask Different should have a definitive answer based on fact. Asking people to share their experiences is a discussion, not a question. Discussion-style posts don't work well with this format of site. Thanks for your cooperation. – Nathan Greenstein♦ Aug 3 '11 at 16:29
Do try to catch me (or anyone else on the chat) - I'd love to help you rewrite it in a way it would be more useful to the site. – bmike♦ Aug 3 '11 at 16:30
@Nathan,@bmike: thanks, I really appreciate your offer and try to get a hold of you on the chat. – udo Aug 4 '11 at 6:58

closed as not a real question by bmike♦, Nathan Greenstein♦ Aug 3 '11 at 14:18

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.

1 Answer

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I have a 13-inch MacBook Air with a 1.86GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and 4GB of RAM.

In my experience, it's just too slow to use productively. Screen size is also a concern once you start really using it. I haven't tried it in clamshell mode when hooked up to a Cinema Display, though.

It seems like you'd want a faster CPU as most of the rendering happens in the background, which can really slow the whole machine down when you're trying to edit.

It would be interesting to hear from someone with a new i5 or i7 MacBook Air, but either way, you'd want a larger screen if you were planning on using it without an external display.

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I intend using it for smaller "productions" (10 min movies max). is this use case in your experience already limited to run on your MacBook Air? – udo Aug 3 '11 at 14:00
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The just-released models might do the job, given that they had a fairly major CPU upgrade from my model. If you happen to be near an Apple Store, it might be worth a trip to try it out. – Justin Aug 3 '11 at 17:07
I received my new MacBook Air (i7, 1.8GHz with Hyperthreading) last weekend and installed Final Cut Pro X (FCPX). In my opinion it does the job perfectly. Only the initial import of the files is slow (but I can't really tell because I don't have a reference to compare with...). I did not notice a bottleneck when working with FCPX. In my opinion it is a great combination (MacBook Air / FCPX)! – udo Aug 29 '11 at 11:16

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