Thrilled with my 11″ 2012 Macbook Air!, June 24, 2012

By 

Ron Cronovich “Ron” (Kenosha, WI) –

  

The 11″ 2012 Air is a winner in my opinion. It offers absolutely excellent performance and it is amazingly portable despite having a comfortable full-sized keyboard and an excellent display.

I ordered my 2012 11″ Macbook Air the day it was introduced, received it a few days later, and have used it intensively since. I also own a 13″ late 2010 model MB Air, which was my main computer until getting this one.

The 2012 Air’s SSD is literally more than twice as fast as the SSDs in the 2010 and 2011 model Airs. The new ivy bridge processors are more than twice as fast as the core 2 duo’s in the 2010 Airs and about 20% faster than the sandy bridge processors in the 2011 Air. Compared to my 2010 Air, the 2012 Air flies and makes the 2010 Air seem very sluggish.

The new ivy bridge processors are less power-hungry than the processors in the 2010 and 2011 Airs, which makes for a small but appreciated improvement in battery life according to independent published benchmarks. I have not formally tested my new 11″ Air’s battery run-down time, but my experience seems pretty consistent with results published in independent professional reviews. UPDATE: I’ve now had the new Air for about a month. I’m consistently getting at least 5 hours of battery life per charge, sometimes more, depending on how I’m using it. I usually have the screen brightness at 50% and the keyboard backlight down to the lowest setting (but not off).

This is my first computer with USB 3.0 ports, and they make a big difference when backing up to my USB 3.0 portable drive. (My other USB peripherals are USB 2.0, so I don’t notice any difference with them.)

I used bootcamp to install Windows 7 and some Windows-only software I need for work. Booting into Windows and running Windows natively is a noticeably better experience on this new Air than on the Lenovo Windows laptop that my job provided me with.

For people who don’t have an Apple TV and want to play their Air through a home theater system, it’s very helpful that the 2012 Air now has HDMI audio pass-through. This means that a single HDMI cable can transmit video and audio from your Air to your home theater system or television set. (Though, you still need the HDMI adapter because the Air still doesn’t have its own HDMI port. But the adapter is pretty inexpensive.) The 2010 Air (and maybe the 2011 Air?) could only pass video through the HDMI cable, so you’d need separate audio cables for sound. I have run my new Air through my home theater and watched a few SD and HD programs I downloaded with iTunes, and it worked really great – setup was very easy and sound and picture were very good. I really appreciate this because I recently ditched cable and now depend on iTunes, Hulu+, and similar internet services for my TV needs.

If you have a 2010 Air and can afford it, upgrading to a 2012 Air is a no-brainer. The performance is vastly better, plus there are many small but meaningful improvements (backlit keyboard, HDMI audio pass-through, USB 3.0, better Facetime webcam).

If you have a 2011 Air, the case for upgrading is weaker. Compared to the 2011 Airs, the 2012 Airs have fewer improvements and the performance gain is much less dramatic (the main exception being the much faster SSD).

If you’re trying to decide between an Air and a 13″ Macbook Pro: The Pro is still more powerful, but the performance gap between the Air and the Pro has shrunk each year since the Air was introduced. The 2012 Air will be plenty powerful enough not just for the average person, but for most people. Plus, the Air’s SSD blows away the Pro’s 5400 rpm hard drive. The display on the 13″ Air is much higher resolution than the Pro’s display, and less reflective, but the Pro’s display is IPS, with richer, truer colors and better viewing angles. The Pro has a built-in optical drive for reading/writing DVDs and CDs. But the Air weighs so much less than the Pro and is so much thinner. Personally, I prefer NOT having the optical drive built in. I rarely use the optical drive, only for installing programs like Microsoft Office or ripping CDs. For these occasions, I use an external drive; I have an Apple Superdrive, which works great, and also a much cheaper Samsung drive (which reads really well but doesn’t always write data correctly; plus the Samsung has cheaper build quality than the Superdrive, but I digress). Visit your local retailer and touch and hold an Air and a Pro. I think most people will prefer the Air due to the super light weight and super slim profile. But you might not, so you should definitely see both of them in person, side by side if you can.

If you’re trying to decide between an 11″ and 13″ Air, the main tradeoff in my opinion is battery life vs. portability. Battery life is rated at 5 hours in the 11″ Air, 7 hours in the 13″ Air. This is a big difference for people who regularly…

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]]> https://lap-tops.net/apple-macbook-air-md223lla-11-6-inch-laptop-newest-version/apple-laptop/#comment-656 Christopher Mayo Tue, 07 Aug 2012 00:29:24 +0000 http://lap-tops.net/apple-macbook-air-md223lla-11-6-inch-laptop-newest-version/apple-laptop/#comment-656

Portability Perfected, June 13, 2012

By 

Christopher Mayo (New Jersey) –

  

  

I purchased the Apple MacBook Air MD224LL/A 11.6-Inch Laptop (NEWEST VERSION) to replace my 2011 Macbook Pro 13″. I am a lecturer / graduate student, and this is now my main computer.

BUILD QUALITY
It is surprisingly sturdy. Although I plan to purchase a clear case for it (probably from iPearl), I think you could probably get away with using nothing at all. This ruggedness is an amazing feat, considering its light weight. Owners of previous Macbook Airs will enjoy more of the same.

DISPLAY
The Macbook Air has a beautiful display that is quite bright, crisp, and clear. The automatic dimmer function adjusts the brightness level according to the ambient light, and I have found that this works really well. Personally, I think the colors on the Macbook Pro 13″ display “popped” a little bit more, and I liked the bezel-less solid piece of glass on it better. However, there is no denying that the resolution on this machine is far superior. I have seen the resolutions on some of the other ultrabooks (Windows), and I think this looks better (the ppi is actually about the same). [EDIT:] The soon-to-be-released Zenbook and others are supposed to have better displays this year, though, so this may change in the future.

KEYBOARD
It is full-sized and typing on it feels good. The backlit keys are great. The keys don’t travel enough for my taste, and it feels a little less solid than the Macbook Pro, but this is a minor complaint. I write for a living, and I am looking forward to writing on this!

TRACKPAD
The glass trackpad probably does not get much mention in most reviews, but it is one of the best features of a Macbook, and it sets Apple computers apart from competitors. I retired my mouse a long time ago because of it. If you take the time to master the gestures (see your preferences), and you give full-screen views on applications a try, you can enjoy an incredible experience on this machine. The slightest touch whisks you from screen to screen.

BATTERY
Far too short. Really, 5 hours is not very much, and it looks like I am only getting about that much with regular use on half brightness [EDITED: after testing a couple of times -- just short of five hours]. I wish they could have bumped this up an hour or two more, and I will miss the long life on my Macbook Pro. I guess battery life is one of the trade-offs for this form factor.

SPEED
It is lightning fast. To be honest, I cannot tell a difference yet between it and last year’s model. They tell me it is faster, though, so I guess I will have to believe them. Perhaps a few months of usage will give me more perspective. At any rate, it is noticeably faster than the Macbook Pro.

ACCESSORIES / STUFF / PORTS
The cord is a good length, and the power brick is quite small. It is somewhere between the size of my iPad power brick and the Macbook Pro power brick. From what I can tell, it looks considerably smaller than the 13″ Macbook Air one. I am thinking that I might not mind carrying it around in my man bag with the Macbook Air. The ports on the machine are very conveniently placed, with one USB port on each side. This is so much better than the Macbook Pro, which had all of the ports on the left, where they would inevitably cause problems. Fat thumb-drives sometimes took up so much space I couldn’t get another USB cable into the slot next to it. There is no Ethernet port. No Firewire port either. Be forewarned. It doesn’t matter to me, but it might to you.

COMPARISONS
- 64GB
I purchased the 128GB model. With judicious use of cloud services like Google Drive and Dropbox, and perhaps the purchase of a 32GB thumb drive to carry around files in case you are not connected, I think 64GB is also doable. One of the great things about this year’s 64GB model is that you get the same 4GB of RAM. I consider that model to be the best value, and I would have gotten it if I didn’t have a large number of files in one application that, because of the application’s design, I cannot put on the cloud.

- 13″ Macbook Air
The base model 13″ Macbook air is a better buy if you want the extra battery life and screen size. I value portability over those things (I can carry this in a small man bag, but if I got the 13″ I would have to move up to a mail bag or backback).

- 13″ Macbook Pro
The Macbook Pro 13″ was an OK computer last year, and before the Macbook Air’s Sandy Bridge refresh, was definitely the best entry-level product. However, they did not update the resolution this year, it is rather pokey compared to the Macbook Air, and it is much heavier. Unless you just simply refuse to use the cloud and have an obscene amount of files to carry around every day, I see no point in getting it.

- Ultrabooks
As for Windows ultrabooks, I might actually…

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