My opinion about the new 13" MacBook after a week
After some days using my new 13" MacBook Air including a wekend trip that has let me evaluate its mobility, I have a much formed opinion about it, and I'll share it with you, trying to analyze the main areas covered in my previous analysis before commiting to buy.
- Weight: Definately it weighs less and feels much lighter and the overall sensation is much better, mainly thanks to its screen, I'll talk about it in depth later. It's much comfortable to carry on this computer and though the 11" model is much lighter and smaller, I won't consider it ever because this 13" screen is more adapted to my needs. The heavyweight in my lap has been forgotten and now I can use it in the sofa for long periods of time without worry.
- Ergonomy: Something I haven't talked before. Thew MacBook Air is really, really thin and this makes it immediately elegant, but at times its edges are sharp and less comfortable when not over a table and handled more freely. Something similar happened to me with the iPhone 4, instant beauty but so sharp I had to cover it with a speck case to be more comfortable.
Sometimes it seems that Apple makes devices to be showcased in a modern art museum and forget that their products are going to be used by end users. I respect a lot the work of Johnathan Ive and his team, but for me the round edges are a much better option and it'll be nice to see them come to Apple devices in the future.
Anyway, once you get used to those sharp edges and avoid the ultra-sharp-corners in the bottom of the trackpad, the 13" MacBook Air is a joy to use: a full sized keyboard with enough space between keys so my fingers can press them precisely, space enough to rest my wrist while typing, a really big screen for its size and almost everything we know about the Mac Pro, because in many ways is really similar.
- Temperature: Here I've worked a bit in depth. The fan is always running and it must be of decent quality because in normal conditions it rotates at 2000 rpm and it's virtually inaudible. If you push it with harder tasks, it spins faster and can go up to 5000 rpm and is then when you can listen to it.
I've run the following scenario: Wi-Fi turned on getting the Internet connection from my router, Bluetooth connected and transmiting stereo audio signal to my wireless headphones (love AD2P). Listening to music streamed directly from Spotify (more love to Spotify). This is my usual setup while surfing the web with Firefox and doing the common tasks, and with this common tasks the fan never goes further than 2000 rpm and it's completely quiet.
Let's play an iPhone HD video file with an average bitrate of 12 Mbps. Started to play it in loop mode using VLC in fullscreen mode and bright at maximum. How far it goes? It depends.
If I keep the MacBook Air over the cold kitchen marble table, letting the air flow freely from the exits behind the hinge, it will keep the fan rotation speed at those completely silent 2000 rpm and temperature doesn't goes up 30º (86 F), but...
If I make the same test over my lap in the sofa, with the air exhausts partly covered with my own legs or a cushion, the fan goes up to 3000 rpm in a minute and a half and to 4000 rpm in 2 minutes, not going further beyond this point but if I completely cover the exhausts with the cushion is easy to get past the 5000 rpm.
I have taken the measures with the iStat Nano widget and my conclusion is clear: don't worry about temperatures but if you're going to make more intensive tasks, let the exhausting system work as intended.
After a long period of use over your lap you can feel the base warm, but it's far away from the heat I felt with the MacBook Pro. For mi it's ok.
- Processor: Even though there's a theoretical 20% raw power decrease, the speed is OK. The combination with the blazing speed of the hard drive makes it run smoothly no matter the task you throw to it.
In fact I consider the overall performance quite similar to my previous MacBook Pro (mid-2009) and at times even superior.
Maybe I'm quite comprehensive with the engineering team. It's seems to to be difficult to keep a balance between performance, cooling and a space so small.
Once again. OK for me.
- Main memory: With 4GB of RAM I can assign 2GB of memory to my VMWare Fusion 3 virtual machine running Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bits.
Due to the use of the SSD drive, the Windows 7 virtual machine resumes from suspend mode in just a few seconds, much faster than rebooting and starting from the bootcamp partition. Maybe I'm loosing a bit of raw power, but once again, it's more than enough for my requierements and much more convenient.
I had tested a 2GB setup before and if you want to do some serious tasks as virtualizing machines or processing RAW or editing video... 2GB is not enough.
The price difference is really negligible so anyone considering the 13" Air... please, go for 4GB of RAM. Even if you have to wait a bit to get it, it's worth every dollar.
- Screen: This chapter deserves an essay, but I try to be concise. It was a bit disappointing at first sight, not because the added resolution but for the dull colours without punch. I consider myself as very demanding in terms of color accuracy and I've always tried to get my displays properly calibrated in order to get the most out of it.
Fortunately, after calibration I'm much more satisfied. I can also tell that after a few days it's getting better, as if it should require some kind of burn-in and break-in.
Anyone considering this screen as a professional display should know that it's far, far away of the gamut of PRO monitor, thus having problems representing the full range of colours of any given colour space. It doesn't cover even the sRGB space that is less demanding.
I usually view high quality photographs and the difference between my Dell IPS monitor and this one is huge. I can assume this compromise too but I think that Apple has used a lower quality display than it should; in a portable computer of this kind picture quality should be a first priority and even though the TN display is not of the low range is far from being top-notch.
As I learned here in MacRumors, Apple has manufactured the Air using different panels, and the one in my unit is considered on the good ones side. If you open System Preferences => Displays => Colour and you choose the Color LCD default profile you can check the last property "mmod" where you can find the maker and model of the display: 0610 maker and 9CDF model in my case.
This default profile has a tendency to excessively warm the colours and if you don't have a device for calibrate the display, you can do it by hand-and-eye using the Mac OS X calibrator in expert mode or even better using SuperCal, a fantastic program that let you calibrate only with your eyes. You can download it at http://www.bergdesign.com/supercal/
It's remarkable that the screen is not so glossy. It's not matte but it doesn't reflect so much and the mirror effect is really diminished. I'm sure this screen is going to be introduced in the next 13" MacBook Pro, though I expect to be a better quality one, ideally and IPS panel with better viewing angles, because to get the proper colours your eyes need to be parallel to the display. You just change the angle and you get different colours, instantly.
Add that the brightness level you can reach is very high and the back lightning is uniform and you have a mixture of things you love and things you love-not-so-much.
The 1440x900 makes everything smaller than the 1280x800 in the MacBook Pro but is easy to get used to, and once you get it... there's no way back. This resolution enhancement let you see more rows on a spreadsheet or accommodate more windows comfortably in the screen. Once again, I'm sure this resolution will be standard in the next 13" MacBook generation.
The only thing I hate is that I can't turn off the Apple logo in the back of the screen. As it's illuminated by the back lightning of the display if you want to turn it off you must turn off the screen too and it becomes unusable. Apple doesn't pay me for it, and I don't like being an ad while using it.
By the way, I'm really happy with my new laptop. It's what I expected in many ways, far more in others and as always it's not a perfect product and there's a path for making it better in the future.
There's nothing better than knowing you have chosen right.
How would you rate 1-10 the MBA screen against a 2007 MBP 15" and a 2011 MBP 15" in terms of the colour?
