Owner Reviews, Ratings, Comments and Criticism
Updated January 9th, 2012 - skip to bottom to read updates.I've owned the machine for 5 months now and have simplified the review for your convenience.Things I like:+ Light weight; 2.9 lbs (1.3 kg). You can easily hold it with one hand - the MBP 13" is noticeably heavier at 4.5 lbs.+ Solid build quality like the MBPs. Chassis is rock solid, no keyboard flex, screen housing is rigid with minor flex in the middle.+ Better ergonomics than the MBPs; the palm rest edges don't dig into your wrists like the edges on the MBPs do.+ Same fluid multitouch trackpad and the backlit keyboard makes a return.+ The screen is a pleasure to use with it's high resolution (1440 x 900) and semi-gloss finish. There is no glass cover so there will be dramatically less reflections compared to the screen of the MBPs I personally chose the Air over the Pro because of reduced glare. + 18 second boot ups and 3 second shut downs. Resumes from sleep within 3 seconds.+ The two USB 2.0 ports are on opposite sides of the laptop (less clutter than MBP)+ Speakers are surprisingly loud; they can fill up a small room.+ Runs extremely cool and it's so quiet that you'll wonder if the fan is running at all. I can definitely feel heat ~ 87 degrees F on the MPB 13's underside after 6 hours of use where as the MBA 13's underside stayed relatively cooler.+ Runs Windows 7 just as cool and quietly. (I installed Windows 7 via flash drive)+ Performance is almost identical to the MBP 13" 2011 on everyday tasks because the Core i5 CPU can turbo boost to 2.7 GHz and the SSD allows for instant application launching.+ Gaming: it has the same Intel HD Graphics 3000 as the MBP 13" 2011. I was able to run Starcraft II smoothly at low settings on native resolution. Medium settings also ran nicely but you get less FPS during large battles. League of Legends ran smoothly at medium settings 30 FPS flat) on native resolution. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________Things I don't like:- *IMPORTANT* Wifi drops constantly on my unit (skip to the bottom to read more)- The keyboard is shallower and has less travel than the MBP keyboards (you'll get used to it within a few days)- The screen has less color gamut than the MBP 13's screen. This screen covers only 46% of sRGB color spectrum where as the MBP 13's screen covers 77%. For image editing, I would use an external monitor.- The vertical viewing angles aren't so great. One minute tilt of the screen causes colors to shift dramatically (for example: a purple color can change from lavender to light blue as you tilt the screen backward or forward). Again, I would use an external monitor for tasks in which accurate colors are mission critical. For everyday use it's not noticeable and is actually easier on the eyes than the glare-prone screens of the MBPs.- Not all models come with the same SSD. There are 2 variations; a Samsung SSD and a Toshiba SSD. The Samsung SSD significantly outperforms the Toshiba SSD in benchmarks (check the AnandTech review) To check what SSD you have, click on the Apple logo -

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