January 17, 2013
Feedback submitted!Unable to submit feedback! I bought this laptop around 6 months ago to bring to take to lectures and do work in the library. When I first started shopping for a laptop I knew exactly what I needed just not what laptop would fit my needs; great battery life, backlit keyboard, usb 3.0, great graphics, weight was important but not vital, an HD display, NO DVD drive (I cant stomach them, so much wasted space). At first I was looking at the retina MacBook Pro but as this was only an out-and-about laptop, I found I couldn't justify the cost. The MacBook Air became the obvious choice. It was inexpensive (after seriously considering the rMBP), and it fit all my criteria except the HD display, but the pixel density is the sam as a 15" 1080p. After using this laptop for two months now I am convinced that this laptop was the right choice. I cant imagine being happier with any other laptop.Hardware:Thin and light - very solid build with no flex if you hold it from the corner (which is possible because of its light weight)Battery life - Around 4-5 hours right now on mountain lion (watching TV shows, youtube, general internet things, mail, word processing). But when I first got it it was getting 7+ on lion. Hopefully and update in the future will fix/improve this.Charger - Power Brick - AC Adapter - Its extremely small, easy to fit in a bag, the cable wrapping clips are very useful but make sure to leave a good loop at the top so it does not fray (the loop is good to cary it by as well). The battery charges to 0- 50% in 45 minuets and then 50 - 90% in 1 hour after that (while i'm still using it ).Performance - no complaints here, I haven't noticed any lag whatsoever (opening applications is snappy and moving in-between is smooth).Graphics - Intel 4000 - These graphics built in and the performance is astounding can run all modern games on low which is more than I expected from an air. (but expect to hear from the fans I don't care if they're "asymmetrical" they're loud)Display - The screen is very bright at full and generally I leave it at 2/3 when plugged in. Then screen doesn't show as much glare as usual glare-screens do. I expected edge-to-edge glass! This killed me, I wanted the piece of mind of not having little bits of dust and hair going in between the lip and screen and travelling in (and not to mention it makes it harder to clean). Getting used to the size took some time but once using apps in full screen and switching panes with a swipe of the fingers alleviated these complaints.Keyboard - it takes a little to adjust too, at first the short travel distance is bearable and after awhile goes unnoticed.Webcam - Its just bad, but so are all integrated webcams. I know that some are better than others but when it comes down to it its bad and worse, spending 40$ on a external webcam can land you something a worlds better.Speakers - The speakers are very loud but with almost no bass but that was expected for a laptop this size. Good for when your walking around a room but once you sit down its best to put in some headphones. All-in-all they were more than expected.IO Ports - 2 USB 3.0 and a Thunderbolt. Both were a huge plus since I bought this laptop expecting neither.Mac OSX: Mountain Lion (Some thoughts)Hotkeys - Learning the shortcuts for most applications took me a few weeks. Not because this was difficult (actually it is quite easy, just open an applications context menus and you see a list of commands with their corresponding hot-keys), but because their are so many. But in my opinion when it comes to hotkeys you can never have to many.Gestures - Learning these was quite easy by searching "Trackpad" in the settings and just going through the demos. Learning them made switching between panes much quicker & convenient.Included apps (Pros) - All that you would expect to be included with a laptop; Mail, Safari, Reminders, Notepad, iPhoto, Preview, all are good enough that they do not warrant you to go looking for replacements, and even if you did the tight integration into OSX, and the fact that they make use of cloud sync would make finding a viable replacement for any quite difficult.Included apps (Cons) - Quicktime's lack of video format was disappointing I didn't want to have to use VLC.Now all thats left is leaning to plug in headphones the first time without missing.