Hi Sunil. After using both for a few days here is what I noticed. In basic stuff like in MS Office, Pages, Photos, surfing the web I barely notice any difference between my Max Air and my Mom's Macbook. On the Macbook UI is generally smooth with no issues at all with a few exceptions. For example resizing, windows of apps like Safari (Both draging the handles and double clicking the top part) is a bit more choppy. However take note that this is probably a software optimisation issue than a hardware limitation. Even my top of the line Retina iMac has problem with choppy window resizes. Also there are slight pauses of choppiness when inertial scrolling through graphic and script heavy sites like the Verge, Macbook, and pcworld.com. Otherwise everything is smooth, fast, and responsive. My Max Air is definitely faster to startup and shutdown than the Macbook. My Samsung SDD Air can copy and duplicate large files like my Aperture library much faster than the Macbook. Also in CPU heavy stuff like encoding video, applying Photoshop filters, and using Aperture plug-ins like Nik Define filters takes a bit more less time on my Air than on the Macbook. The interesting thing is, thanks to the turbo boost of the Intel Core M, the Macbook can easily handle short burst of heavy work. I notice that when editing a few photos on Aperture, the Macbook seem to perform very close to my Air. It is only when I do big heavy work like applying filters to a big batch of photos is when I notice the Macbook becomes much slower than my Air. If I pushed both machines and give them a sustained workload of applying adjustments to a batch of 300 raw files for testing. My Air's fan kicked in hard but kept the pace of exporting while the Macbook was not far behind working at a snappy pace but at its 100th or so raw file it displayed the "Throttling down to cool down CPU" message and exporting slowed down. Of course the Macbook was not designed for such heavy load but if push comes to shove you can do some heavy work on it. The only thing I was not able to really test is the graphics performance. I didn't have time to install games and give it a go but I'm pretty sure the Air would win. In Aperture, another app that uses the GPU, the Macbook seems to have no problem with 300 raw file library. It was smooth as my Air. My Air will probably be able to handle bigger libraries better than the Macbook. So far that is what I noticed, how that was informative for you. Looks like the 12 inch Macbook fits in some sleeves designed for the 11 inch Air. The case is a my very favorite WaterField sleeve that I bought for my old 11 Air many years ago. It fits my Mom's Macbook perfectly.
Thanks for this mini-review, very informative indeed! I'm planning to replace my wife's 2011 MBP soon. Would it be safe to say that current programs and apps she uses that make her current MBP warm to very hot will likely cause the very frequent appearance of the "Throttling down to cool down CPU" message, should i decide to get her the MacBook, instead of the 13" MBA, or even the 13" rMBP? (Example of an app that keeps her current MBP warm: FarmVille 2. ... She also uses Photoshop Elements for her scrapbooking projects.)
I passby BTB robinsons and it has stock of 256Gb in Gold. Almost bit the bullet but was able to grab myself out of the Store. Still thinking between the space grey and gold.
Still looking for the USB-C adapter. If I don't find one by this weekend, my brother in law from HK will bring some for me. Anyone else want one? It's about 1800 for the Hub (USB-C to USB 3.0 3x).
personally i like space grey more. it's a bit more professional looking and not a big attention-grabber.
I was able to buy an Apple USB C to A adapter in Singapore. Most of the stores don't have it yet, only Nübox had it and only the USB adapter. No multi-port adapters yet.
Any suggestions on locally available sleeves that fit the MacBook, with a pocket / slit for the charger?
I just realized that I've been an early adopter to the newer (and smaller) portables. Got a, 1st gen aluminum 13" MacBook, 1st gen MBP13, 1st gen 11" Air and a 1st gen MBPr13. And while the experience has always been sweet, I always end up a happier camper when the succeeding release comes out. I'm really itching to get a new space grey unit, but truth is, I'm very happy with my 2013 Air (i7/8/256). And I worry that the move to the new Macbook might be a letdown for me. Lateral upgrade only at best.
this is one reason why i haven't bitten the bullet yet in buying that new MB in favor of an upgraded MBA...maybe if the new MB has taken a boost from its present specs then i might finally make that leap of faith...
Just picked up my custom 1.3ghz 256gb from DHL yesterday. So far it's performing quite well despite running a single vm in the background. The occasional stuttering is there when zooming out to full view of 4 virtual desktops but I expected it. Keyboard definitely takes some time getting used to. Feels more like a click than a keypress tbh but nothing one can't adapt to. Force touch trackpad performs and feels the same way as the normal trackpad (quite amazingly I might add). Apple just needs to add more force click support to its apps. I got a USB A to Type C cable from amazon so I am able to "charge" using the powerbank (quite slowly when it's on sleep mode; not at all when I'm using it [will have to test this some more]). I forsee type-c to type-c powerbanks which juice out more voltage for type-c input laptops of the future. The single USB port doesn't disrupt my use case either. Since I had some dough to spare, I went ahead and purchased this http://www.sandisk.com/products/mobile-flash-drives/dualdrive-type-c/ in case I needed it in the future...not planning to buy Apple's proprietary cables XD After a day of fondling with it, I'm quite happy using it for my work. The portability + retina screen is the killer feature for me. The gorgeous design is a bonus I'm willing to take
Abacus, V-Mall, 3rd floor, 480 pesos each. Update: It won't work. Not sure if third party cables aren't supported or the cables are just lemons. Anyhow, I'd recommend getting the Apple adapters instead.
Hi Gaol, I own a 2011 Macbook Air too and its my opinion that the new Macbook is definitely an upgrade in terms of performance. the new Macbook feels a bit more snappier in all tasks. With the use case of your wife, I would not worry about CPU throttling. Unless you edit hundreds of layers and ridiculously high resolutions images, Photoshop is not that CPU/GPU intensive. Yesterday My mom just played facebook games the whole afternoon while watching old Tagalog movies on youtube and the Macbook got warm but never throttled. From my experience the only way I could throttle the CPU is to at least encode video or batch process hundreds of photos for a long periods of time.
for the new macbook.. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nonda/get-your-macbook-ports-back 25days to go
^ I hope it has another USB-C slot at the bottom, because that many ports without power would make no sense.
The 2015 Macbook is nice, here is a comparison to the 2015 MBA 11inch. New 12-in MacBook vs. 11-in MacBook Air (2015)
Thanks, bro! My wife has the 2011 13" MBP actually, but it looks like the Macbook would be just fine for her, performance-wise. Size and weight-wise it would be perfect. The deal-breaker might be the lack of ports and need for (an assortment of) kludgy adaptors (which she will not like because she might misplace them) and maybe the keyboard.
