12/23/11

11 inch VS 13 inch MacBook Air


Storage, computing, connections, battery, and size. I tackle these topics in the video. I'd also like to note that I've used both the 11 and 13 as my main computers.

Storage. 64 GB is not enough as a main computer you don't download any media or create media like audio and video. Keep in mind that an iPhone's backup take up a lot of space. 128 GB seems to hit the sweet spot right now, but I did have to trim down my media and photos. An external thunderbolt drive would be nice. If you're a content creator or a power user, 256 GB is a must.

Computing. I don't really care much about what the processing speed number is. I care weather or not its an i7 or i5. The i7 is more for power users and content creators while the i5 is for  normal users. Most non pro apps out there would run on the slowest processor speed for the Air.

Connections. The main difference between the two's connection is the SD card slot. It's very convenient, but that's all its for. You can always buy a USB to SD card converter. What excites me most is the thunderbolt port on both of them. My dream computer setup would be a decked out 13 Air, a Thunderbolt Display, and a fast external drive. This is a power user's setup and not necessarily a pro's.

Battery. The difference in battery life is from 5 to 7. This may not seem like much, but it was definitely noticeable. I could go all day with the 13 Air while I had to top up with the 11. I would like to see the future iteration of the Air lineup to have around 10 hours of battery life. I didn't appreciate the 30 day standby time until I sold the Airs. It's nice to just shut the lid and have pretty much the same charge when you wake up.

Size and storage are the main factors when choosing and Air. Through the magic of mathematics, I found that the physical properties like surface area, weight, and number of pixels rose by about 21% when going from the 11 to the 13. 21% may not seem like much, but it made all the difference to me. I was far more likely to open the 11 in the bus as opposed to the 13. I brought the 11 absolutely everywhere I went. While there were times when the 13 stayed home.

Overall, I'd buy the Air for mobility and as a second computer while the 13 has a good balance between portability and power.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyefP3b9HkY

12/21/11

What Apple Laptop is Best for Students?


I've been trying to find the best Mac hardware for students for a while now. I've used several different laptops and desktops, so I think I'm in a good position to talk about them. I've owned the 13 and 15 Macbook pro, 11 and 13 Air, iPad, and iMac. The following are pros and cons of each device for a student.

The 13 Pro is the most popular laptop right now. I see this everywhere in my University. It's the balance of power, storage, and weight that makes this king. There's plenty of the power for the average student, and then some for content creator. This would probably be the main computer, so ample storage is key. The 13 Pro definitely has enough with it's hard disk drive, but the spinning drive is also part of its weakness. I see many people just take the MacBook and shove in their bag to go off to the next class. Moving the laptop while the drive is still spinning could cause damage to the drive. The 13" form factor seems to be just the perfect screen size and weight for a mobile student.

If weight is a concern, the 13" Air is the way to go. I think the 13 Air could, emphasis on could, be the new favourite. It definitely wins out on the weight over the pro, but it still falls short in some aspects. Its battery holds three hours less of a charge than the 10 hours in the MacBook Pro, and it's processing speed is just good enough to pass. The 13 Air's biggest shortcoming though, is its storage. 128 GB is not enough for the digital student of today. I say that the 13 Air would dethrone the 13 Pro because my concerns would be answered in due time. The processing speed, battery, and storage would only get better. Oh, and it's much quicker than the 13 Pro because of its solid state drive

The second most popular MacBook that I see is the 15 Pro. This is more for the power users and content creators. It's has more of what the 13 Pro has. More storage, more power, and more screen size. All this addition comes at a price, and I'm not just talking about money. The 15 Pro weighs much more and has a larger footprint. It also still has the same spinning drive that could be damaged during transit. Two side notes. First, I suggest getting the Hi-Rez version of the screen because it gives you more screen real estate to work with. Second, I predict that Apple would create dual boot MacBook Pros. This means the operating system would in the the SSD media stays in the HDD. Apple already does this with their iMac.

The rumoured 15 Air should also be noted as a possible student MacBook. If it does get released, it would have more screen real estate, longer battery life, more storage, and faster processors. This is still a rumour at this point, but this is what I expect. I also expect a fat price tag for such a slim device.

An 11 Air could work as a student computer, but it's going to need to be paired with an iMac or another computer. I don't think the 11 Air is quite there yet, nor will it be in the next few years. The 11" form factor take up the least space on your table leaving you with enough room for a Wacom tablet. The iMac would pick up where the Air is weak; power, and screen. This is an expensive combo, and I'd suggest buying refurbished from the apple store.

I wonder why the iPad isn't around the campus as much as it should. I think this could be the future of textbooks, but not until those textbook publishers start producing Apps and digital books. As mentioned, the iPad would be the perfect reading device, but not a note taking device. I like typing me notes and then annotating them with a Wacom tablet. The iPad can do both of this but only in a subpar manner. The software keyboard is no  replacement for a hardware one, and there's not enough detail on the touchscreen to efficiently annotate notes.

I like annotating and creating some notes by hand, and this is where the Wacom tablet comes in. It can be used to draw on notes during class, draw on flash cards, and it can even be used as a mouse. The unescapable fact is that drawing by hand is still needed today. This is specially true in math, physics, and chemistry.

12/19/11

The 27" iMac experience: Elegant, Wall Mounted, and Glare


I owned the 27 iMac for about a year. There's many reviews out there, so I think I'll talk about my experience with it. I'll talk more specifically about Elegance, wall mounting, and glare.

This is quite possible the most elegant computer I've ever owned. More so than the MacBook Pro and Air because we all expect laptops to be elegant and simple. The desktop on the other hand, is not elegant nor simple. The iMac totally changes that. You only need one cord for power. Everything else is wireless. I am, however, the type of guy that wants things wired specially if the device doesn't even more around much. This is true for keyboards and mouse. Why not just use a wire. It's not like you'll take the mouse with you to the kitchen or something. In any case, the computer is a work of art sitting on your table. Eye candy.

What if like me, you don't want your iMac to sit on the table. Why not wall mount it? Well, that's what I did. I bought a vesa adaptor (made by Apple) and a wall mount made by some other company I don't remember. Here's a few lessons I learned. First, read all instruction. All of them. Second, don't go cheap on the wall mount. I bought the cheapest thing I could find that can hold the iMac's weight. It was just a basic mount that swivels up and down. Why not just get the static kind? Well I had to make sure there's enough room in the back to plug in the cables.  After about a month, the swivel mechanism just gave up. The iMac was just looking down all the time, so I placed a cork on the back between the wall and mount to raise it back up. I wished I bought a stronger mount that swivels left and right. Even though the screen is rated for 178ยบ of viewing angle, it would have been nice to tilt it to minimize glare.

Glare from my window was a bit of a problem. I looked at some anti-glare films to put on the screen, but it seemed like a crime to grimy that beautiful monitor. The biggest crime of all though is taking the monitor off altogether. No, I'm not talking about taking it off to replace the hard drive which in itself is a scary task. I'm talking about getting rid of the glass to get rid of the glare. Yes, this can be done, but I advise against it. You would get rid of glare, but the pixels, like little kittens in the cold, are now vulnerable. Touching them could kill them. It would also be tough to clean the dust off the raw monitor. Again, I don't advocate doing this, but there are those that do.

12/18/11

Mac Mini a year later: Monitor, keyboard, and mouse problems


I bought the Mac Mini more than a year ago for my mom. I thought it was a good buy because she already owned a monitor, keyboard, and mouse from her old windows PC. Overall, it did the job it was suppose to, but it had a hard time playing nice with the others. The monitor in question was an Acer 21". I've never had a problem with it until the mac mini came along. When I wake the mini from sleep, the monitor shows white noise. I'd have to turn the monitor on and off to get it working again. I also have a similar problem with the mouse and keyboard. Both input devices are from logitech, and there are times when the Mini doesn't even recognize them until I unplug and plug them back in. Now, these complains seem very small, but I did buy a Mac because of its ease of use. I love apple and their products, but I don't like how this specific Mac doesn't work well with non Apple gear. I expected more from apple.The easiest solution, of course, would have been to buy and Apple keyboard, mouse, and monitor, but I shouldn't have to do this. There's even an image from Apple.com of a Mac mini with non apple paraphernalia.

If I could go back in time, I would have bought the cheapest iMac I can get. Preferably something from the refurbished store. It's a complete package.

12/14/11

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2880 by 1800 resolution on MacBooks like iPhone 3G to iPhone 4's retina display


Digitimes claims that Apple will release a MacBook Pro with a resolution of 2880 by 1800. That's more than quadruple the resolution of the stock 15 inch MacBook Pro. We can finally cram four times the amount of stuff on our screen right? Wrong. That's not what Apple would do. They will instead, just like the iPhone 4, keep the proportions the same but make things more crisp. I'm not against high resolution. In fact, I made sure my 15" MBP had the Hi-Res option of 1680 by 1050 pixels. I just couldn't stand buying a stock 15" pro with the resolution of the 13" MacBook Air. It seems like notebook manufacturers today get away with selling laptops with sub par resolution Apple included.

Apple already has a track record selling the Airs with Hi-Res screens. The 11 Air almost has the same resolution as the 13 MBP and the 13 MBA has the same one as the 15 MBP. With this logic, the 15" MBA should get the 17's resolution. I'd like to think that Apple will release quadrupled resolution all at once to one family of laptops. The MBP family. This could differentiate them more with the MBA. It's also more expensive to built really high-res screens, so it may not make financial sense to ship them in MBAs right now. Apple sells more Airs than Pros.

I'm looking forward to a MBP revamp, and they'd most likely get these screens then. The same Digitimes article claims that the display will ship in the second quarter of 2012.

12/10/11

Does a Macbook Air and Macbook Pro Combo Make Sense?

Does a person really need two laptops? I'd like to think not. It seems like such a waste, but I've been thinking about getting a Macbook Air 11" lately despite my 15" Macbook Pro. I've bought a used a Macbook Air 13" (2010) before and it suited me well for the most part. It's actually perfect for university and high school students. The problem came when I wanted to do projects involving professional applications like Final Cut X. I knew the 13 Air would have some trouble, and it won't handle everything I would throw at it. My biggest concern was storage. It was too slow and inelegant to put all your project in an external hard drive. I sold the 13 and bought the 15 Pro from the refurbished section of the Apple store. It would take a couple of weeks for the 15 to arrive, so I bought an 11 Air as my main machine for the meantime. Apple got rid of the restocking fee and also wanted to try out the 11 Air. I just simply loved the portability of the 13 Air, so the 11 would be better for that.

The 15 Pro arrive and I had to return the 11 Air. It was such a big difference going from the two. The 15 is this gargantuan beast of a machine with a large screen and a heavy body while the 11 is this small runt that can do most of what I needed it to do. It's been several months now, and I'm longing for that 11 Air. I've been checking out the Apple store and Craigslist for a good price, and I'm tempted on getting one. Why get one while I have a perfectly awesome Pro? I simply fell in love with the portability. Now that I have school to do, portability is key. I carry the 15 Pro with me everywhere I go, and it just weighs down my backpack so much. I also have a hard time using it on the bus because I'm too paranoid about the spinning hard drive, and it makes me a big target for theft.

How would the logistics work though? Would I carry both laptops at the same time? That would make my backpack even heavier. I'd end up using the 11 Air 90% of the time when school is in session, and then the pro would be used during the summer or winter breaks. In that case, won't it make sense to get a iMac and an 11 Air? I'll have plenty or real estate with the iMac, and I can be mobile with the Air. I've thought about this before i bought my 15 Pro. I consider myself a digital nomad. I don't spend a whole lot of waking time at home. The iMac would hardly be used. At least I can bring the pro with me and then use it.

The most elegant solution is thunderbolt. I could connect an external monitor for editing and a fast external hard drive for storage and backup. The weakest link to this setup is the computing power of the laptop. The most decked out 11 Air is just not powerful enough. The best 13 Air is getting there though, and I'm sure the 15" Macbook Air would be the best compromise to power and portability, but how portable could a 15 air really be? I liked the 11 because of it's small footprint. The 15 Air would still have a large footprint but small weight. It would solve my "backpack too heavy" problem, but I won't consider it portable. And how would the storage work with the 15 Pro? I expect it to be SSD with 256GB as a reasonable option, but that's still not reasonably large enough.

I still haven't made my decision. I might just end up getting an Air for school purposes and using the 15 Pro for larger projects. It just seems like a shame that my Pro would be under-utilized while I have school. That's really the main thing that's stoping me. I don't like inefficiencies, and a Pro and Air combo would be inefficient.