1.Apple Macbook Pro MD101HN/A 13-inch Laptop (Core i5/4GB/500GB/Mac OS Mavericks/Intel HD Graphics), Silver
FEATURES
- 2.5GHz Intel Core i5 Processor
- 4GB DDR3 RAM
- 500GB 5400rpm Hard drive
- 13-inch Screen, Intel HD Graphics 4000
- Mac OS X Mavericks Operating system
- 1 Thunder bolt port
PERFORMANCE:
Be assured that this product will never outperform any product from the 2015 line for Macbook Pros. Here's why,
1. RAM clock-speed: 1600MHz DDR3 vs 1866MHz LPDDR3
2. CPU: 3rd Gen 2.5GHz dual-core vs 5th Gen 2.7GHz dual-core
3. Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4000 vs Intel HD Graphics 6100
Nothing very significant so far but the most important factor is,
4. HDD: 5400rpm SATA vs PCIe-based flash storage
But I'm pretty sure that it will do your job. WHY?
If your job demands very high or if you were not considering price and gauging a VFM quotient, you would not be reading this review or be interested in this product in the first place. So I can somehow assure that this device won't affect your productivity by any significant margin.
Be assured that this product will never outperform any product from the 2015 line for Macbook Pros. Here's why,
1. RAM clock-speed: 1600MHz DDR3 vs 1866MHz LPDDR3
2. CPU: 3rd Gen 2.5GHz dual-core vs 5th Gen 2.7GHz dual-core
3. Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4000 vs Intel HD Graphics 6100
Nothing very significant so far but the most important factor is,
4. HDD: 5400rpm SATA vs PCIe-based flash storage
But I'm pretty sure that it will do your job. WHY?
If your job demands very high or if you were not considering price and gauging a VFM quotient, you would not be reading this review or be interested in this product in the first place. So I can somehow assure that this device won't affect your productivity by any significant margin.
2.Apple MacBook Air MJVE2HN/A 13-inch Laptop (Core i5/4GB/128GB/OS X Yosemite/Intel HD 6000)
FEATURES
- Intel Core i5 processor
- Intel HD Graphics 6000
- Up to 12 hours of battery life1 (13-inch model)
- 802.11ac Wi-Fi
- Multi-Touch trackpad and 1 year manufacturer warranty
PERFORMANCE
1. After 6 months of use, it has not slowed down or given me any trouble of any kind at all. It super easy and user friendly and its very east to switch from Windows to Mac, which is what I did. So don't worry about that, easy as pie.
BUILT:
Lets just get to the USP of the Macbook Air, it's unbelievably thin and for it's full Aluminium body, it's pretty light, but not overly so. It feels sturdy and durable. My previous HP was like a rock and I do not miss it at all. The metallic body feels great and does not scratch.
BATTERY:
It's awesome. I DO work on my Macbook quite extensively, If I'm not doing reports or writing emails, then I'm blasting the speakers at full volume pretty much 5-6 hrs a day. And even after all of that, I only charge it once in two days, and the charging speed is pretty good too, so I'm super happy with that. There are several tricks to keep your battery going as long as possible, keep the brightness down, keep the keyboard backlight down, turn off the wifi when you are not using it, etc. I DO not do all of this, just while I'm travelling. Also the battery does NOT drain during the sleep mode. How dandy is that?!
DISPLAY:
It's pretty crisp and clear at 127 PPI, but don't expect Retina quality at this price range. Even so It's pretty good for me and I am not a gamer so I'm not particularly concerned about the graphics quality. To each his own I guess. I watch a lot of movies and series though and I've never felt that the picture quality was not good enough. It's definitely a treat to watch Blu Ray's in it.
SPEAKERS:
I previously owned a HP laptop with BEATS AUDIO and i'll have to confess nothing will compare to that. But let's be honest that's Beats and it is unbeatable. Having said that, I still feel that the Macbook Air Speakers pack quite a punch and are pretty powerful for a set of speakers that are not even visible ( they are hidden underneath the hinge), and it's a quite an ingenious design. They are loud enough for my mom to shout from the other room to turn the volume down. The sound quality is very good as well. No complaints there.
KEYBOARD AND TRACKPAD:
Track pad is multi touch and so much fun to operate and easy to do so. It's super efficient and smooth and I have never had a problem or complaint with it.
The Keyboard is well built and what I really like is that the keys are well spaced out, and not very close to each other, which makes typing very very easy and honestly, this has made the biggest difference for me cause I've always been terrible at typing and with this Keyboard I've really really improved, I'm not kidding right now. The backlight feature is good so you can type easily in bad light or even in the dark.
SOFTWARE AND PERFORMANCE.
El Capitan is now here and I upgraded a few months back when It came out. It's super smooth and easy to use as was the previous system and one of the major differences is that you can open and work in two multiple apps at the same time using Split View and this is seriously awesome. While typing my reports its honestly very irritating when you have to close and reopen some windows multiple times, to keep finding the info that you're typing.
PAGES is the WORD equivalent and very easy to use. You can convert it into a word doc or any other doc with the click of a button and same with Numbers( Convert to Excel easily) and Keynote (convert to PPT easily). I do not miss Microsoft office even though I have a lot of reports and data sheets to work on. At least you don't have to purchase them, they come preinstalled, unlike Microsoft Office (yes I'm looking at you Microsoft).
The system has never hanged or stopped midway and I have never felt the need to put an antivirus in it. Boot time is super fast, around 7 seconds I think? And it wakes up from sleep like lightening.
If you're still reading then I'm presuming that by now you're probably thinking she's some kind of an Apple fangirl. Well no, as far as Apple is concerned, I'm not really into them that much as a lot of people are, and I respect that. Like I said previously, To each his own. But even I know enough to confidently say that the Macbook Air is one of the best laptops in the market right now. It's probably a bit more pricey than other Laptops, but I feel it covers up for that with it's performance. I'm probably forgetting to mention something in the review but I'll be sure to update it later if I have some essential feedback. Cheers!
BUILT:
Lets just get to the USP of the Macbook Air, it's unbelievably thin and for it's full Aluminium body, it's pretty light, but not overly so. It feels sturdy and durable. My previous HP was like a rock and I do not miss it at all. The metallic body feels great and does not scratch.
BATTERY:
It's awesome. I DO work on my Macbook quite extensively, If I'm not doing reports or writing emails, then I'm blasting the speakers at full volume pretty much 5-6 hrs a day. And even after all of that, I only charge it once in two days, and the charging speed is pretty good too, so I'm super happy with that. There are several tricks to keep your battery going as long as possible, keep the brightness down, keep the keyboard backlight down, turn off the wifi when you are not using it, etc. I DO not do all of this, just while I'm travelling. Also the battery does NOT drain during the sleep mode. How dandy is that?!
DISPLAY:
It's pretty crisp and clear at 127 PPI, but don't expect Retina quality at this price range. Even so It's pretty good for me and I am not a gamer so I'm not particularly concerned about the graphics quality. To each his own I guess. I watch a lot of movies and series though and I've never felt that the picture quality was not good enough. It's definitely a treat to watch Blu Ray's in it.
SPEAKERS:
I previously owned a HP laptop with BEATS AUDIO and i'll have to confess nothing will compare to that. But let's be honest that's Beats and it is unbeatable. Having said that, I still feel that the Macbook Air Speakers pack quite a punch and are pretty powerful for a set of speakers that are not even visible ( they are hidden underneath the hinge), and it's a quite an ingenious design. They are loud enough for my mom to shout from the other room to turn the volume down. The sound quality is very good as well. No complaints there.
KEYBOARD AND TRACKPAD:
Track pad is multi touch and so much fun to operate and easy to do so. It's super efficient and smooth and I have never had a problem or complaint with it.
The Keyboard is well built and what I really like is that the keys are well spaced out, and not very close to each other, which makes typing very very easy and honestly, this has made the biggest difference for me cause I've always been terrible at typing and with this Keyboard I've really really improved, I'm not kidding right now. The backlight feature is good so you can type easily in bad light or even in the dark.
SOFTWARE AND PERFORMANCE.
El Capitan is now here and I upgraded a few months back when It came out. It's super smooth and easy to use as was the previous system and one of the major differences is that you can open and work in two multiple apps at the same time using Split View and this is seriously awesome. While typing my reports its honestly very irritating when you have to close and reopen some windows multiple times, to keep finding the info that you're typing.
PAGES is the WORD equivalent and very easy to use. You can convert it into a word doc or any other doc with the click of a button and same with Numbers( Convert to Excel easily) and Keynote (convert to PPT easily). I do not miss Microsoft office even though I have a lot of reports and data sheets to work on. At least you don't have to purchase them, they come preinstalled, unlike Microsoft Office (yes I'm looking at you Microsoft).
The system has never hanged or stopped midway and I have never felt the need to put an antivirus in it. Boot time is super fast, around 7 seconds I think? And it wakes up from sleep like lightening.
If you're still reading then I'm presuming that by now you're probably thinking she's some kind of an Apple fangirl. Well no, as far as Apple is concerned, I'm not really into them that much as a lot of people are, and I respect that. Like I said previously, To each his own. But even I know enough to confidently say that the Macbook Air is one of the best laptops in the market right now. It's probably a bit more pricey than other Laptops, but I feel it covers up for that with it's performance. I'm probably forgetting to mention something in the review but I'll be sure to update it later if I have some essential feedback. Cheers!
TOP 100 REVIEWERon 7 August 2015
I was in the market for a laptop after my old Dell kicked. The prime criteria for me was it had to be thin and light (preferably without a DVD drive; seriously, it's 2015!), be of really good built quality (my Dell had patches of paint coming off) and have great battery life (another source of frustration). With Windows 10 sounding exciting, I was looking for Windows laptops like the Dell XPS 13 or the Surface 3. Another option that struck me was the Lenovo U41, which sounded good in paper as a great budget option. Then came the thought: why not buy a MacBook and be done with it? I don't play games, ever; so definitely don't need some killer graphics. It has a benchmark battery life and is very much portable. Surface 3 is unfortunately not available in India, nor is XPS 13 without the touchscreen. I skipped the U41 and landed straight into OS X territory with my first Mac. This brings us to the actual review:
BUILT: Unbelievably thin, unbelievably light. And I can't stress this point enough. Ever felt the need of casually tucking your laptop in a messenger bag and go grab a cup of coffee? This is a godsend for those purposes. The built is textbook Apple and I'll stop right there.
DISPLAY: At 127 PPI it's nowhere near Retina territory, and frankly pixels are visible in small texts.But it's still miles better than the horrible 1366/768 resolution that every damn piece of Windows PCs pack in their gigantic 15.6" displays. Compare the font rendering of Windows 10 and OS X and you'll be taken aback at how horrible the Windows ones look. Viewing angles are pretty good considering its a TN panel and not IPS. Colors cover about 60% of the Adobe gamut so a tad dull. But so are most other displays at this range. I just wish they trim the bezels a little in the next generation, it's distractingly huge (but pretty).
INPUT: The keyboard is charm to type. Keys have great travel, are well-separated and backlighting is good (although a little bluish for my taste). The trackpad is the greatest trackpad in the history of trackpads (barring the Force Touch trackpad found on the MBPs). It's very precise, almost like a capacitive touchscreen. Combine that with the cool (and lifesaver) multitouch gestures in OS X and you'll never buy a PC again. Webcam is okay (could use a higher res) but dynamic range is still better than most webcams I checked. I just wish they added one more USB port or an HDMI, but whatever.
PERFORMANCE: I'll cut short here and just say it has never stuttered on me. The Broadwell Core i5 glides through all day-to-day tasks and is helped immensely by the PCIe SSD. Boot times are 8-10 seconds from cold and 1 second from sleep. RAM felt adequate too for my needs. The caveat I hope they improve is let go the 128GB as the base model, which is too low for todays' standards. If you want a better review, check out Anandtech or a host of other sites. The speakers are hidden beneath the hinge of the clamshell, just opposite to the air vents, and seems like a very clever design choice. The system never actually heated up, even during multi-core processing; and I never heard the fan running audibly. And, I may sound a little fanboyish here, but the speakers are one of the best speakers I've listened to on a laptop.
BATTERY LIFE: Apple doesn't exaggerate when they say it gives 12h battery life. I have this weird situation now where my smartphone dies quicker while this laptop runs without cords like a monster. The Broadwell chip being a ULV processor with an extremely low TDP, has a major role in maintaining such battery backup. Even after watching a couple of movies and TV shows, the battery gave ~8h of juice, which is unbelievable. Oh, and battery drain during sleep is zilch, zero, nada.
BUILT: Unbelievably thin, unbelievably light. And I can't stress this point enough. Ever felt the need of casually tucking your laptop in a messenger bag and go grab a cup of coffee? This is a godsend for those purposes. The built is textbook Apple and I'll stop right there.
DISPLAY: At 127 PPI it's nowhere near Retina territory, and frankly pixels are visible in small texts.But it's still miles better than the horrible 1366/768 resolution that every damn piece of Windows PCs pack in their gigantic 15.6" displays. Compare the font rendering of Windows 10 and OS X and you'll be taken aback at how horrible the Windows ones look. Viewing angles are pretty good considering its a TN panel and not IPS. Colors cover about 60% of the Adobe gamut so a tad dull. But so are most other displays at this range. I just wish they trim the bezels a little in the next generation, it's distractingly huge (but pretty).
INPUT: The keyboard is charm to type. Keys have great travel, are well-separated and backlighting is good (although a little bluish for my taste). The trackpad is the greatest trackpad in the history of trackpads (barring the Force Touch trackpad found on the MBPs). It's very precise, almost like a capacitive touchscreen. Combine that with the cool (and lifesaver) multitouch gestures in OS X and you'll never buy a PC again. Webcam is okay (could use a higher res) but dynamic range is still better than most webcams I checked. I just wish they added one more USB port or an HDMI, but whatever.
PERFORMANCE: I'll cut short here and just say it has never stuttered on me. The Broadwell Core i5 glides through all day-to-day tasks and is helped immensely by the PCIe SSD. Boot times are 8-10 seconds from cold and 1 second from sleep. RAM felt adequate too for my needs. The caveat I hope they improve is let go the 128GB as the base model, which is too low for todays' standards. If you want a better review, check out Anandtech or a host of other sites. The speakers are hidden beneath the hinge of the clamshell, just opposite to the air vents, and seems like a very clever design choice. The system never actually heated up, even during multi-core processing; and I never heard the fan running audibly. And, I may sound a little fanboyish here, but the speakers are one of the best speakers I've listened to on a laptop.
BATTERY LIFE: Apple doesn't exaggerate when they say it gives 12h battery life. I have this weird situation now where my smartphone dies quicker while this laptop runs without cords like a monster. The Broadwell chip being a ULV processor with an extremely low TDP, has a major role in maintaining such battery backup. Even after watching a couple of movies and TV shows, the battery gave ~8h of juice, which is unbelievable. Oh, and battery drain during sleep is zilch, zero, nada.
No comments:
Post a Comment