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AnandTech review out for MBA

Wow, 25% hotter than the 2010 MBP, that's progress!
 

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That's max temperature while playing a game... Most of the MBA users will not play games and even if they do, the high temp is something they should have been aware of at the time of purchase.

It's a thin and quite fast notebook for God's sake! Of course it gets hot when you push with intensive tasks... Also, it's a lot faster than the 2010 MBA so your ironic remark is not really significant.
 
Nice review, as always. I notice the comments on his site are a bit negative, though, complaining that he sounds like a fanboy. I disagree. He was pretty blunt about the differences between the LG and Samsung displays, as well as how much better the ASUS display is.

Interestingly, the Toshiba is the faster drive, except if you are using FileVault 2 or other incompressible data.
 
KPOM said:
Nice review, as always. I notice the comments on his site are a bit negative, though, complaining that he sounds like a fanboy. I disagree. He was pretty blunt about the differences between the LG and Samsung displays, as well as how much better the ASUS display is.

Interestingly, the Toshiba is the faster drive, except if you are using FileVault 2 or other incompressible data.
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Oh, look, it's the guy who is trying to steal my position as the SSD guy :D Just kidding, thanks on my behalf as well for the extra SSD scores.

Every time we publish something about Apple there are comments about how we are biased and "what happened to the old days when AT was actually a PC hardware site".
 
It it clear to anybody if the i7 and i5 processors were made to perform the same number of tasks in a given time interval, or if the i7 performed more tasks given its faster clock rate? That would tell us if the i7 is actually less efficient than the i5 one, or not.
 
Hellhammer said:
Oh, look, it's the guy who is trying to steal my position as the SSD guy :D Just kidding, thanks on my behalf as well for the extra SSD scores.
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Yes, I noticed some familiar data.
 
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clyde2801 said:
What? Nobody addressed the LG vs. Samsung display comparison on the review?

Or are we all just too :censored: tired of that debate?
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Probably the latter. However, in any case he did mention that a decent calibration minimizes the difference.
 
Nice review Hellhammer/other Anandtech folk.

It wasn't as obsessively systematic that, speaking as a nerd, I'd have liked eg benchmarks didn't always include both i5/i7 models of both 11" and 13", no AUO panel tests. Nevertheless it answered questions no other site has adequately answered before, eg the not insignificant difference in battery between 13" i5 and 13" i7.
 
Jobsian said:
Nevertheless it answered questions no other site has adequately answered before, eg the not insignificant difference in battery between 13" i5 and 13" i7.
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Yeah, 3.7%. Much less than the alleged 20% difference Engadget claims between the 2.3 GHz and 2.6 GHz Retina Pros (similar 10% difference in performance).
 
Why is the 2011 13" MBA missing from their battery life graphs? It surely would be more useful to compare the 2012 13" MBA to a 2011 13" MBA than to a 2010 15" MBP.
 
oneMadRssn said:
Why is the 2011 13" MBA missing from their battery life graphs? It surely would be more useful to compare the 2012 13" MBA to a 2011 13" MBA than to a 2010 15" MBP.
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He changed his tests from last year and hasn't had a chance to run the full suite yet. It's explained in the review.
 
The LG calibration profile in the review seem to be the best one yet for my screen :)
 
Wokis said:
The LG calibration profile in the review seem to be the best one yet for my screen :)
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The Samsung however somehow seems to be off ... Do not get the impression it improves on my current Samsung profile. Can anyone confirm?
 
Hellhammer said:
Oh, look, it's the guy who is trying to steal my position as the SSD guy :D Just kidding, thanks on my behalf as well for the extra SSD scores.

Every time we publish something about Apple there are comments about how we are biased and "what happened to the old days when AT was actually a PC hardware site".
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Hi Kristian,

I love Anandtech's reviews, but I do have a minor issue with this one. Could you please pass on to Anand that it would be most useful if he included which models were tested. Some of the charts have this and some don't.

Thanks.
 
macbook123 said:
Yeah, 3.7%. Much less than the alleged 20% difference Engadget claims between the 2.3 GHz and 2.6 GHz Retina Pros (similar 10% difference in performance).
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True, but rather than go to the effort of calculating percentage difference (only a relative measure), it's easier and more informative just to look at the time difference (absolute measure) as posted by Anand:

47766.png


47767.png


That's what I mean by not insignificant. In terms of percentage difference the number is tiny, but that's not very informative. My real-world take away is that I could kill a full TV show's worth of time on a flight with the i5 over the i7.


If I had seen this review before I purchased my MBA, I would have almost certainly gone for the i5 instead.
 
Jobsian said:
If I had seen this review before I purchased my MBA, I would have almost certainly gone for the i5 instead.
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On the positive side, there is a bigger jump in CPU performance between the i5 and the i7 in the 13" than there was last year.
 
Great review as always, my main concern is the wireless performance being 2x2 as opposed to my former MBP which was 3x3.

I guess I'll have to run some hardcore stream tests when my MBA gets here.
 
wditters said:
The Samsung however somehow seems to be off ... Do not get the impression it improves on my current Samsung profile. Can anyone confirm?
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Yep, Samsung profile is way off. The colors look washed out with that profile, I am keeping my stock profile.
 
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