Another photographer's endorsement of the MBA over the MBP.

[cookies!]

I just received my 13" i5/8/256 today. I've been working on it for a few hours, and I have a few observations for any media people who continue to be unsure of which laptop to choose.

1. The screen is fine. I was lucky and received a Samsung screen, but it is very sharp and accurate for a TN panel. Of course, if I do any print work, I'll work on an UltraSharp, but this works fine for all other work. The resolution is quite good— I can barely see the pixels at a normal viewing distance.

2. The GPU performance is more than sufficient. I was worried about moving from a discrete GPU to an Intel, but the HD5000 really impressed me with how quickly and fluidly it worked with CS6 and Lightroom 5.

Overall, I'm extremely pleased with this product. Again, I was lucky it seems— I received a product with the best screen and without a single visible cosmetic defect. Apple has a winner in the '13 MBA, and photographers should not hesitate to pull the trigger.

Edit: In addition, the new SSD interface has really blown me away in terms of performance. I've found it to be significantly faster than my old 2010 with a Crucial M4.

 

[elchorizo]

Thanks for your info. I do all my editing on my Windows machine but I've been thinking of trying LR at least on a Mac. I'm considering the 13" Air too.

How fast does it show full size images when you click on them in the filmstrip or grid view? On my desktop (which is using an M4 as your old machine did) it takes a second or two for my 36mp images to sharpen fully up when I click on one in the grid view and try to view it large.

Congrats on your new machine

 

[cookies!]

Nearly instantaneous. At the most, one half second. This is partially due to the LR5 upgrade from 4, but the new SSD/GPU is really making a difference, I think.

 

[ka-spot]

i'm using base air 2011 for this and have no problems except one little tiny problem... when i convert (say 100) RAWs to JPEGs the Air start the engine and takes off ! (i mean gets hot and noisy)

so try please to convert 100 25MB RAWs to JPEGs with photoshop or lightroom and have fun with the takeoff or tell me if your Air doesn't fly away... then it's special.

 

[cookies!]

i'm using base air 2011 for this and have no problems except one little tiny problem... when i convert (say 100) RAWs to JPEGs the Air start the engine and takes off ! (i mean gets hot and noisy)

so try please to convert 100 25MB RAWs to JPEGs with photoshop or lightroom and have fun with the takeoff or tell me if your Air doesn't fly away... then it's special.

Luckily I rarely convert for long periods of time, but I doubt this laptop can get much hotter than my MBP used to. I was rarely able to use it on my lap, regardless of what I was doing.

 

[mattferg]

i'm using base air 2011 for this and have no problems except one little tiny problem... when i convert (say 100) RAWs to JPEGs the Air start the engine and takes off ! (i mean gets hot and noisy)

so try please to convert 100 25MB RAWs to JPEGs with photoshop or lightroom and have fun with the takeoff or tell me if your Air doesn't fly away... then it's special.

I'd be interested to see whether the 2013 Air's fans take off, considering they're rarely on anyways.

 

[cookies!]

I'd be interested to see whether the 2013 Air's fans take off, considering they're rarely on anyways.

I'm running Netflix, which used to set my Macbook Pro off on a fan rampage, and my MBA is still cool to the touch with no fan speed increase! Wow!

 

[nordicappeal]

When I travel i also only use the MBA but home in the studio I would not want to be without my Mac Pro. Anyway I've done half a year on the road with the MBA and external drives as storage so the MBA will take you far.