Typing this on my new macbook to test the keyboard as much as anything! One word. Beautiful. This is great machine, it'll be perfect for me I know it.
Reading around I completely understand many peoples skepticism over this thing but i look back at the now famous thread on macrumors about the original iPod with people throwing up their hands in disbelief at what Apple had dared to do. Also when Apple dropped the disc drive - when was the last time you used a physical CD? I literally have no way to play a CD these days other than through a playstation. This is something new, it's progress, it's a step in to the future. Honestly I can probably count on the fingers of 1 hand the number of times i've used a usb thumb drive in the last year. I do use an SD card from time to time for pictures and moving files around but personally I have a mac mini for uploading in to the cloud and then I can download from there. I'm also perfectly prepared to buy a little dongle for $50 in few months from Amazon that perhaps has an SD card slot and some ("legacy" i guess we can now call it) usb ports. But really to paraphrase someone I read on here a while ago - if you're using thumb drives and the like in this day and age you're doing it all wrong - clouds are not just the future, they are the present. Get on board if you can! Wifi is ubiquitous these days. I like the trackpad - no need for a mouse. I love this keyboard, so punchy and beautifully backlit.
Performance I haven't really had a chance to test yet. I bought the 1.2GHz 512GB model (I was going to go for the 256GB model but they didn't have it in space grey in stock which I was really set on getting (sorry but that gold version is just tacky IMO lol). I was really close to buying the rMBP because of the bang for buck arguments but really I think people vastly overestimate their CPU needs (and probably underestimate their RAM needs - I wouldn't have touched this if it only had 4GB RAM/128GB SSD config). Sure I can claim I spend hours editing video, stressing photoshop to its limits etc but i'd be lying. I'm not a "power user" at home - at work I'm lucky enough to have probably one of the most powerful machines you can build (I shudder to think what my company paid for it). Sure I'd love to run the same software I have at work - but really am I going to. No. I probably will install Maya or Houdini and have a play with it to test out ideas - that's all I do these days at home, but this is not what this is for. If it turns out to be slow for 'everyday' tasks I'd be very surprised.
The screen is flawless, the speakers are out of this world good. Are Apple perhaps using some newly acquired Beats experience to work on their sound performance, all I know is these speakers are incredible.
Also you know what I can probably get a cheaper similarly spec'd notebook that weighs a little more and has the potential to do a little more but in this day and age I don't have time for that BS any more - I want a well integrated ecosystem that I don't have to tinker with and compromise on (sure 1 port is a compromise if you're wanting to stay in a world of physical media - I don't) - I don't see this macbook being a compromise on anything frankly, power sure but if something in photoshop takes 30 seconds rather than 20 who cares!? If a video takes 30 mins to export and render instead of 15 min - sure on paper that looks bad, but really who cares - i'll spend the extra time catching up on email or other things. I know it's probably hypocritical to say saving a few ounces matters but a few extra minutes rendering video doesn't, but that's my position on this, that extra little bit of weight saved does make the difference when you're walking round the office all day from meeting to meeting or when you're walking round the city.
Well that's my typing test about done. Keyboard is really nice to use, it's a bit clicky (which I actually like, not sure my coworkers around me will
) and may take a couple of days to really get up to speed with it, but it's a great step forward from the MBP keyboard I really feel.
Reading around I completely understand many peoples skepticism over this thing but i look back at the now famous thread on macrumors about the original iPod with people throwing up their hands in disbelief at what Apple had dared to do. Also when Apple dropped the disc drive - when was the last time you used a physical CD? I literally have no way to play a CD these days other than through a playstation. This is something new, it's progress, it's a step in to the future. Honestly I can probably count on the fingers of 1 hand the number of times i've used a usb thumb drive in the last year. I do use an SD card from time to time for pictures and moving files around but personally I have a mac mini for uploading in to the cloud and then I can download from there. I'm also perfectly prepared to buy a little dongle for $50 in few months from Amazon that perhaps has an SD card slot and some ("legacy" i guess we can now call it) usb ports. But really to paraphrase someone I read on here a while ago - if you're using thumb drives and the like in this day and age you're doing it all wrong - clouds are not just the future, they are the present. Get on board if you can! Wifi is ubiquitous these days. I like the trackpad - no need for a mouse. I love this keyboard, so punchy and beautifully backlit.
Performance I haven't really had a chance to test yet. I bought the 1.2GHz 512GB model (I was going to go for the 256GB model but they didn't have it in space grey in stock which I was really set on getting (sorry but that gold version is just tacky IMO lol). I was really close to buying the rMBP because of the bang for buck arguments but really I think people vastly overestimate their CPU needs (and probably underestimate their RAM needs - I wouldn't have touched this if it only had 4GB RAM/128GB SSD config). Sure I can claim I spend hours editing video, stressing photoshop to its limits etc but i'd be lying. I'm not a "power user" at home - at work I'm lucky enough to have probably one of the most powerful machines you can build (I shudder to think what my company paid for it). Sure I'd love to run the same software I have at work - but really am I going to. No. I probably will install Maya or Houdini and have a play with it to test out ideas - that's all I do these days at home, but this is not what this is for. If it turns out to be slow for 'everyday' tasks I'd be very surprised.
The screen is flawless, the speakers are out of this world good. Are Apple perhaps using some newly acquired Beats experience to work on their sound performance, all I know is these speakers are incredible.
Also you know what I can probably get a cheaper similarly spec'd notebook that weighs a little more and has the potential to do a little more but in this day and age I don't have time for that BS any more - I want a well integrated ecosystem that I don't have to tinker with and compromise on (sure 1 port is a compromise if you're wanting to stay in a world of physical media - I don't) - I don't see this macbook being a compromise on anything frankly, power sure but if something in photoshop takes 30 seconds rather than 20 who cares!? If a video takes 30 mins to export and render instead of 15 min - sure on paper that looks bad, but really who cares - i'll spend the extra time catching up on email or other things. I know it's probably hypocritical to say saving a few ounces matters but a few extra minutes rendering video doesn't, but that's my position on this, that extra little bit of weight saved does make the difference when you're walking round the office all day from meeting to meeting or when you're walking round the city.
Well that's my typing test about done. Keyboard is really nice to use, it's a bit clicky (which I actually like, not sure my coworkers around me will
) and may take a couple of days to really get up to speed with it, but it's a great step forward from the MBP keyboard I really feel.
