{"id":538,"date":"2013-07-21T12:05:17","date_gmt":"2013-07-21T12:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesixsides.com\/?p=538"},"modified":"2013-07-21T12:05:17","modified_gmt":"2013-07-21T12:05:17","slug":"one-month-of-use-review-11-macbook-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thesixsides.com\/blog\/2013\/07\/21\/one-month-of-use-review-11-macbook-air\/","title":{"rendered":"One Month of Use Review: 11″ MacBook Air"},"content":{"rendered":"

I got a late 2008 Unibody MacBook<\/a> only a few weeks after it was released in my senior year of high school with the intention that it will last me through college. It’s done exactly that and then some, that is, I’m still using it. In July 2013 I went to Iceland and realized that lugging the 13″ aluminum block around wouldn’t work out. The department I went with just got a new 11″ MacBook with a Haswell chip<\/a>, I moved all my important documents and workspace preferences on there from the 13″ and I’ve been using it this last month, here’s what I think. It’s amazing.<\/p>\n

\"tops\"<\/a>
The 11″ on my 13″<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At first the screen seems extremely small. Turns out its just the right size to read, write, and develop on. Thanks to multiple desktops in OSX and window snapping in BetterTouchTool<\/a>, surprisingly screen real estate has not been an issue. I’m editing the final draft of this post back on the 13″ Macbook and the first thing I noticed is that all the UI elements are automagically scaled down on the 11″. In Chrome for example, the size of the tab bar and omnibar is smaller by about 30 pixels.<\/p>\n

\".\"<\/a>
I actually missed the black border.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The whole laptop is very very light and compact. So much so that a 13″ MacBook Air now seems heavy by comparison. The downside of this is that the keyboard is a little crunched up particularly the modifier keys and the F buttons. A few people have complained that the trackpad is a little small, I use the highest sensitivity options on the trackpad so it hasn’t been an issue for me.<\/p>\n

\"So<\/a>
So much more sleeker.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"trackpad\"<\/a>
The backlit keyboard is great too, can’t imagine a laptop without it.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are two big hardware issues I have. The first is with the 802.11ac wifi<\/a> antenna. There’s an asterisk on Apple’s website about the 802.11ac antenna, it’s still an IEEE draft specification. In the last month I’ve intermittently have had dropped connection problems where my peers with devices using 802.11n have not. In one case I could not connect to the router at all while everyone else and my iPod Touch did.<\/p>\n

The second issue stems from what I believe is the Intel 5000 graphics chip (or drivers). There are occasions where the screen simply turns off, it’s not asleep, it’s distinctly deactivated. Usually it turns right back on, but there was one case where I had to hold down the power button to reset the device. I have a feeling it’s the graphics chip either software or hardware side of things.<\/p>\n

\"Just<\/a>
Just over a kilogram, the 13″ would overload the scale.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’d expect a patch for the hardware issues to come as they can be pretty serious, particularly if you’re traveling and connecting to new routers every day.\u00a0In short the computer does everything I need it to. The two hardware issues mentioned above are actually what’s holding me back from getting it instantly. \u00a0If you’re looking for a very portable laptop that is still competent in day to day tasks \u00a0(oh, and doesn’t have Windows 8)\u00a0the 11″ MacBook Air is an obvious answer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I got a late 2008 Unibody MacBook only a few weeks after it was released in my senior year of high school with the intention that it will last me through college. It’s done exactly that and then some, that is, I’m still using it. In July 2013 I went to Iceland and realized that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[31],"class_list":["post-538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesixsides.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesixsides.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesixsides.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesixsides.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesixsides.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesixsides.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesixsides.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesixsides.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesixsides.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}