I recently replaced my MacBook Air with a MacBook Pro, with some surprising results
If you work in the tech industry in the Bay Area, toting a MacBook Air laptop is practically a requirement. For several years now, they’ve been standard equipment for tech workers, entrepreneurs and seemingly everyone else in San Francisco and Silicon Valley.
Armadas of the silvery machines, often individualized with colorful stickers for tech startups and rock bands, festoon co-working spaces and coffee shops from Santa Cruz to Petaluma. They’re light enough that techies typically carry them from meeting to meeting opened, casually dangling from a corner—it’s a wonder hundreds of them aren’t damaged every day.
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Until recently, I, too, carried an Air almost everywhere I went—though my device had stickers only on the bottom, which doesn’t seem to be a popular choice. But last month I upgraded my 3-year-old Air for a brand-new MacBook Pro, and I noticed a number of surprising differences I’d like to share.
Now, this is not a formal review—there have been plenty of those since the new MacBook Pro debuted in October 2016. Instead, I want to describe some specific impressions of the changes in user experience between the two similar models. Let’s start with the good stuff:
5 things I like about the MacBook Pro
1. It’s faster. No, I mean really, significantly, noticeably faster. It boots faster, the apps load faster, everything runs faster. That’s the biggest and most welcome difference.
2. The high-resolution screen is awesome. It’s bright, detailed and easy on the eyes, while the narrow black bezel makes the whole package look better. I didn’t know how much I hated the Air’s screen until I got the Pro.
3. The giant new trackpad is (mostly) amazing. It’s very sensitive and makes working without a mouse much easier. Only occasionally does it balk at selecting something, but gestures almost always function flawlessly. Oh, and it’s huuuge!
4. It sounds significantly better. With a bit more room for speakers, the MacBook Pro is actually listenable without headphones or an external speaker. It’s hardly hi-fi, but unlike the Macbook Air, it’s good enough—and loud enough—to do the trick in many circumstances.
5. Siri. I didn’t think Apple’s voice assistant would be useful on a laptop, but I was wrong. Activated by a soft button on the Touch Bar, I actually find myself using Siri to answer questions, search the web and other tasks—at least I do so when I’m working in a private location, not in an open floor plan office where talking to your computer might be considered a bit rude. (Other than the Siri button, though, the TouchBar didn’t really impress me one way or the other.)
Of course, nothing is perfect, there were just as many things that bugged me about the new machine.
5 things I don’t like about the MacBook Pro
1. It’s chunkier. The Macbook Pro weighs just over 3 pounds, while the Macbook Air falls just under that figure. And the Pro has a more squared design instead of the Air’s sharp wedge shape. The differences might sound minor, but I found them surprisingly noticeable, especially when carrying the machine around the office.
2. The keyboard is super noisy. No one talks about this on their own, but when I bring it up, everyone instantly agrees: The Macbook Pro keyboard is loud! It’s gotten so bad that I’ve been accused of “angry typing” in meetings—when I’m just trying to take some notes.
3. It runs hot. For some reason, my Macbook Pro sometimes gets very toasty, particularly when using it on my lap. We’re not talking Galaxy Note 7 explosive, but often uncomfortably warm.
4. The battery life seems shorter. Apple rates the Pro at up to 10 hours of battery life, as opposed to 12 hours for the Air. Not sure why, and there’s been some , but in my experience the rated difference doesn’t begin to describe the situation.
5. Cordpocalypse! This issue has been well documented, but the issue is very real. , but in the present it’s super annoying to use a machine that never seems to be able to connect to anything. My office conference rooms have Mac power connectors, for example, but I can’t use them, which only exacerbates that battery issue. Similarly, connecting external monitors, keyboards, etc. is also iffy, unless I want to lug around a bunch of awkward adapters. I get what Apple is trying to do, but the actual experience, at least in the short term, sucks.
On balance, I’m happy to have “upgraded.” The faster speed and beautiful screen pretty much make up for any of the issues. Now that I’ve finally made the change, though, I’m thinking maybe I need a different machine for personal use. I’m thinking I should at least review something running Windows 10!
