A meaningful improvement over 2010.

My 2012 MBA arrived yesterday and here are test results. It’s the i5/4Gb/128Gb version, for $1,100. Last year’s model ran $1,200 with the 128Gb SSD and only 2Gb of RAM. The battery was 86% charged on receipt. From unboxing to ‘ready to import’ status took 5 minutes. Migration Assistant allowed recovery of all my user settings and applications from the backup for the predecessor 2010 MBA in 12 minutes more while I got on with something else. iCloud now makes setup of mail, calendars and contacts trivial and it’s this robust ecosystem which makes the premium paid, if any, for an OS X or iOS machine worth every penny and more. ‘Ecosystem’ remains a word none in Windows land know to spell and it’s what drives OS X sales to constant quarterly increases, small as they are.

Migration Assistant at work.

The focus of this piece is on performance with Lightroom 4.1.

Here’s Geekbench, 64-bit:

MBA 2012.

The 2010 model was 2205, making the 2012 almost three times as fast. If you get the 8gB model then you can expect a score of 7,000, meaning 16% faster for another $100.

And here’s Cinebench 64-bit:

MBA 2012 and 2010.

The performance is where it’s needed for a Lightroom or Photoshop user, as those applications are far more demanding on CPU (Geekbench) than GPU (Cinebench) performance. And while the Cinebench frame rate is nothing to write home about, the integrated HD4000 GPU in the IvyBridge i5 CPU does not disgrace itself, pausing just once briefly at the start of the movie stress test.

It bears pausing a moment to reflect on that Geekbench score. When my builder FU Steve built the original HP1 Hackintosh three years ago it used a Core2Quad CPU in a large case and delivered a Geekbench score of 6,200, barely faster than the 2.3lb. 2012 MBA. Startling. Add the fact that this is the first MBA with USB3 and Thunderbolt connectors and you are looking at a very capable machine indeed.

Unlike with the 2010 model, no USB thumb drive is included with the 2012. That drive included OS Snow Leopard and allowed recovery if the internal SSD became corrupted. Now you can simply download a new version of the OS (now OS Lion) over wifi. You start the MBA with the corrupted SSD, are asked for your wifi and Apple Store credentials, and can download the OS over the air. I tried it when prepping my 2010 for sale and it took 100 minutes, and worked perfectly. Elegant.

On importing to Lightroom 4.1, this is how the MBA 2012 compares to my nuclear powered HP100 Hackintosh desktop, both using a USB2 SDHC card reader in a USB socket; timings are in seconds for import of 20 Nikon D700 files to the MBA and HP100, respectively:

• Import 20 files: 20/22 (yes, the MBA is a bit faster!)
• Generate 20 1:1 previews and apply lens correction profiles: 135/48

In the 1:1 preview generation – very useful for effective fast processing – the superior RAM of the HP100, all 16gB, blows away the 4gB in the MBA. But still these are, overall, very impressive statistics, with the CPU speed increase a standout.

How about real use? It’s an absolute pleasure using Lightroom 4.1. With the exception of the Noise Reduction Luminance slider, all other sliders respond in real-time. The NR one has a 1-2 second lag. The selective editing brush is immediate. No excuses are needed for the integrated GPU and while the machine can run up the CPU to 160F with stock settings, as always I use the SMC Fan Control utility and set the fan (the one, pathetic, poncy, pusillanimous, microscopic, homunculus of a fan) to a minimum of 4,000rpm, as it’s more than this engineer’s mind can stand to see CPU temperatures that high. Set at 4,000rpm, where it is just audible, the machine gets slightly warm on the lap, nothing more. Left at stock it gets noticeably warm.

Here are the temperatures. Why so many sensors? Because Apple is rightfully terrified that if something fails then a meltdown will result if the problem is not sensed immediately.

Fan minimum set to 4,000rpm.

I turn down SMC Fan Control to 3,500 when not photo-processing, at which speed the 2012 MBA CPU core idles at 120F in a 75F room.

On the MBA, LR4.1 loads in 5 seconds compared to 3 seconds on the HP100. The red brace denotes the area where LR 4.1 was being imported from Adobe. The green brace indicates the import of the 20 RAW files tested above, and their subsequent processing. As you can see, processing causes little heat rise. The mauve uppermost temperature trace is for the i5 CPU core, whose service limit is 192F according to Intel.

What’s not to like? Well, Apple has made a silly retrograde step in reverting to an inline MagSafe power adapter plug, the original design which was the subject of a recall. The 2010 and 2011 MBAs used the superior, sleek right-angled plug which, when oriented with the cable to the rear, allowed easy insertion of any SDHC card in the left USB socket. The new (old) version does not allow that, so you either have to pull the plug or use the right hand USB socket. Doubtless they have reinforced the cable junction which used to fray, but it’s not an improvement.

The other caution would be for users of DSLRs which create very large files, like the Nikon D800. If you are using LR4, generating 1:1 previews is not a good idea. It takes 7 seconds per 12Mb D700 RAW file. The D800 generates 75Mb RAW files. You can do the math. Smaller previews are no big problem on the 11.6″ display but if you are driving a large, external display you will need 1:1 previews, and will have to wait as each is prepared. That will make for a slower workflow.

Tests with Photoshop CS5 appear here.

So the 2012 MBA is a credible and fully usable Lightroom/Photoshop machine where the 2010 was sluggish. If you try the 2012 and are using the 2010, you will want to upgrade. The improvement over the 2011 will be less noticeable. For those just seeking a speedy web and email laptop, the 2010 MBA at $650 used is a great deal.

For other comments, refer to my five-part review of the 2010 MBA which starts here. The ergonomics of the 2010/2011/2012 machines are identical, with one strange exception. The lid/display on the 2010 swivels back some 5 degrees more. The 2012 is not an improvement in that regard. However, by way of atonement, here’s a bit of magic the 2010 does not offer:

Backlit keyboard.

A friend writes: “Dimly lit venues are now fair game for inspiration.” Indeed. Thank you, Gregg.

Finally, disk speed. Here’s Xbench:

That compares to a score of 522 for the SATA3 SSD in the HP100, both representing a 60% speed increase over SATA2 drives like those used in the 2010 and 2011 MBAs. My 2012 MBA uses a Toshiba SSD (denoted by the ‘TS’ in the Xbench screen above), which some have said is slower than the Samsung used in others of the same model.

In conclusion the 2012 MacBook Air is an outstanding laptop, reasonably priced, and one which increasingly asks the question as to why you should pay more for a MacBook Pro. A free upgrade to Mountain Lion will be available in a few days when the latest version of OS X is released.

MBA as your only computer?

For those on a budget, the 2012 MBA can be used as your only computer for photography and all other general tasks. As all MBAs now come with at least 4Gb of memory, the cheapest point of entry is the base 11″ model with a 64Gb SSD ($1,000), a SATA3 500gB external notebook drive ($65), a USB3 enclosure for the drive ($25) and a cheap external 21″ monitor for home processing of snaps ($140) with the required cable ($14). The total of $1,244 gets you a capable Lightroom and Photoshop powerhouse with a large external display for home use. The OS and apps will start very fast owing to the MBA’s SSD. Not at all bad, and with lots of storage not affordable in SSDs at present.

Now I have to go for a hamburger and apple pie, seeing as it’s the anniversary of the greatest day in modern history!

Photoshop CS5 use is addressed here.

Disclosure: Long AAPL January 2013 call options.

Much enhanced.

The 2012 MacBook Air.

My two year old MacBook Air has moved to a happy new home and its replacement arrives tomorrow in the guise of the 2012 model. It has proved trouble free, reliable and a joy to use and rarely gets so hot on your lap that you notice.

I wrote about the 2010 model here concluding that it was a decent, ultra light portable with a fine keyboard and decent Lightroom and Photoshop capabilities.

Once again I have opted for the 11″ model owing to its low weight and handy size, but a little more than related statistics for an iPad. However, this time I opted for 128Gb of SSD rather than the minimum of 64Gb, for an outrageous premium of $100 (market price for 64Gb of RAM is $25) and a total cost of $1,100 delivered from Amazon.

The jump in specifications is non-trivial and confirms again that a two year upgrade cycle on MacBooks and iPads is appropriate. For desktops only a Hackintosh makes sense for my heavy use purposes, and you can read all about the one I use by clicking the Sitemap link at the top of this page. Here are the more obvious changes comparing the 2012 model to the 2010:

• Model MD224LL/A; 2010 is MC505LL/A.
• 4Gb RAM vs. 2Gb
• Low power consumption IvyBridge i5 CPU vs. slower and hungrier Core2Duo
• 1.7GHz CPUclock speed with 2.6GHz boost, compared with 1.4Ghz, no boost
• Backlit keyboard
• Intel HD4000 integrated GPU vs. Nvidia GeForce 320M with 256Mb memory
• HDMI output via adapter vs. none
• 720p HD Facetime camera vs. SD Facetime camera
• Sata3 SSD vs. Sata2 SSD

As before only the 13″ model comes with an SD card slot, so an external USB reader will be needed. Either model requires an external reader if you use CF cards.

Options are very costly and include an i7 CPU for a little more speed (2.0/3.2GHz), 8Gb RAM and a 512Gb SSD. None solve economically for this user.

With an anticipated Geekbench CPU speed score of 6,000 (4Gb RAM) the 2012 model should be some three times as fast on CPU intensive tasks like Lightroom and Photoshop as the 2010 model. That’s a huge increase. Cinebench GPU frame rates should be almost doubled at 18 vs. 10. Another large jump. Disk read/write access should be almost 60% faster, as I noted when upgrading my HackPro’s SSD from SATA2 to SATA3.

In the two years since the 11″ MBA was introduced, it has become the entry level for students everywhere, (at least for those who prefer studying to rebooting their Windows machine) with the white plastic MacBook being discontinued. This is a significant market for Apple both on volume and for first time sales, as many users’ first serious introduction to the Mac ecosystem. Thus it’s no wonder that Apple has not rested on its laurels when improving the model. Last year’s Sandy Bridge model offered a big speed increase and this year’s Ivy Bridge builds on that.

Resale value of the 2010 after two years use is some 65 cents on the dollar, not at all bad for a used computer.

Some first impressions and test data soon when I have unpacked mine.

A mixed bag.

Apple rolled out new MacBook Airs, MacBook Pros and Mac Pros the other day. There is good news and bad news.

Overall: Current MBA, MBP or MP users have little reason to upgrade. Apple is making retrograde steps with regard to user upgradeability and has again started price gouging for extra RAM, like they used to a few years back. As there are no aftermarket solutions they presumably think they can get away with this. What I see is falling profit margins with an attempt to offset these with disingenuous design practice, not to mention a fair leavening of arrogance in the assumption that Windows users will continue to switch, regardless of price. Wrong.

For users with just the one computer, the MBP makes sense, but at a very high price. The MBA is far cheaper, lighter, slower and in the 13″ size will do as a photo-processing tool at a pinch, but I would hate to have to use it exclusively for this purpose.

The MP is for those with access to Other People’s Money only. A high end Hackintosh is a far better machine at 67% off the asking price of the MP.

MacBook Air:

The best news is that all but the $999 11″ base model have dropped $100 in price. All support turbo boost of the CPU from 1.7/1.8gHz to 2.6/2.8gHz, best used when connected to the mains owing to the increased power draw. RAM can be doubled to 8gB for $100, a 300% premium to the aftermarket ($25) and not user replaceable; likewise the SSD is 64/128/256 at purchase and cannot be changed. So get it right when you buy your MBA. For the budget conscious photographer, the optimum price point is the 13″ MBA with the 128gB SSD and 8gB of RAM for $1,299. Use an external 2.5″ notebook HDD for external high volume storage, some $75 for 500gB and another $5-10 for an USB enclosure. RAM is speedy 1600mHz.

The integrated Intel HD 4000 GPU is an excellent choice for still photography editing, the glossy screen does you no favors, the machine has a 7 hour battery life and weighs a scant 3lbs. My 11″ MBA (Oct 2010) has had 18 months’ moderate use and is holding up fine, with no signs of failing. The latest MBA is some three times as fast on CPU throughput.

Finally, the SSDs in the MBA are SATA3 6gb/s variants. That is a good thing.

MacBook Pro:

The big hue and cry, replete with all the usual increasingly tiresome Apple hype, is the Retina Display option. Whoever writes this crap most certainly did not read his adjective-free Hemingway.

More hype than most religions.

The Retina Display comes at a substantial premium for its 2880 x 1800 pixels – $300 more compared to the similar regular MBP. The photographer who has no other display handy may find this economically feasible, though 15″ is a small screen for long editing sessions. However, the RD’s maximum definition is only supported by two photo editing apps at present – iPhoto and Aperture. If you are a Photoshop or Lightroom maven, then until Adobe updates their apps you will not get the RD’s best definition. Adobe has said PS will take several months to adapt, with no news on LR yet. RD type displays would have to reach broad acceptance for this to make economic sense for Adobe. As there’s no love lost between the two businesses, it looks like a low priority project. If you use Aperture fine. I have found Aperture to impose extreme demands on hardware and abandoned it long ago for the speedy and far more logically designed Lightroom which pokes along just fine even on my slow, 2010 MacBook Air.

The RD MBP gets very costly if you max it out and it’s the only MBP which permits the use of 16gB of RAM. The regular display version only goes to 8gB. If you frequently round-trip from LR to PS and keep multiple PS files opened, you will notice the difference. Further, as the memory and SSD are soldered in, there is no possibility for the user to upgrade, and Apple will rip you off for $200 to go from 8 to 16gB, when comparably priced RAM sells for $50 in the aftermarket. That’s the same 300% premium as in the 4->8gB MBA upgrade. The good news is that RAM is speedy 1600mHz.

While the previous MacBook Pro permitted installation of a second disk drive – HDD or SSD – if the optical drive was removed, the new one offers no such option. The chassis has been slimmed down with the removal of the DVD player so the space for a second drive is no longer available. You will need to use an external drive.

How much? The 16gB RAM model with 768gB of SSD storage will run you $3,750. That’s a huge sum for an elegant portable which screams ‘steal me’. It comes in one size, 15″.

The regular MBP continues with HDD and SSD options. Same limitation on user replacement of the RAM, though the HDD should be possible, if not especially easy. A 15″ with a 1tB HDD and 8gB of RAM costs $2,550. That still seems awfully expensive to me. It should be easy to hack a comparable Dell laptop to run OS X for much less with identical screen definition and operating speed.

Both MBPs offer integrated or discrete GPUs but, once again, the integrated HD4000 is now so good that the separate GPU is really only required for video editing, so if you are a stills-only photographer you are paying for something you do not need. It is not an option.

All MBPs and MBAs boast Thunderbolt connectivity. Judging by the very slow takeup of this technology by peripeherals manufacturers this technology is a bust and the high price of the peripherals – displays and disk drives – will accelerate its demise. Not a selling feature as there’s very little out there using it. Be prepared to buy an adapter for your external display.

Turbo boost on all the MBPs takes stock speeds of 2.5/2.9gHz up to 3.1/3.6, which can be really worthwhile when connected to the mains. Battery life on regular and RD displays is limited to 7 hours, and Apple appears to be building a smaller battery into the regular display version so as not to cannibalize the RD one. The RD is much more power-hungry.

I tried the MBP with the RD at the local Apple Store and was underwhelmed. (The software was incomplete and I could only try the machine on maximum definition – the definition selector was missing). It’s less of an obvious jump in definition than going from iPad1 to iPad3. Mercifully, Apple doubles font sizes to resemble the size of those on a regular screen or else nothing would be readable. The glossy screen remains sub-optimal (the one I tried in the Apple Store had the sunny street behind me and had to be relocated to be useable) and at this time there’s no indication of a matte option. Another blow for photographers. But it’s the only way of getting 16gB of RAM so if this is to be your only machine, the premium may make sense if you are a heavy LR + PS user.

Mac Pro:

The purported update to this Xeon CPU workhorse is an exercise in cynicism. The machine may have a very capable multi-threading CPU but the rest continues to underwhelm. Maximum memory speed is 1333mHz, or 20% slower than the MBP, and drive connectivity is still SATA2, meaning 3gb/s compared to SATA3 and 6gb/s in the MBP and MBA. For movie makers moving large data files that’s awful. What’s worse is that later Xeon CPUs and disk drive chips supporting these technologies are available, yet Apple chose not to use the newer Xeon. It rather looks like the Mac Pro is finished and at the price asked any half competent geek should be building an Ivy Bridge Hackintosh.

Apple’s CEO has promised an improved MP 18 months hence, by which time every current MP will be a dinosaur. I don’t know that I believe him. Face it, the money for Apple is in iOS.

Conclusion:

The MacBook Airs represent excellent value and performance for the money coupled with light weight. Speeds are now adequate to use the latest MBA at home to drive a large external monitor for heavy photo processing. Memory is limited to 8gB which is a shame.

Apple is getting ahead of itself and building premium priced machines in the MacBook Pro which are answering questions – especially with the Retina Display – with technology no one is asking for and few can afford. Simply stated, it’s more definition than you need or can use. Serious photography users will use a larger external display with a matte screen and one whose gamut is far wider than the MBP’s, further making the Retina Display option pointless. Sadly, this costly display option is the only way to get 16gB of memory.

I would expect the MBA to materially cannibalize sales of the costlier MBP. The cost of upgrade options for both – none are user installable – represents an unwelcome return to Apple’s days of predatory pricing.

The Mac Pro is a waste of money using three-year old CPU, RAM and disk drive technologies. Newer high-end PCs provide a better alternative for those into heavy movie processing. If you are a Final Cut Pro user, a high end Hackintosh is better in every regard. It is, after all, nothing but a PC running OS X, meaning cheap and reliable hardware and software. And the Hack is 67% cheaper than the premium priced and dated MacPro. By comparison, repair costs, if any, are trivial and the user gets bog reliable operation and overnight parts availability at a fraction of the MP’s cost.

Still a poor choice for photographers.

From a reading of the specs of the latest iMacs, the reasons to upgrade are:

• You do a lot of moving of large video files. The new Thunderbolt connector is 10x faster than USB but peripherals using it are rare and only just coming to market.
• You need three displays. Existing iMacs can support two (iMac + 1 external). The new ones can support three (iMac + 2 external) using Thunderbolt. Once again, the only displays currently using Thunderbolt are the overpriced and glossy-only ones from Apple which simply cannot be properly calibrated for serious photography use. Once it becomes available, a good Dell matte display will be half the price of the add-on Apple one, the latter too garish/bright/contrasty, just like the display in every iMac since they went all glossy four years ago.

The modest CPU and GPU speed increases are not a compelling reason to upgrade.

Further, AAPL still has issues with graphics cards overheating (which killed both our white non-glossy iMacs and made me build the Hackintosh – these were the last iMacs with a screen that could almost be properly profiled for photography use). Still? Well, yes. Why do you think the iFixit tear down shows that the graphics board in the latest iMacs is removable, rather than integrated on the motherboard? Because they expect to replace many, testament to the poor cooling of the part in the tight confines of the box. Form over substance design continues at Apple. Plus, as you need to remove the motherboard to access the removable GPU, you need to be very skilled or very lucky. And then where do you get the replacement? It simply does not solve.

Click the picture for the iFixit teardown of the latest iMac.

If you need a good photography machine and must have Thunderbolt, the best bet is to wait for the Mac Mini to add that connector and hook it up to a couple of proper displays from Dell. Or for higher speed, build a Hackintosh.

Save your money unless the above are compelling reasons for you.

The single best thing you can do to make your iMac significantly faster is to add a Solid State Drive for the OS and applications. It can sit externally – internal installation is sheer hell – and you tell System Preferences->Startup Disc to make the SSD the one to start from. Install OS and copy over apps and you are set. You continue to keep data on your existing internal HDD which is big and cheap. The SSD is small and costly but it dramatically increases start-up speed and application loading. I added an Intel SSD (only 128gB) to the Hackintosh and the difference is night and day. I use maybe 50% of it – OS + apps only. Far more real world performance increase than newer CPUs or GPUs. It cost me $225, and prices continue to fall. Once you have used an SSD there’s no going back. Also, an SSD has no moving parts – always a good thing.