Nine months later...
It's all well and good talking up a brand-new laptop, but the best devices continue to perform long after purchase. Having not owned a MacBook before, I wasn't sure how much degradation to expect with OS X. The good thing is that it's nowhere near the drop you'd get with a comparable Windows device.
The MacBook is performing close to the level of a brand-new machine - I'd estimate 90 per cent. There's no slowdown during use and no work has been lost due to crashes.And I've still got 375GB of space left on the mammoth SSD.
There are a couple of niggles. Resuming time from sleep is noticeably slower than it was in the first month. The screen no longer flickers into life instantly, instead taking a couple of seconds to spring to life. But it's not a major issue.
Battery life has taken a hit - but I'm on a charge cycle count of 278 and the laptop is still able to power through most of the working day without any problems. I've not yet been caught short at any events, which is the most important thing.
Most of all, I don't miss Windows. There's no anti-virus software slowing down the machine, no need to scan for hidden malware and no blue screen of death. For me, the MacBook remains the the Ferrari of the laptop world.
This article was first pubilshed on 17/02/14 and has been updated multiple times (most recently on 09/07/14) to reflect new information that has become available since its original publication.
