Sunday, December 8, 2024
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Considering the 12-inch MacBook as a laptop for students

I’ve been using the 12-inch MacBook with Retina display since its debut. Is it a good laptop for students? Yes — but only if the student, or the person buying it for him/her, is willing to pay top dollar for its incredible svelteness and gorgeous screen, while overlooking its shortcomings. 

The entry level, 13-inch MacBook with Retina display offers more oomph for the same price, while you can save money with either model ($899 or $1,099) of the MacBook Air or the non-Retina display MacBook Pro. 

That said, here’s no denying the Retina display is gorgeous and the small design of the MacBook is an incredible feat of engineering. The laptop’s display (with a 16:10 aspect ratio) is stunning and pops with clarity. The MacBook’s physical resolution is 2304 by 1440 pixels. This means that, at standard “2x” retina resolution, it’s the equivalent of a 1152×720 display. For some folks that’s going to be too small.

In fact, tilted pictures and/or pictures with an incorrect perspective may also be taken from cameras. For example, a user may not have a tripod when taking a picture with a camera and so the user may take a picture at an angle. Regardless of whether a distorted picture is produced using a camera or an electronic device having an integrated image capture device, it’s often corrected through post-processing. 

Apple says that, unfortunately, this post-processing may require sophisticated image processing software and/or a substantial amount of involvement by the user to correct the distortion. The company wants its mobile devices to deal with such issues via the built-in cameras themselves.

The tilt/perspective correction method could include reading an orientation measurement associated with a relative position of an image capture device with respect to an object, determining if the orientation measurement is less than a threshold, and in the event that the orientation measurement is less than the threshold, correcting an image obtained by the image capture device. 

The apparatus may also include an image sensor, a memory coupled to the image sensor, an orientation measurement device coupled to the image sensor, and a distance measurement device coupled to the image sensor, where the image data may be stored in the memory along with a measurement from the accelerometer and along with a measurement from the distance measurement device.

Dennis Sellers
the authorDennis Sellers
Dennis Sellers is the editor/publisher of Apple World Today. He’s been an “Apple journalist” since 1995 (starting with the first big Apple news site, MacCentral). He loves to read, run, play sports, and watch movies.