However, at more than twice the price of Elevator, you’ll have to decide whether it’s worth paying such a premium for its cool styling and unique functionality.Įveryone knows that the go-to material for a metal MacBook accessory is matching aluminum.
Xstand pro pro#
Of the “lift MacBook up on an angle” mounts we’ve tried thus far, we definitely like Xtand Pro the most. We’ve tried various solutions of its kind in the past: Rain Design’s iLap, Griffin’s Elevator and iCurve, and so on. Just Mobile’s Xtand Pro is a different beast altogether. Whether this is a practical concern or not for your needs is an open question given our use of the Docking Stand, we find it to be only a small annoyance relative to the benefits of the film. Our suspicion is that thinner film would prevent this from happening, but it also happens only 40-50% of the time, and never when the MacBook is in an orientation other than upside down and standing on its back.
With the film installed, if the MacBook is placed inside a vertical mount such as Power Support’s Docking Stand, the magnet-sealed hinge can and sometimes does pop open to the extent of the dock’s opening. The MacBook continues to open and close exactly as it should, despite the film, except for one somewhat unusual scenario. Visibility of the on-screen text and graphics is not significantly impacted, as shown in our photo, and should you decide you prefer to go back to a glossy screen, you can always remove the film-something that can’t be said for the more expensive monitor-swapping solutions. Reflectivity is cut very significantly, making the glossy screen look far closer to the prior-generation matte MacBook Pro, and enabling us to continue working even in unobstructed sunlight. The only things that would harm its utility would be bends or folds, and because of the film’s tailoring, this won’t happen unless you do something really wrong before or during installation. All that’s necessary here is to just lift the film’s edge and pick the speck of dust out based on our experiences with Power Support’s other films, the non-adhesive screen film would work fine even if we pulled it off, ran it under a water faucet, and tried to reapply it. It’s invisible when the screen’s turned on, so though we could easily get rid of it, we haven’t done so yet. While a number of air bubbles appeared under the film (shown in the photo here) and needed to be removed, only one had a tiny dot of gray in the center. In our case, everything went perfectly during the installation except for a single speck of dust that appeared under the film, off to the far right side of the screen, even after we cleaned the glass and ran over it-as recommended-with a damp, never-before-used microfiber cloth. As always, Power Support has done a really good job of tailoring its film to Apple’s products. Other than that, it’s hard to see that something’s been installed the edges of the film have been similarly precision-cut to fit the curves of Apple’s slightly recessed glass display, without overlapping its subtly rubberized interior sides. You’re supposed to clean your MacBook’s screen yourself, peel the film off in a dust-free room, and then apply the film, working out the air bubbles with a plastic card-probably the credit card you used to buy it.Īt the end of the process, if everything goes perfectly, you shouldn’t see any obvious signs that it’s on the screen, save of course for the change in reflectivity and a small seam around the camera: a circle has been cut out so that the film doesn’t obstruct the camera’s vision. The anti-glare sheet comes out of the large, thin package unfolded, ready to be peeled off of a piece of clear backing paper. While $35 for this film isn’t cheap, it’s a lot more reasonable than other available options, and achieves similar results on a machine you already own.Īpplication was fairly simple, if only 99.5% perfect. So nicely that we’ve been chuckling at recent news reports of other matte screen solutions-that one company is now charging $200 to replace the MacBook Pro’s screen with a matte version, for instance, or that Apple wants $50 extra to give 17” MacBook Pro users a matte screen instead of a glossy one. So does the Anti-Glare Film work as expected? The simple answer is “yes.” And nicely, at that. Power Support’s Anti-Glare Film: The Details
Xstand pro full#
Click on Read More or this article’s title for plenty of additional pictures and full discussions of both products.