Apple MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2013) Pro Reviews

So, is this a case of a great thing getting even greater, or an aged product getting the bare-minimum upgrade required to keep it relevant? The truth lies somewhere in between, but it goes without saying that the MacBook Air isn't quite the straightforward "buy" that it has been in the past. While I/O performance and battery life definitely set it ahead of the crowd, and its overall design and keyboard / trackpad combo are as good as ever, that middling display resolution is evolving from an excusable omission to a proper handicap. Still, it's hard to knock the Air for what it is: a very thin laptop with incredible battery life and good performance for a minimum price that puts it ahead of its competition. If you want a portable Mac with a real focus on portability and can live without a Retina display then we'd say this is still the machine to get. But, if you're not tied to the platform or are a stickler for pixel density, it might just be time to look elsewhere.

You can't look at what Apple was able to achieve with the current generation of MacBook Air products and not be impressed. From significantly improved graphics and file system performance, to dramatically longer battery life; you might say one of the top "Ultrabooks" on the market currently isn't actually an Ultrabook - it's a Mac. We do have a small reservation about some WiFi instability we encountered that others are reporting in Apple's support forum as well. However, word of Appleseed invites going out to owners of an impending software update that should be rolling out to the masses soon, allay most of our anxiety there. Beyond that small hiccup, the new MacBook Air is a slam-dunk. The machine we tested is priced a solid $100 less than last year's 13-inch model, currently at $1099 ($1044.99 for Amazon Prime subscribers). This still puts the MacBook Air 13 in the upper echelon of premium ultralight notebooks, cost-wise, but Apple's offering is otherwise competitively priced when you consider offerings from Lenovo, Dell and others. Sure, with a native resolution of 1440X900, the MacBook Air still technically doesn't have a full HD display, never mind Apple's high-end Retina panel, but in a 13-inch machine 1440X900 still cuts the mustard just fine for most folks. We like the new Intel Haswell-powered MacBook Air 13, with its PCI Express SSD serving up data at over 700MB/sec and its almost unbelievably-good battery life.

For Mac fans, especially those with MacBook Airs or Pros of a few years’ vintage, the new Air will be a welcome upgrade - assuming their needs are not still being satisfied by their old machines. For other folk, the factors that made the Air a compelling recommendation a couple of years ago have largely been eroded to nothing by the competition. Ultrabook sceptics will naturally point to cheaper, more powerful alternatives, but even buyers who really do value portability and don’t mind paying for it will see that the Air is by no means their only option. The new Air is a nice machine, but it offers nothing you can’t get now, or get soon, from Haswell-powered Ultrabooks: decent performance and a long battery life. SATA Express and 802.11ac are both standards World+Dog will soon implement. In short, choosing a skinny laptop is now simply a matter of whether you want Mac OS X or not.

Could Apple shrink the Air and keep the screen size or notch it up an inch or more? A full HD Air, anyone? There’s probably a good reason for this ongoing big borders arrangement – rigidity, antennas and suchlike – but I think it’s time for Apple to show some design innovation again rather than simply adding the 802.11ac Wi-Fi and tweaking the latest Intel chippery.

We’ve been recommending the MacBook Air for three years straight now, so this is pretty simple: if you’re a normal person shopping for a laptop, you should buy a MacBook Air. It does all the things you want a laptop to do, it does them well, and now it does them for 12 hours at a clip. At $1,099 for the base model, $100 less than last year, it’s even a solid value compared to its best competition from Sony, Toshiba, and others — I’d jump up to the $1,299 model for the extra storage, but that’s about it. Every other complaint about this machine feels like a quibble (sigh, Ethernet adapter) or longing for spec-bump upgrades that don’t feel all that necessary yet (touchscreen Retina display, anyone?) But it’s pretty hard to value any of those things over 12-hour battery life. In fact, when I showed the new Air to the people at Toby’s they didn’t look impressed — they’ve seen a lot of MacBooks come in and out of their shop. But when I told them about the battery life, they gathered around the familiar-looking machine with interest. “That’s longer than we stay open,” said one of the baristas, with a note in his voice somewhere between admiration and concern. The new Air is the first of a dramatic new breed of computer — it lets you set up a mobile office for a full day without concern for power. Toby’s might have to increase the price of those Americanos.

The MacBook Air 13 excites users with its slim and attractive unibody case. The workmanship is almost flawless and the noise emissions are barely noticeable (for the majority of the time). The new model supports the WLAN-Standard 802.11ac, has a faster Solid State Drive and can offer a much longer battery life thanks to the new Intel Haswell ULV CPU. The CPU processing power has stayed at a similar level but the GPU power has increased. The user is limited by the reflective display, the lack of maintenance flaps and the somewhat high temperatures at load. A 4G/LTE version, which would be very helpful for mobile use, is not available, just like there is no option for a matte display. The warranty period is short for this price range (1 year) and the necessary adapters for Thunderbolt/Mini-DisplayPort interfaces are not included in the delivery. However, the price has been lowered by 100 Euros (in comparison to the predecessor) which means the new Apple MacBook Air is in better shape to face off against its many competitors from Asus, Samsung & Co.

The 2013 MacBook Air 13 delivers what it promises: excellent battery life. As the MacBook Pro range became slimmer and more capable, not to mention introducing Retina resolution, some began to question the Air’s purpose in Apple’s range. We’ll certainly admit to being swayed by the high-pixel-density screens, though the knowledge that a Haswell upgrade is likely to come soon might delay us from buying one today. With the new Intel processors, however, the Air has redeemed itself. Twelve hours of runtime is no laughing matter, and to be able to do it while still handling all the usual applications – video editing included – makes for a highly persuasive notebook for road warriors.

There’s still no sign of Retina, but improved battery life and gaming performance makes the MacBook Air better value than ever

Ideally we'd have liked a higher resolution screen, but with great battery life, amazing build quality, a great keyboard and a lower price, the Macbook Air is the best thin-and-light laptop

New internal hardware helps the MacBook Air maintain its position as one of our favourite notebooks. We're still happy with the 2012 MacBook Air, but there's enough here to make us want to upgrade: the improved performance and particularly that battery life, is a real driver to keep the MacBook Air in favour. Some may say that the display needs to be updated, but as we've said, we wouldn't want to sacrifice endurance for definition, not when the resolution of the Air is good enough. We're also keeping an eye on Mavericks, which if it delivers on its promises of power efficiency, should stretch out the battery life of the MacBook Air even further, perhaps to levels that others can't quite match without an external battery. If you're looking for more raw power, then there is a 1.7GHz Core i7 upgrade, as well as the option to expand to 8GB RAM and up to 512GB of SSD. That will cost you £1579, however, the MacBook Air starts at £959 for the 1.3GHz Core i5, 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. That's £50 cheaper than the 2012 equivalent. As reviewed here with 256GB of SSD storage the MacBook Air is £1129. In our eyes, it's worth every penny as it delivers on that all day battery promise and continues to deliver a premium experience.

The 13-inch Air’s new $1,100 starting price undercuts competitors like the ASUS Zenbook X31A-DH71 and Acer Aspire S7, but it puts Apple in an uncomfortable position. For the first time in years, the company is selling based on price rather than quality. Even with the price cut, the Air’s inferior display and merely adequate hard drive capacity hinder its overall value. An Asus Zenbook may be $100 to $150 more (for the newest model), but it offers double the storage and a 1080p display. Then there’s Lenovo’s Yoga, which offers a convertible form-factor, superior specifications and a better keyboard at the same $1,100 price point. Or, consider the Dell XPS 13, which is much more expensive (with the 1080p panel) but boasts an amazing display and carbon fiber chassis. There’s nothing about the Air that’s explicitly bad, but there’s far too much about it that’s merely “meh.” With the Apple’s own Pro with Retina now only slightly thicker, and numerous Ultrabooks available, this entry-level Mac has become hard to recommend to anyone except consumers who want OS X but can’t afford a Pro.

We can grumble about its mere 720p rather than 1080p resolution or its few extra ounces compared to the lightest ultrabooks, but we'd be doing you a disservice not to recommend the new MacBook Air if battery life matters to you, even if you think you're a Windows diehard. We look forward to seeing the difference Haswell makes to Windows ultrabooks' unplugged life, but for now, if you're tired of hearing tablet owners brag about their time away from AC outlets, this is the laptop for you.We should also note that the Air is almost free of the famous Apple price premium—there are cheaper ultrabooks, but most of the models with 1080p screens and thinner profiles cost more than $1,099. Sometime around the eighth or ninth hour, awarding the Air an Editors' Choice became an easy decision.

The Apple MacBook Air (Mid-2013) really does provide all-day battery life. For that alone, it fully deserves to be top of the list for anyone looking for a workaday laptop, one that can reduce one of modern life’s stresses: that of wondering whether your computer will still be functional just when you need it. It’s just as fast as the previous model, more so actually in real-world use, and seals the deal with future-proofed faster Wi-Fi, more storage and a lower price than last year’s model. It’s an outstanding ultraportable among a mass of me-too ultrabook mediocrity.

For a laptop that looks and feels so identical to last year's model (and frankly, the prior year's as well), there's actually a lot going on behind the scenes in the new 13-inch MacBook Air. The overly familiar design and lack of trendy new features (touch screens, higher-res displays, NFC) can make it hard to get particularly excited about the 2013 Air, especially considering the basic application performance is so similar to the 2012 version. The updated Intel GPU is welcome, even with the still-sparse OS X gaming environment, and the lower starting price helps, too, making this just a couple of steps above an impulse purchase, at least as far as laptops are concerned. But if all that adds up to a modest step forward, the amazing battery life, which Apple and Intel must share credit for (with the scale tilting towards the Intel side), makes this feel like a brand-new era for the MacBook. Even if our 14-hour video playback battery life run is cut by a third or more in rigorous real-world conditions, you've still got a true all-day, always-on computer. Couple that with OS X and the best-in-show touch pad and gestures, and I'd be hard pressed to think of a single competitor that comes close to the ubiquitous usefulness of this system.