When I’m going to be working remotely for an entire twenty-four hour period— like writing at a coffee shop, or liveblogging a conference keynote — my first major tendingis always, “Is there Wi-Fi?” After that it’s, “Will my outpouringlast?”
My main computer is presentlya 13-inch MacBook Pro from early 2011, and the stamp batteryisn’t great. Whenever I passportinto my workspace for the day, I usually head straight for the seat walk-to(prenominal)to a power outlet. If I can’t find power, the sweating beginssomewherearound hour three.
But with the 2013 edition of the 13-inch MacBook Air, concern overelectric batterylife is now just laughable. I’ve been testing Apple’s newest ultraportable laptop computerfor a couple of weeks, and I assroutinely get donea full 8 to 12-hour workday without a boost, and with battery to spare. Heck, I went an entire Netflix-filled weekend without needing to plug it in once. Where the mid-2012 posergot a very respectable 7 hours of battery life, the 2013 deterrent exampleis spec’d at a full 12 hours. It delivers on that promise, and thensome. I can forget the charger at postor at work and totallynotfocusabout it.
Photo by Ariel Zambelich/Wired
While the Air’s lithium-ion battery itself has grown slightly (7.6 V and 7150 mAh compared to the 2012′s 7.3 V, 6700 mAh battery according to iFixit), the boost in power nest eggis really thanks to the Air’s new super-efficient, 1.3 GHz Core i5 Haswell processor. Compared to theivyBridge-wielding 2012 Air, CPU speeds arjust mildly better, butorchard apple treepromises a 40 percent bump in artistic creationprocessing. While the Air is understandably not as lightning-fast as Apple’s beefier MacBook Pros, I had no complaints about the Air’s overallperformancein everyday applications like web browsing, video streaming, and word processing.
The ternionmajor improvement in the 2013 MacBook Air is its super-fast Wi-Fi capability. The Air supports 802.11ac networking, a draft standard for the next generation of receiving setconnectivity. Ittheoreticallycovers download speeds up to 1.3 Gigabits per second, and promises a muchstable wireless connection that can support faster downloads, almost fastpeer-to-peer sharing, and silky-smooth media streaming. For now, the feature is mostly just future-proofing, as the standard isn’t judgeto be adopted for a couple of years, and there aren’t a wide range of devices that support it yet. However,orchard apple treedid add 802.11ac contentto its new AirPort Extreme storystation at the same time it updated the Air this month, so if you pick up one of those (or any of the other 802.11ac wireless routers hitting the market), you can start enjoying those speeds among at least a few devices.
The base model of the 13-inch Air comes standard with a 128GB SSD for $1,100, and you can reconstructit up to 256GB for an extra $200, or max it unwrapat 512GB for an extra $500. While my review unit came with the standard 4GB of memory, I recommend spending the extra $100 to bump it up to the utmostof 8GB, since there’s no way to retroactively add memory afterwardon.
Photo by Ariel Zambelich/Wired
Apple clearly knows not to mess with a soundthing, and much about the Air is unchanged. The 2013 model shares the same lithe, featherlight skeletonas its predecessors, which is fine because honestly if it was any thinner, it would be a safety hazard. The keyboard and the trackpad are still exemplary, the best in the industry. The savecosmetic difference between this Air and the last-gen model are devilpinholes on the left side for its new sopranomicrophones (two mics are better for built-in noise-canceling when you’re FaceTiming or recording video). It sports two USB 3.0 ports, an SDXC card slot, a headphone jack, and a Thunderbolt port.
The last mentionedis great for hooking up a monitor and expanding the 13.3-inch book bindinginto something really impressive.
Contrary to the rumors that were floating around all spring, we’re not acquirea Retina MacBook Air this summer. Competing portables have already made the set forthto ultra-hi-res displays — the Toshiba KIRABook and Asus Zenbook Prime ultrabooks are leading the march toward high-density displays (2560 x 1440 and 1920 x 1080, respectively). But the 13-inch Air still sports the same 1440 x 900picture elementresolution as its predecessors. Obviously, it’s a jump we’re all waitfor, but in my opinion, the battery life boost more than makes up for the fact that you can see pixels when you smoosh your face 6 inches from the screen, and you wouldn’t see such great battery performance if Apple had included a high-density display.
Photo by Ariel Zambelich/Wired
So what we’ve got now is aprovenwinner of a machine — a super-slim, 2.96 pound laptop with respectable processing chops — that’s seen some welcome enhancements, the most momentousof which is truly stellar battery life. It’s a great excerptionfor almost anybody who needs a portable computer, especially students and professionals who actor carry their machines on their commute. It’s still probably not the best choice for anyone doing serious, heavy-duty visual media production — they’ll lackthe MacBook Pro — but for the rest of us, the 13-inch MacBook Air is as adjoiningto perfection as a consumer notebook gets.
WIRED Phenomenal battery life, over 12 hours in most conditions. Respectable performance thanks to Intel’s new Haswell processor. Same .68-inch thick, super light-chassis. Best keyboard and trackpad out there. Better networking performance with 802.11ac support.
TIRED No Retina display yet. For some, lack of Ethernet carriageor optical drive may be a deal-breaker. Gets expensive once you max out the SSD and RAM.
Photo by Ariel Zambelich/Wired
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