Build Your Own Macbook
If you are still undecided, want a bit more
speed, power and storage, or hope to future-proof your investment further, then
consider opting for a customised ‘built to order’ MacBook. You can upgrade the
memory, hard drive, processor speed and pre-installed software, but choice is
limited compared to desktop Macs due to the compact design of the laptops. When
ordering you will be faced with various options.
Apple
MacBook 13-inch (White)
Decision Time
If you are still not sure about which Mac
Book might be best for you, any good retailer should offer sound advice and
talk you through the options currently available. Staff at Apple Stores across
the UK, Apple Premium Resellers and Apple Solution Experts will be on hand to
help (bit.Iy/7uipsw). Plus, the company’s retail outlets promise you can ‘test
drive any Apple product,’ a claim well worth pursuing, although it’s a good
idea planning ahead with an idea of any questions you might want answered.
If you’re unlucky enough not to live
anywhere near any of the above, high street retailers, and the likes of PC
World (which has its own dedicated Mac area), while possibly not the best place
for Apple advice will at least be able to demonstrate Mac Books in the flesh to
compare screen sizes, and more.
MacBook Air
Currently Apple’s cheapest and most compact
laptop, the MacBook Air packs a lot into a choice of 11.6in and 13.3in models.
It’s a far cry from the original compromised and pricey model of five years
ago, and its performance is much better, it has enhanced expansion capabilities
and is more attractively priced. As a result, the Air is now Apple’s core
laptop and, by some accounts, its most popular.
The latest versions use Intel’s
third-generation Core processors for better performance. Specifically, the
smaller Air has a 1.7GHz dual-core Core 5 processor with 3MB of shared level-3
cache, while the larger model uses a 1.8GHz version a 2GHz i7 processor with
4MB level-3 cache is available as a built to order option. The line has also
been upgraded to an Intel HD Graphics 4000 GPU. While still an integrated GPU,
Apple claims it’s up to 60 per cent faster on graphics intensive tasks.
Currently
Apple’s cheapest and most compact laptop, the MacBook Air packs a lot into a choice
of 11.6in and 13.3in models.
All four Airs now ship with a minimum of
4GB of RAM, though an 8GB option is also available. Note that you can’t upgrade
the memory at a later date. Finally, Apple has also upgraded the flash storage
with faster versions, claiming that the drives in the 2012 line are twice as
fast as those used in 2011, and are now capable of transferring data at up to
500MB per second. In our testing, we found the 128GB flash 35 per cent faster
than its predecessor at file duplication, and the 13.3in Air was 42 per cent
faster than its 2011 counterpart.
It’s not all good news, though. The
cheapest incarnation still ships with a paltry 64GB of storage, which seems
stingy now the same Air has 4GB of RAM. A small hard drive doesn’t just limit your
storage it also affects performance as the drive fills up. Macworld’s lab
director James Galbraith couldn’t fit all our standard test files on the 64GB
system, and even after removing some of our test files in order to be able to
run other tests, the cheapest Air was only seven per cent faster than last
year’s model at file- intensive tasks. If you can afford the upgrade, which
takes the cheapest price up to $1393.5, opt for 128MB of storage.
That aside, all these improvements add up
to a decent overall speed bump. For example, when we tallied our overall
performance benchmark, Speed mark 7, a 128GB 11.6in 2012 Air was 28 per cent
faster overall storage than Air was than the equivalent model last year, and a
128GB 13.3in 2012 Air was just under 20 per cent faster than the 2011 version.
If you do go with the 11.6in Air, we recommend the $1,498.5 model over the
$1,273.5Air for the extra storage and the option to upgrade to a 2GHz CPU. We
suspect, however, that many people want a bit more screen real estate, and it’s
only $111.3 to make the jump from the 116m 128GB Air to the 13.3in model. We
recommend the $1,873.5 13.3in Air only for those who need a lot of storage
space 256GB, upgradeable to 512GB and the option for the faster processor.
The 11,6in Air comes with a 1.7GHz
processor, 4GB of memory and is available with 64GB of flash storage starting
at $1,273.5, and 128G B of flash storage starting at $1,393.5. The 13.3in Air
comes with a 1.8GHz processor, 4GB of memory and is available with 128G B of
flash storage starting at $1,498.5, and 256GB of flash storage starting at
$1873.5. Configure-to-order options include a 2GHz Intel Core i7 processor, up
to 8GB of 1,600MHz DDR3 onboard memory and up to 512GB flash storage.
