No retina screen for now, but Ivy
bridge and a price drop make these tiny laptops even more enticing
We were desperately hoping the MacBook Air
would get the Retina screen it deserves, but Apple has reserved that upgrade
for professionals. Instead, both the 11in and 13m MacBook Air models have
received a relatively modest spring clean for 2012.
Apple
has opted to leave the physical dimensions as they were: it’s still 17mm thick
at the rear, tapering to almost nothing at the front.
Apple has opted to leave the physical
dimensions as they were: it’s still 17mm thick at the rear, tapering to almost
nothing at the front. The Thunderbolt port is now joined by two USB 3 ports,
and labels have been moved to the near side of each port to make them easier to
see.
All of the new MacBooks use the MagSafe 2
power adapter (compatible with the original MagSafe via a $11.99 adapter),
which sees the cable extend directly outwards rather than flush with the
chassis. We saw nothing at all wrong with the old design, and if anything the
new one seems more prone to popping out accidentally.
The bigger changes occur inside, with the
headline being the introduction of Intel’s Ivy Bridge processors. Starting with
the 13m MacBook Air with a 1.8GHz Core iS-3427U, its benchmark score of 0.72 is
way up from 0.58 Last year. The now-standard 4GB of RAM certainly helps, and
the new HD Graphics 4000 core also plays its part. In Crysis at the native 1440
x 900 and Low quality it averaged 4ofps, up from 3ofps last year - and it even
managed 23fps at Medium quality.
As for the 11in model, its 1.7GHz Core
i5-3317U powered it to 0.66 to beat last year’s 0.56. In Crysis, its average of
37fps at the native 1366 x 768 and Low quality is 6fps quicker than the 2011
model. At that resolution and modest settings it won’t feel particularly
cutting edge, but the fact this little thing is such o capable gamer shows just
how well rounded Ivy Bridge is.
That extra power comes at little cost to
battery life - in OS X we eked 11hrs l6mins of admittedly very light use from
the 13m model, and 8hrs 20mins from the 11in.
On both models the screen is fantastic. Our
13m sample had a screen brightness of 336cd/m2 and an 862:1 contrast ratio, and
to prove how good the colours are, we measured on average Delta E of 2.2.
As
for the 11in model, its 1.7GHz Core i5-3317U powered it to 0.66 to beat last
year’s 0.56.
And that’s it. If you bought a MacBook Air
last year, there frankly isn’t enough here to warrant an upgrade, but if you
didn’t, there’s one more treat in store: prices for both 13m models and the
higher-specification 11in have been slashed, making them cheaper than the 2011
models.
It was an attractive enough proposition
before, but the 2012 MacBook Air sets the bar exceedingly high for the
impending wave of Ivy Bridge Ultrabooks.
