- #MID 2015 MACBOOK PRO 13 INCH UPDATE#
- #MID 2015 MACBOOK PRO 13 INCH UPGRADE#
- #MID 2015 MACBOOK PRO 13 INCH SOFTWARE#
- #MID 2015 MACBOOK PRO 13 INCH WINDOWS 8.1#
- #MID 2015 MACBOOK PRO 13 INCH WINDOWS#
With the advent of the new MacBook and the MacBook Pro with Retina Display, it's easy to overlook the relatively humble MacBook Air. Apple's cheapest laptop might just be its best-for regular people. That's not as good as Apple's claims of 12 hours, but you'll see numbers closer to that as long as you limit performance intensive tasks while on battery. By ditching the extra graphics card and half the cores, the more power-efficient Air can eke out about 5 hours of battery life during our intensive rundown test. And if you don't need the extra oomph or the (much) better screen, the Air handily outpaces the Pro for battery life. All the storage solutions are PCI-e, however, which is faster than the older SATA standard.Īdd it up and while the MacBook Air doesn't quite match up to the top-end 15-inch MacBook Pro, it's close enough.
#MID 2015 MACBOOK PRO 13 INCH UPGRADE#
That's not an ideal solution-especially if you take photos and actually use that slot frequently-and Apple charges a $200 markup to upgrade the SSD to the 256GB version, and another $300 to go to the 512GB SSD. The Air handily outpaces the Pro for battery life.
It's not easily upgradeable, though you can add a high-capacity, low profile SD card to enhance your storage options. Our one hangup there remains the fact that the base model only has 128GB of built-in storage. That makes those daily tasks even easier, improving transfer speeds and boot up times. The 13-inch also gets a nice leg up thanks to the use of faster flash storage compared to last year. It's worth noting that the Air we tested was also upgraded to include 8GB of RAM, which costs $100 extra but helps with these more intensive tasks. Running apps like Adobe's Photoshop Creative Cloud and Lightroom are no sweat, but you'll struggle to play hardcore games like Metro 2033: Last Light. It isn't on par with the seriously impressive Iris Pro GPU that is found in the top-end 15-inch MacBook Pro, but it's no slouch either. Graphically intense tasks are also improved thanks to the new Intel HD 6000 GPU. The Air doesn't have the most powerful components but it'll get the job done. The new Air screams through daily tasks like word processing, web browsing, and photo editing, without so much as a hiccup. The 5th-gen Core i7 processor is around 30% faster than last year's, and it showed in our performance testing. The baseline 13-inch $999 model will have a 1.6GHz dual-core Intel Core i5, upgradeable to a 2.2GHz dual-core Intel i7 for $150 more (which is the processor in our test unit). Luckily, the rest of the package is improved enough to make up for it starting with the new 5th-gen Intel Core processor. Apple also hasn't improved the tuning of the display, as it still has a poor viewing angle, iffy gamma, and merely acceptable color accuracy. This left the Air line to make due with the existing 1440x900 display it's had for the past five years.
#MID 2015 MACBOOK PRO 13 INCH UPDATE#
Instead, Apple pivoted, producing the new 12-inch MacBook and offering merely a token processor update for the Air. Most observers of all things Apple expected the company to finally come out with a MacBook Air with Retina display this year.
#MID 2015 MACBOOK PRO 13 INCH WINDOWS#
The laptop comes with just the OS on it, including some default apps like FaceTime, Safari, Maps, and the like, without any of the usual bloatware that you'll find on competing Windows laptops. As with all MacBooks, what you see is what you get.
#MID 2015 MACBOOK PRO 13 INCH SOFTWARE#
If you're familiar with the latest iteration of OS X-Yosemite-then you don't need much explanation of the software on the MacBook Air. On Windows the touchscreen is mostly useful for bypassing the often shoddy touchpad for scrolling-a moot point on the MacBook Air-though we do wish pinch-to-zoom was standard on every touch-capable device when viewing photos.
#MID 2015 MACBOOK PRO 13 INCH WINDOWS 8.1#
Though Windows 8.1 is set up to take advantage of touch support, OS X isn't, subbing in touchpad gesture support for many things instead. Just about the only notable omission here is touchscreen support. The assortment of ports is also good, though the USB ports are still just a hair too close to the MagSafe and Thunderbolt ports, sometimes preventing you from utilizing both at the same time. The keyboard is also quite good, with excellent travel and spacing, while the backlight is adjustable and comes in handy when you need to type in a dim environment. The only notable omission is a touchscreen, but, honestly, we don't miss it.
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