The Apple MacBook Air, in its previous iteration, has been superseded. Check out our in-depth analysis of the latest version.
8 Success Strategies for Franchise Digital Marketing
When it comes to portability, nothing beats the 2015 Apple MacBook Air 11-inch ($899 as tested). This year’s model is somewhat more powerful than last year’s, but in order to be thinner and lighter, the 11-inch ultraportable had to sacrifice several features that made the 2015 Apple MacBook Air 13-inch an Editors’ Choice winner. However, it has an Intel Core i5 processor, which means it can quickly complete activities that would bog down an Intel Core M-equipped laptop, and it also has a battery life of 11.5 hours. If you’re always on the go, the 11-inch MacBook Air is a great portable computer to consider.
Structure and Function
If the all-aluminum body of the 11-inch MacBook Air appears familiar, that’s because it hasn’t changed much since 2010. It is 7.4 inches in length, 11.8 inches in width, and 0.68 inches in thickness at the back, narrowing to 0.11 inches at the front. The laptop is somewhat heavier than last year’s model, coming in at 2.38 pounds instead of 2.31. Despite being thinner, the HP EliteBook Folio 1020 and the Asus Zenbook UX305FA-ASM1 are much larger and heavier than this ultraportable.
The new 12-inch MacBook promises to be Apple’s thinnest notebook, but it eliminates certain connectors in the process. The slim laptops described above all contain Intel Core M CPUs, which don’t need active cooling, in contrast to the MacBook Air 11-inch’s Intel Core i5 chip, which requires a fan to keep itself cool.
The new MacBook Air has the same ports as the old one. There are two microphones, a MagSafe 2 power jack, a USB 3.0 port, and a headset jack on the left side of the device. There are two USB 3.0 ports and a Thunderbolt 2 port on the right. Compared to the MacBook’s single USB-C connector, it seems a touch lacking. The Asus X305FA and the HP Folio 1020, on the other hand, have roomier side panels and therefore a greater variety of ports. The Thunderbolt connection is compatible with mini-DisplayPort displays; however, you will require an adaptor cable to use it with an HDMI or other type of display connector. Wi-Fi (802.11ac) and Bluetooth (4.0) wireless connectivity are built in.
The 11-inch MacBook Air shares the same outstanding keyboard and trackpad with the 13-inch model. Both have backlighting and chiclet-style keys with excellent key travel and responsive feedback. Most third-party software does not yet support the Force-Click capability of the trackpad, which is present on the MacBook and Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch. The Air, like all Macbooks, doesn’t have a touch screen, but that’s not a deal breaker as OS X doesn’t enable touch gestures anyhow.
The 1,366-by-768-pixel resolution of the 11-inch MacBook Air’s screen is its biggest shortcoming. Although the screen is clear and easy to see, it doesn’t feel as spacious as the Retina Display on the MacBook or the displays on many Windows laptops with 1080p or higher resolutions, such as the Asus Zenbook UX305FA. However, certain ultraportables, such as the Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 11e, still come with 1,366 x 768 resolution displays.
If you get your laptop from Apple, you can pay an extra $100 to increase the memory from 4GB to 8GB. That’s OK for Mac OS X multitasking, but if you frequently have hundreds of windows open at once, you may want to consider updating. With additional cloud storage or an external drive, our base system’s 128GB of flash storage is more than enough for daily tasks. For an additional $200, you can get a unit with 256GB of storage, which was standard in the machine we reviewed last year. Thankfully, there is no unnecessary software slowing down the system.
See Also : Apple MacBook Air (11.6-inch) Review
PCI Express (PCIe) flash storage is much quicker than the SATA (Serial ATA) flash storage and SSDs seen in earlier ultraportables. In testing, this sped up both the system boot time and application load times. Like other midrange Windows laptops, the MacBook Air is backed by a one-year guarantee.
See Also : Apple MacBook Air (11-inch, 2023) Review
Performance
A 1.6 GHz Intel Core i5-5250U processor with Intel HD Graphics 6000 is installed in the system. We were able to convert a video using Handbrake in 2 minutes and 49 seconds, and our Photoshop CS6 test took 5 minutes and 13 seconds. Neither time is slower than the times achieved by the Lenovo Yoga 3 14 (3:04 on Handbrake and 5:16 on CS6) or the Dell XPS 13 Touch (2:58 on Handbrake and 5:54 on CS6). The Acer Aspire S7-393-7451 and the Dell Inspiron 13 7000 Series 2-in-1 Special Edition Laptop (7352), both of which have Intel Core i7 CPUs, were, as expected, noticeably quicker in our benchmarks. In comparison to the Apple MacBook, which took 3:39 on the Handbrake test and 6:24 in Photoshop CS6, the MacBook Air was noticeably quicker.
