The improvements in this year's 13-inch Air are far less dramatic than last year's, both from a features and performance standpoint, but the Air is truly the go-to MacBook now, a machine that's even more affordable, although it still looms well above the cost of most Windows Ultra books. Because of its excellent performance, the MacBook Air remains the most recommendable Mac-book of the current batch, and one of the most affordable.
Want a MacBook that's truly portable? This is it. Want a back-to-school MacBook? This is the one. And, until the US$2,199 Retina Pro drops in price, the US$1,199 13-inch Air remains the MacBook for the masses. It's lighter, it performs better than ever, it's less expensive, and in head-to-head tests with the 2012 13-inch MacBook Pro, the Air performed very closely, and had better battery life: Nearly 45 minutes better than the 2011 Air.
Owners of last year's Air need not consider an upgrade, but if you haven't pulled the trigger on getting an Air yet, this is the best time to leap on board.
Design
The all-aluminum unibody design of the MacBook Air has become iconic, and its rock-solid wedge-shaped build has influenced many of the current crop of Windows Ultrabooks. However, just like the iPhone started iconic and gradually found itself surrounded by a sea of similar competitors, the MacBook Air now sits among Ultrabooks, no longer as stand-out as it was a year ago. That doesn't mean the Air is any less comfortable or excellently built, but the look, going on a few years old, is feeling less surprising.
| Price as reviewed | US$1,199 (S$1,688) |
|---|---|
| Processor | 1.8GHz Intel Core i5 ULV (3rd-gen) |
| Memory | 4GB, 1,600MHz DDR3 |
| Hard Drive | 128GB SSD |
| Chipset | Intel HM77 |
| Graphics | Intel HD Graphics 4000 |
| Operating system | OS X Lion 10.7.4 |
| Dimensions (WD) | 325 x 227mm |
| Height | 17mm |
Both versions of the 13-inch Air sold on Apple's US Web site come with the same 1.8 GHz Intel Core i5 processor, a third-gen Intel Ivy Bridge CPU with Turbo Boost up to 2.8 GHz. If you choose the US$1,499 256GB SSD version, you can upgrade to a bumped-up 2.0 GHz Core i7 (Turbo Boost to 3.2 GHz) for US$100, and upgrade the SSD to 512GB for an extra US$500. Trick out your Air all the way, and it'll cost US$2,199--not so coincidentally, the cost of an entry-level Retina Display MacBook Pro.
Article By--http://asia.cnet.com/product/apple-macbook-air-2012-core-i5-1-8ghz-4gb-128gb-13-3-inch-lcd-46554402.htm
0 comments:
Post a Comment