Apple 11-inch MacBook Air review

Just as with the 13-inch MacBook Air Apple has decided that, externally, the new 11-inch Macbook Air didn’t need any work. It has a point, as the aluminium case still looks gorgeous and there’s no real way of making it thinner or smaller without damaging build quality or usability. Instead, the changes fall into two important areas: you get a battery-saving Intel Haswell processor and a bigger SSD for less money.

Battery life is one of the most important aspects of any laptop, but it’s particularly important in the 11-inch Macbook Air. It weighs just 1.1kg and is small enough to fit into practically any bag, so it’s designed to be carried anywhere you go. With last year’s model we managed eight hours of use in our light-use battery test, although putting a bit more strain on the laptop realistically brings that figure down to less than five hours.

When you’ve got the best laptop case, there’s little point in changing it

With the 1.3GHz dual-core Intel Core i5-4250U ‘Haswell’ CPU in 2013 model, things are different. This CPU has been built to conserve battery life, with a special low-power state that draws very little energy when the computer’s not doing anything. As a result our light-use battery test let this laptop last 14h 33m, which is simply incredible.

As our test means that the laptop hasn’t got a lot of work to do, we ran a new battery benchmark, which plays a 10m-long video every 30m. In this test, we found that the laptop lasted 5h 54m. That’s still impressive and means that for general use the 2013 11-inch Macbook Air should last a good two-hours or so longer than the 2012 model.

There’s a slight trade off in raw performance, though, as the Haswell CPU used is slightly slower than last year’s model in our benchmarks. In 2012 we got a score of 52, but this year it’s 44. Realistically, this kind of difference isn’t going to be noticeable, and this year’s model has practically the same performance. It’s important to note that applications and OS X haven’t got tougher to run, so the slight drop in measured performance isn’t going to be nigh on impossible to spot in everyday use. If you want a bit more performance, you can upgrade to a 1.7GHz dual-core Core i7 CPU (£120).

Haswell processors also have faster built-in graphics than the previous generation Ivy Bridge models. Running on Windows PC, we’ve seen that Haswell’s graphics are capable of playing less-demanding games. While OS X doesn’t have a lot of 3D gaming built in, the faster graphics should mean smoother transitions and graphical effects.

Haswell processors also come out of sleep very quickly, so the Macbook Air can wake up in less than one second. That’s pretty incredible and means that your laptop’s ready and waiting for you when you need to use it.

As well as the new processor, the entry-level MacBook Air now has a 128GB SSD instead of a 64GB model. That’s a good move, as 64GB is just not enough storage. However, we recommend thinking carefully about moving to a 256GB SSD (£180), while upgrading RAM to 8GB (£80) could be a smart move, too.

As we said at the start of the review, nothing else has really changed. It’s generally a good thing, particularly when it comes to input devices, as the keyboard and touchpad are both excellent. When it comes to laptop keyboards, the Macbook range has the best. Typing accurately and at speed is incredibly easy and you won’t find yourself longing for a desktop keyboard.

Without a doubt, the MacBook Air’s keyboard and touchpad are the best

Likewise, the responsive and large touchpad is brilliant. This is largely down to OS X 10.8, which properly supports the multi-touch gestures. For example, you use two fingers to scroll, three fingers to swipe between different Desktops and three fingers up to show Mission Control and all of your open apps. It’s a fluid and brilliant system that makes Windows laptops feel quite old-fashioned.

It would have been nice to see a higher resolution screen

The 11.6in screen is the same model used in last year’s model. It has a resolution of 1,366×768 and it’s a slight disappointment that a higher-resolution screen or Retina model couldn’t have been fitted. We can get over this, though, as fitting a higher-resolution screen would most likely have impacted on build quality, durability and battery life.

Besides, on an 11.6in screen, you’d have struggled to read anything on the screen, without increasing the size of the interface. In all likelihood, then, more resolution would have looked slightly sharper, but you wouldn’t get more on screen.

Fortunately, the screen quality is fantastic thanks to the brilliant IPS panel. Viewing angles are brilliant, the anti-reflective coating means you can read it in practically any lighting condition, and it’s very bright. Colours are vibrant and we saw all of the detail in our high-contrast images. Given a choice between more resolution or better quality, quality wins every time in our book.

You don’t get a lot of ports on the MacBook Air, as the case is too small, but it should be enough for most people

Round the outside of the case, you don’t get a lot of ports, with two USB3 ports, Thunderbolt (fast storage and for connecting to displays) and a headphone jack. There’s no SD card slot, as you get on the 13-inch Macbook Air, so you’ll need to carry a USB reader around for memory cards. The only change to the case is that the single microphone has been replaced with dual microphones, which should make audio clearer when you make Facetime calls using the built-in webcam.

Whether or not the Macbook Air is the computer for you depends on a lot of things. Strictly speaking, we think that the 13-inch Macbook Air, is better value and its larger, slightly higher-resolution screen is that bit easier to read; if you need a more multi-purpose computer that you can carry around, that’s the one to buy. However, if you want an incredible small laptop that’s very comfortable to type on, and you have a main computer for day-to-day work, the 11-inch Macbook Air remains a brilliant choice.

2014 MODEL WITH UPGRADED SPECS AND LOWER PRICE

With a starting price of just £749 for the 11in model, which is £100 less than last year, the latest 2014 Macbook Air is cheaper than ever. You still have a choice of two specifications, but both versions will now come with a dual-core 1.4GHz Intel Core i5 processor, which we think is a Intel Core i5-4260U model – an updated version of the original Intel Core i5-4250U processor.

If you want a little more processing power, you can upgrade the processor to a dual-core 1.7GHz Core i7 processor (which we believe to be a Intel Core i7-4650U) for another £120. With faster clock speeds, this should mean the new 11in Macbook Airs are faster than last year’s models. However, there’s unlikely to be any increase in graphics performance, as both the Core i5 and Core i7 processors come with the same Intel HD Graphics 5000 chip.

Apart from new processors, the 11in Macbook Air is exactly the same as before. The laptop’s 11in screen has a 1,366×768 resolution and you’ll have storage options of either 128GB or 256GB SSDs.

However, at £749 for the 128GB model and £899 for the 256GB version, the 11in Macbook Air is now more tempting than ever. It was already one of our favourite ultraportables, but today’s price cut makes them better value than ever.

That said, we’re rapidly approaching the time of year when Apple usually releases a much bigger update to its Macbook Air laptops, as the 2013 and 2012 models were both released in June. With this in mind, it may be better to wait a while before buying a new Macbook Air to see if Apple has anything else up its sleeve. After all, we’re still keenly awaiting a Retina version of the Macbook Air, so today’s price cut could mean there’s another more expensive model on its way to plug the price gap.