Wednesday, May 21, 2014

MacBook Air review: A little faster, a little slower, a little more affordable


Editor's note: This review was updated on 5/20/14 to include the $1099 11-inch MacBook Air with 256GB of flash storage.
Macworld - There’s not much new about Apple’s updated MacBook Air lineup. Fortunately, the Air was already a top-notch portable computer. The subtle increase in processor speeds, along with a respectable decrease in price, are obvious positive steps for consumers. And while the faster processor did help the new MacBook Air in our application tests, the flash storage didn’t always perform as well as we’ve come to expect.
The latest MacBook Air models are available in four standard configurations, two with 11.6-inch screens, and two with 13.3-inch screens. All four configurations have the same Intel 1.4GHz dual-core Core i5 processor, which is 100MHz faster than the 1.3GHz dual-core Core i5 processor found in the mid-2013 MacBook Air.
Everything else about new MacBook Air is the same as last year’s model: 4GB of DDR3 memory, Intel HD 5000 integrated graphics, and either 128GB or 256GB of PCIe-connected flash storage.   Read More