Wireless connectivity is ample, too, with dual-band, 2×2 stream 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4 connections. In a video rundown test, with Wi-Fi off and the screen set at a brighter 120cd/m2, the 13in MacBook Air played a 720p movie on loop for 11hrs 51mins.Īpple 13-inch MacBook Air (early 2015) review: connectivity and displayĪround the edges of the chassis, there are two USB 3 ports, an SD card reader, a 3.5mm headset jack and a Thunderbolt 2 port for both ultra-fast connectivity and monitor output via mini-DisplayPort. In our light-use test, with the screen brightness calibrated to 75cd/m2, the MacBook Air kept trucking for 16hrs 46mins, which is around the same time the 13in Macbook Pro achieved. Meanwhile, the low screen resolution does at least have one benefit: despite the humble GPU, OS X feels slick and smooth, and there are fewer of the slight judders you occasionally get on the Retina-class MacBook Pro models.īattery life was always a strong point, and here the 2015 MacBook Air outstrips its predecessor by a huge six hours. The capable CPU and SSD make for scorching application load times, not to mention a general feeling of snappy responsiveness. Subjectively, the MacBook Air remains a spritely performer. In the new benchmark suite, it scored 36 overall, a result which puts it slap bang in-between the 13in MacBook Pro, which scored 56, and the MacBook, which managed a modest overall result of 20. The MacBook Air sailed to a respectable score of 0.7 in the old PC Pro Real World Benchmarks – exactly the same result as last year’s model. Taken as a whole, however, there isn’t a huge impact to the changes.
Where the previous generation achieved sequential read and write speeds of 664MB/sec and 542MB/sec, the new model stormed past with 1,145MB/sec and 979MB/sec.Īpple 13-inch MacBook Air (early 2015) review: general performance and battery life The previous PCI-Express SSDs weren’t exactly slow, easily outstripping the mSATA drives found in most Windows laptops, but Apple has upped the internal PCI-Express interface from two to four lanes for 2015, doubling the available bandwidth.
Last year’s 1.4GHz Haswell CPU has been replaced by the 1.6GHz Intel Core i5-5250U, and along with it comes a new integrated GPU, the HD Graphics 6000, and as ever it’s possible to upgrade to a 2.2GHz Core i7 for a £130 premium.Īs I’ve found on other laptops, performance increases aren’t necessarily the order of the day here: Broadwell’s move to a 14nm process simply means the new CPUs generate a little less heat.Īpple’s decision to bring the supercharged SSD over from the 13-inch MacBook Pro is far more exciting.
Apple 13-inch MacBook Air (early 2015) review: Broadwell and SSD performance
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