The New MacBook Air: More Speed, More Battery Life, A Lot Less Money

Apple recently unveiled the new Mac Book Air with the promise of “all-day battery life.”

by Terry Nakagawa, Viewpoints Tech Expert

At the keynote of this week’s Apple World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC), Apple introduced the new MacBook Air. While the current Air is very, very good (I have one), the new Air has basically more of everything.

In fact, on the surface the 2013 MacBook Air looks exactly the same as last year’s. But under the hood, there are multiple noticeable changes.

Faster processors, faster memory

Besides the Air’s sleek design, what defines this notebook is its processing speed. The new Air has the next generation Intel’s mobile chipset codenamed “Haswell.” They’re speedy dual core chips (Core i5 and Core i7) that have base speeds of 1.3Ghz but have turbo-boost (accelerated processing) speeds of 2.6Ghz for the Core i5 and 3.3Ghz for the Core i7. The net is, these chips are fast and can handle everything from spreadsheets, to presentations to basic Final Cut Pro projects. In addition, these chips have faster integrated graphics processing, which Apple says is 40% faster than the 2012 Air.

What makes these Haswell chips so much better is that not only are they faster, but they use much less power. Apple claims that you now have “All Day Battery Life” on the Airs. The 11-inch MacBook Air has a claimed 9-hour endurance, while the 13-inch has an incredible 12-hour battery life. While I have great battery life on the 2012 Air, it’s amazing that Apple and Intel are able to deliver faster speeds with a significant bump in usability.

CNet points out that the reason why Apple has been able to boost battery life is that it didn’t upgrade the Air’s screen to its Retina display. Doing so would have probably reduced battery life to current levels (not necessarily a bad thing), and also prevented Apple from lowering its prices.

Besides the new chipset, the flash storage in the Air is now 45% faster than before. This is important because it affects the overall performance of the computer. The faster a computer can write and read from its hard drive, the faster it can perform.

Speed also isn’t limited to drives and chips. The Wi-Fi in the new Air is the new wireless protocol (802.11ac). What this means is that you now have much faster wireless speeds that will rival a Ethernet connection. This new wireless protocol is often referred to by techies as “wireless gigabit” and it’s about 3-times faster than the current 802.11n standard. Of course, in order to get these speeds you have to connect to a corresponding 802.11ac base station. But that’s another story.

VIDEO: Watch the new Mac Book Air presentation at this week’s Apple Developer’s conference. The updated computers start shipping immediately. 

Less money for Air

When the MacBook Air was introduced by Steve Jobs in January 2008, it was the first super-thin notebook computer. It was also the first mainstream computer to incorporate flash memory in place of a conventional hard drive. It also cost a lot (~$2,500) and, aside from a fully-loaded 17-inch MacBookPro, was one of the most expensive notebooks in Apple’s lineup.

In the past five years, MacBook Airs have come down in price so much that they now occupy the entry-level position in Apple’s MacBook lineup. The least expensive Apple notebook computer is the 11-inch MacBook Air which is $999 (the 13-inch model starts at $1,299). What’s more, the base-level flash hard drive is now 128GB (it used to be 64GB) and you can option it out to 512GB. Only the Mac Mini costs less than an 11-inch MacBook Air.

When I bought my 13-inch MacBook Air last fall, I custom configured it so that I could have as much power as possible in the smallest form factor. I thought about getting a 15-in MacBook Pro w/Retina display but the allure of having a notebook computer that weighs just a little over two pounds was more important. My Air with maxed out memory (8GB), an upgraded processor (Core i7) and a 256GB Flash hard drive cost about $1,900. Today, if I were to order the same configuration, it would be a little more than $1,500.

What’s not to like?

So what’s the new MacBook Air missing? You can’t increase your RAM to 16GB (its limit is 8GB) like the MacBook Pro. It lacks a quad-core processor like the Pro. And there’s no option of a Retina Display. With those qualifiers,  the new Air has pretty much everything else covered. A faster chipset, much better graphics, a faster hard drive and next-generation wireless connectivity mean that while the new Air looks the same it’s a significantly improved machines. And it’s a lot more affordable than it’s ever been.

If you’re in the market for a new notebook computer that can handle virtually any kind of business-related project seamlessly, or you spend a lot your time traveling where battery-life is a priority, the new MacBook Air is definitely for you.

Hmmm. I wonder how much I could sell my 2012 MacBook Air for on eBay?

Terry Nakagawa is a Chicago-based technology marketing veteran with more than 20 years of industry background. He has been involved in launching products that have been at the forefront of innovation from broadband and wireless to unified communications.

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