The 2012 MacBook Air (11 & 13-inch) Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 16, 2012 12:53 PM EST- Posted in
- Apple
- Mac
- MacBook Air
- Laptops
- Notebooks
Final Words
The MacBook Air is in its third iteration of the current design and it's tangibly better than the two that came before it. The 2010 (and older) models are just plain slow by comparison. Thanks to architectural, frequency and thermal improvements, one of the cores from a 2012 MacBook Air ends up being faster than two from a 2010 MBA. In other words, the 2012 models end up being more than twice as fast as the 2010 models in many of our CPU bound tests.
Battery life has also improved thanks to Intel's 22nm silicon. You'll get between 3 - 7 hours on the 13-inch MBA, and between 1.85 - 5 on the 11-inch model.
It's not all about Intel in the 2012 Airs however. The improvement in storage performance is even more revolutionary. Similar to the rMBP, with the 2012 MacBook Air Apple has entered the world of modern SSD performance. The impact of the faster SSDs is felt everywhere from boot to application performance. Once again there are two SSD suppliers, but unlike in previous models both can be deliver good performance. If you use FileVault or plan on working with a ton of already compressed data, you'll want to pick a 256GB or 512GB drive to end up with Samsung's controller rather than the SandForce driven Toshiba solution.
By offering 8GB RAM and 512GB SSD BTO options, Apple has made the MacBook Air even more of an upgrade for owners of older MacBook Pros. The options aren't cheap but the flexibility in an inflexible machine is important.
The only real downside to the 2012 MacBook Air is in the display department. Apple raised the bar with the 2012 iPad and Retina Display on the MacBook Pro, the MacBook Air's display is good for a TN panel but the rest of Apple's new world has moved to high resolution IPS panels. The same is starting to be true outside of Apple as well. The competition has simply caught up and surpassed Apple in the low-cost, but high-quality display business. The MacBook Air is no longer competing against poorly designed netbooks, but a bunch of clones that are quickly approaching parity across the board. The MBA panel isn't bad, but it needs to be better.
Even without a new display however, the MacBook Air continues to be one of the best executed ultraportables on the market today. If you're after absolute portability, the 11-inch model is great. If you want a Pro replacement and can get away without four cores and a discrete GPU, the 13 gets the job done. I have no issues recommending either system.
Looking forward, Haswell will have an even more significant impact on the MacBook Air next year. Without room or the thermal budget for a discrete GPU, the MacBook Air stands to benefit even more from improved processor graphics. With 2.5x the graphics compute power of HD 4000 plus embedded DRAM, Haswell's processor graphics will bring an entirely new level of gaming performance to the MacBook Air.
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G3t/All - Monday, July 16, 2012 - link
If by games you mean very light duty stuff then yes. It uses an Intel HD4000 graphics chip which translates into no discrete graphics card. This is intended for mobility and not gaming performance. As far as driver problems, you can download all the windows 7 drivers from Apple, or they are included using "Boot Camp". Can't remember which. Driver issues are not the problem, the lack of a discrete graphics card is. Google whatever games your planning on playing and see what kind of framerate they return running on Intel HD4000 graphics. If those numbers are acceptable, then you should be fine.khimera2000 - Monday, July 16, 2012 - link
I avoid Intel as much as possible for gaming. Yes there graphic hardware might be improving, but I hate the bugs. Optimus never worked right on my notebook, my older notebooks always bugged out with dedicated Intel, or some other issue would creep out of the wood work.Your not getting a MacBook air for gaming, ya there's Steam but the thought of gaming on a system like this is in fifth place behind Productivity, Portability, Battery Life, and Build quality. I would go for the Pro with a dedicated Video if your prioritizing anything 3D (games or otherwise.)
KPOM - Monday, July 16, 2012 - link
Be aware of the "bug" affecting the Core i7 models. There is a workaround for the CPU (install a program called ThrottleStop 5.00 beta), but it also seems to have some impact on the GPU right now. Apple is working on a fix, but hasn't said when it will be out.KPOM - Monday, July 16, 2012 - link
The bug is that it doesn't fully enable turbo boost. The i7 is supposed to go up to 3.2GHz, but seems to be topping out around 2.4GHz.KPOM - Monday, July 16, 2012 - link
And note it is only on Windows (Turbo Boost works fine on OS X).ananduser - Monday, July 16, 2012 - link
Yes you will, but windows on a mac incurs some penalties to the battery life and overall performance of the system. Too bad Apple forces you to deal with bootcamp.CharonPDX - Monday, July 16, 2012 - link
"With the 13-inch MBA significantly outpacing even the rMBP with its 95Wh battery, while doing the exact same amount of work."I have to disagree. The MBA isn't doing the same amount of "work", it is performing under a similar effective "load".
Something tells me that if you were performing a fixed amount of work via heavily CPU/GPU-intensive tasks on both the 13" Air and the rMBP, the rMBP would get a lot more of that work done before its battery died than the Air would, even though the Air would run longer. (Say, transcoding twenty hours of HD footage using a transcoder that uses all CPU cores plus the GPU - those four cores and discrete GPU would get a lot more of that twenty hours done than the dual cores with integrated GPU.)
Karltheghost - Monday, July 16, 2012 - link
The Macbook Air is supposed to be an ultraportable, hence to be carried around the whole day. Can it stand a rough use? Since this is an ability that most new notebooks lack, i'm still stuck with my old IBM. You can close the lid, wreck a car using the Tinkpad as a club, open it again and continue working. But does the MBA work after you drop it of the table, for example?tipoo - Monday, July 16, 2012 - link
The aluminium is pretty dent prone, I've seen lots of nasty dings in aluminium macs. If the dent is deep enough it could damage something vital. The SSD does help with durability though since there are no moving heads and spinning platters to crash.GotThumbs - Monday, July 16, 2012 - link
Over the 9+ years that I've been visiting AnandTech, I've never felt more disappointed. This "Review" (reads more like a paid endorsement) lacks a sense of independent subjectivity and over flows with Fanboism.I'm really disappointed in this read.
" tons of power plus upgradability" (New technical term..."tons")
" It was a bold move but one that was very forward looking."
" If Apple were to do the Retina treatment on here, it'd be magnificent."
" If carrying anything larger than a tablet upsets you, buy the 11."
"The new 11-inch model would start at just $999. And the 13-inch would only cost $300 more. The very first MacBook Air, by comparison, retailed for $1800"
Anyone with a brain knows that by Apple using its existing parts bins (the case and what ever else) over 3 years and factoring the scale of economics....the cost was overdue for being dropped. (although 999 is not a price drop from 999 for the 11") It's only that Apple is now experiencing competition to its existing limited product pool, that it's decided to "lower" the cost of its products. Still, how much does Apple charge for a memory upgrade, compared to the cost of upgrading any PC these days? The cost of consumer SSD's had dropped, yet how much does apple upgrade cost? Apple has and continues to overcharge when doing a spec to spec comparison.
In the past I recognized that Anand was careful to remain impartial and fair is His reviews and commentaries.....Today He has failed to do so and It has just weakened the foundation of this sites independence and impartiality in the computer industry. At least for me it has.
Very disappointed Anand. Very disappointed with you.