Overview and tests of the new MacBook Air (2013)

Good afternoon, users of Habrahabr. I want to share the joy: two weeks ago I won the new MacBook Air MD761, one of those models on the Intel Haswell processor. Sin - took thanks to the tricks of the apple company. So they praised the laptop: 12 hours of work, and 15% more powerful and SSD superfast ...

Two weeks have passed and now I am ready to bring to the court everything that I experienced with this, as it is fashionable to say now, an ultrabook.
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Self review



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So, the article will touch on all the new things that “stuck” Apple in MacBook Air 2013.

SSD

Firstly, these are the ultra-fast SSDs that Samsung is now doing. But few people know that they are also being made by SanDisk, so when you buy a 2013 MacBook Air for yourself, you play roulette, because it is impossible to know what you slipped. I was lucky - I got Samsung, which gives 700 MB / s for reading and writing. SanDisk gives 700 for reading and only 300-400 for writing.



In practice, such a fast SSD really doesn’t feel if you use a laptop to surf the net or watch movies (not AVI Lossless, of course).

Wi-Fi 802.11ac

The new data transmission standard allows several times to increase the speed offered by 802.11n. Why do you need it? Of course, this is a reserve for the future, but now I have nothing to check this speed for. My home operator, for whom I pay 900 rubles per month. promises a speed of 100 Mbit, as a result I get 15 Mbit. What can there be? (It's time to change the operator, by the way)

The only use now is a bundle with the new TimeCapsule (a review of which you so quickly rejected on Habré). MacBook Air paired with the “time capsule” made a copy of the system (25 GB) in 15 minutes. Impressive.

Intel Haswell and running time

Finally, we come to the most interesting. Apple was told that the new Air 13 'will work 12 hours, and the Air 11' 9 hours.

In practice, these figures turned out (I tested only a 13-inch model on Core i5 1.3 GHz)

- Film (H.264, 1080p ~ 7 GB, MplayerX) at 70% brightness, 100% sound in headphones: 11.5 hours
- Skype, Chrome, music without headphones, Photoshop CC periods at 100% brightness: 7-8 hours

In my opinion, the result is more than impressive. This is not worth any discussion, Haswell is really a revolution, which finally gives the laptop a long time to work.

Of course, autonomy was influenced by other factors: more “careful” RAM, the LPDDR3 standard (in the 2012 models, DDR3L is used), a reduced processor frequency. Air with a Core i5 now has a frequency of only 1.3 GHz (1.7 GHz in the 2012 models with Ivy Bridge), and Core i7 - 1.7 GHz (in the 2012 models with Ivy Bridge 2.0 GHz). But I want to assure, and it is not scary. In Turbo Boost mode, the i5 accelerates to 2.6 GHz, and the i7 accelerates to 3.3 GHz.

The results of Geekbench 2 are as follows:

MacBook Air 2012:

11 'i5 - 5600
11 'i7 - 6500
13 'i5 - 6000
13 'i7 - 6700

MacBook Air 2013:

11 'i5 - 6600
11 'i7 - 8100
13 'i5 - 6700
13 'i7 - 8200

Regarding the Air 2013 Core i5 - I confirm 6700 points in Geekbench 2

Other checks:

Running Photoshop CC - 3 seconds
Running Photoshop CS6 - 2 seconds
MacBook cold start - 13 seconds
Running After Effects CS6 - 8 seconds

New Air Problems

Unfortunately, not everything is so good in the new Air, there are problems. It's a pity…

First, it is a sensational problem with Wi-Fi. It really is, but manifests itself in different ways. The Internet stops working every 1-3 hours. You just need to reconnect the connection via Wi-Fi and everything returns to its place. My friend also bought Air 2013 (MD760), his Wi-Fi does not work at all. Pleases only that the problem is solved by updating to 10.8.5 DP or Mavericks DP.

Secondly, the "prancing sound." When watching movies, the sound level itself changes by 30-40%, this is also a software error and in 10.8.5 I also do not observe it.

And thirdly, spontaneous entry into sleep mode. Perhaps this problem applies only to my laptop, as a magnet may be buggy, but the problem exists and is, fortunately, not often. Every 1-2 days.

Conclusion



The 2013 MacBook Air is undoubtedly a breakthrough thing that deserves the attention of anyone looking for a worthy replacement for one of the old MacBooks or laptops on Windows (if you want to join the Apple camp). Before this newcomer, I used MacBook Pro MD313 (mid 2011), and before that, Air 2010. I want to say that I will not return to Pro'shka. First, I had to put the SSD there instead of the drive, so that the computer really worked normally, and secondly, after the Air, it was not so portable. But there are also pluses - I used OS X 10.6.8 on it, which allowed me to work on the laptop for 5 hours and didn’t have unnecessary “whistles”, like a notification center or “rubber” animation, which I disconnected through 10.8.4 through the terminal.

The 13th Air is a tough, slim and rather smart laptop, and in my opinion worth the money. I bought the model MD761 for 47 000 rubles, I am satisfied with the purchase.