Cheapest Online Apple Macbook Air MD231ll/A 13.3-inch Laptop
Product Description
The ultimate everyday notebook is better than ever. MacBook Air now features the latest Intel processors and graphics, faster flash storage, and a 720p FaceTime HD camera. All packed into a notebook that's incredibly thin and light. With up to 60 percent faster graphics performance, it makes everything you do feel quicker and more fluid than ever. And the latest flash storage is up to 4x faster than a traditional hard drive, making MacBook Air remarkably responsive. Thin, light, durable design High-resolution display OS X Lion Up to 7 hours of battery lifeSpecifications Intel Core i5 1.8GHz Dual-Core Processor with Turbo Boost up to 2.8GHz 3MB Shared L3 Cache 4GB of 1600MHz DDR3L onboard Memory 128GB Flash Storage 13.3-inch (diagonal) high-resolution LED-backlit glossy Widescreen Display, 1440 by 900 resolution Intel HD Graphics 4000 (Dual display and video mirroring - Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 2560 by 1600 pixels on an external display, both at millions of colors) 802.11n Wi-Fi wireless networking; IEEE 802.11a/b/g compatible Bluetooth 4.0 SD Card Slot 720p FaceTime HD Camera Integrated Stereo Speakers and Omnidirectional microphone Full-size backlit keyboard with 78 (U.S.) including 12 function keys and 4 arrow keys (inverted T arrangement) with ambient light sensor Multi-Touch trackpad for precise cursor control; supports inertial scrolling, pinch, rotate, swipe, three-finger swipe, four-finger swipe, tap, double-tap, and drag capabilities Connections & Expansions - 2 x USB 3.0, Headphone (Support for Apple iPhone headset with remote and microphone), and Thunderbolt (Native Mini DisplayPort output) Power - 100V-240V AC, 50-60Hz Unit Dimensions (WxHxD) - 12.8 x 0.11-0.68 x 8.94 inches (32.5 x 0.3-1.7 x 22.7 cm) Unit Weight - 2.96 pounds (1.35 kg)
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$1,399.99Price : $1,399.99
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Product Feature
- Faster Flash Storage; USB 3.0; 720p FaceTime HD Camera
- 1.8 GHz Intel Core i5 Processor
- 128 GB Solid State Drive; 4 GB DDR3 RAM
- Intel HD Graphics 4000; 13.3-inch LED Display
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681 of 710 people found the following review helpful.
New 13" MacBook Air vs. New 13" MacBook Pro: A side-by-side comparison
By Farb Dannon
I purchased both the newly updated 13" MacBook Air and the updated 13" MacBook Pro the day they were announced at WWDC and released for sale in June 2012. After using the two machines side-by-side for a couple weeks now, I can say that the MacBook Air offers superior performance in virtually every respect to such a degree that I've pretty much stopped using my brand new MacBook Pro. Of course the Air (which I got factory upgraded to the 2.0 GHz i7 processor and 8GB of RAM) is lighter, slimmer, and sleeker than the Pro, and yes, it does have a much higher resolution display, but I was surprised just how much faster the MacBook Air is compared to the Pro is despite the Air's slower CPU clock speed. The SSD hard drive on the MacBook Air makes an enormous difference in everything from casual web browsing to video editing.
Speed and Performance: Advantage MacBook Air
Apart from the hard drives and port configurations, the technology inside the machines is virtually identical in both the newly refreshed MacBook Air and MacBook Pro. Both Pros and Airs come with either i5 or i7 Intel "Ivy Bridge" processors, Intel HD Graphics 4000, USB 3.0, and lightning-fast Thunderbolt ports. While the MacBook Air models are at a disadvantage to the MacBook Pro models in terms of CPU clock speeds, any performance disadvantage from the processor speed is more than made up for by the lightning fast performance of the Air's SSD hard drive, which Apple markets as "Flash" storage. In everyday tasks from gaming to web browsing to watching Flash movies and editing video, the MacBook Air is faster significantly faster in virtually every task. The Air boots up in less than 12 seconds while the Pro takes upwards of one minute.
Screen: Advantage MacBook Air
Once you get used to the super high resolution 1440 x 900 LED display on the MacBook Air, the 1280 x 800 back-lit LED display on the MacBook Pro looks downright grainy and primitive. Simply put, once you get used to a higher resolution display, the 1280 x 800 display on the 13" MacBook Pro just isn't acceptable. Even for simple tasks like email or word processing where you wouldn't think the resolution would matter, the graphics look grainy and pixelated, which just isn't acceptable for a pro-level laptop in 2012.
Upgradability: Advantage MacBook Pro
One major difference that's important to consider between the Air and the Pro is that the Pro is more flexible and adaptable in terms of upgradability. With only a screw driver and about 10 minutes of your time, you can add more memory to the Pro, replace the hard drive, and even add a second hard drive in place of the optical disc drive. The Air, on the other hand, is stuck in the configuration you purchase it in except that you can opt to replace the SSD "Flash" hard drive with a higher capacity drive. However, both the Air and Pro have USB 3.0 (which is five times faster than USB 2.0 and backward compatible) and Thunderbolt (which is ten times faster than USB 2.0), I see no reason to replace the Air's hard drive any time soon given how cheap external hard drives are and how fast the connection has become.
Design, Weight, Portability, Battery Life, and Form Factor: Advantage MacBook Air
The MacBook Air is the most beautiful computer ever produced by man. The aluminum case is impeccably designed, almost tailored to accommodate the necessary internal components, while maintaining practical ergonomics. It's an incredibly thin, svelte, sexy little notebook. The aluminum case seems sturdy and durable, and its mechanics are very similar to the time-test unibody construction of the MacBook Pro. The MacBook Pro, on the other hand, is a bit of a dinosaur in its bulky circa 2006 unibody. The Pro is heavier than a half gallon of milk at 4.5 lbs, while the MacBook Air weighs in at less than 2.9 lbs. Battery life is roughly even on both machines at anywhere from 4 to 7 hours depending on workload and settings.
Summary Judgement: Buy the MacBook Air
Simply put, the guts of the two machines are basically the same, but the Air's SSD hard drive gives it a tremendously significant boost in performance. Sadly, the MacBook Pro's 5400-rpm hard drive leaves the machine unable to capitalize on the newest, most expensive Intel "Ivy Bridge" i5 and i7 processors that you're paying a $300 premium for in the newly updated Pros. If you are going to buy a Pro, invest the extra money and get it upgraded with a SSD hard drive and get an extra external hard drive if you need additional cheap storage space for multimedia files. When you also consider the superior display, lighter weight, increased portability, and lower price of the MacBook Air, it's hard to find a reason to justify purchasing the current 13" MacBook Pro, which to me looks like a dinosaur rapidly headed for extinction.
Specs on the models compared:
13" MacBook Air (mid 2012) factory upgraded to the 2.0 GHz dual core i7 processor and factory upgraded to 8 GB RAM (1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM) with standard 256 GB SSD ("Flash") hard drive
13" MacBook Pro (mid 2012) with 2.9 GHz dual core i7 processor, 8 GB RAM (1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM), and 750GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
Both feature Intel HD 4000 Graphics, 3.0 USB, Thunderbolt, 802.11n, etc.
219 of 234 people found the following review helpful.
Portability and performance: a photographer's perspective
By Noah
I am a professional photographer, and recently purchased the Macbook Air 13" base model as an addition to my desktop workstation. It replaced a 2010 13" Macbook Pro as the machine I'll use when away from the office. After a few days of testing, here are my thoughts:
Processor: The one word response would be "sufficient." Overall, the beauty of this laptop is that it gets out to the way and simply lets you do what you need to do. The processor isn't the fastest on the market, but I have never been left waiting for any processing tasks to date. As an email access point, word processor, and internet browser there is more than enough processing power to have a boatload of applications and multiple tabs open without a stutter. Web pages scroll nicely, new programs open in a second or two and when it comes to productivity tasks this is night and day better than my iPad since I can actually use the keyboard, Microsoft Office etc. The processor doesn't need to be all that powerful in large part due to the flash memory storage, upgraded in this generation to the faster 6 Gb/s connection so that read/write processes don't drag the computer down at all. While I use my desktop for all of my heavy duty processing of images and HD video, I will occasionally need to process an image or two on the road. So far I have found that Photoshop CS5 runs very nicely on this model, with nearly instant effects utilizing simple layer/curves adjustments. Processor intensive tasks such a gaussian blur related filters have a slight lag, taking approximately 30% longer than they do on my i7 920 desktop processor that is a few years old. It all gets done though, is far faster than my previous laptop, and nothing I regularly do has taken more than 2-3 seconds of processing time for an image, totally acceptable. It's the 30-40 second drags from my prior laptop that made me ready to throw it out the window. However, the few seconds of slowing is enough that I wouldn't want to process thousands of photos on this laptop, but for the casual edit it is more than sufficient. Lightroom runs smoothly as well, in large part due to the cache being on SSD storage, so even my 5D MkIII raw files at 30MB each are rendered to a smaller jpeg preview that the lighter processor can handle and render quickly off the SSD. Imports/export rendering take longer on this machine to be sure, but by that time I'm off doing other errands so I don't mind this lag. Video editing is functional as well and would likely work for most casual users, but massive projects simply wouldn't be possible on this machine for a multitude of reasons ranging from storage space to video card, screen size, processor etc. Overall, it does handle all casual productivity tasks that I need faster than any laptop I've owned, and can handle more processor intensive image applications acceptably for a laptop, though not fast enough that I'd consider using this as a full time professional machine.
Screen: The 13 inch model seems to be the perfect blend of portability and functionality for me. This particular screen is vibrant, and has the capability to professionally render the images that I need with a few caveats. Firstly, the factory set color profile for the screen looked good enough for basic use, but to my sensitive eyes had a bluish hue to it. Apple laptops are notoriously inaccurate for color rendition (increased contrast, saturation in reds and blues) so I would highly recommend that users who do much imaging work create a custom color profile their monitor. Even casual users are likely to be disappointed when actually printing images that look great on this screen (i.e. pumped up colors and contrast with a flat and lifeless print in real life). Also, for all of us that send files over the internet to Facebook/email etc, I would think it would be nice to know what your photos would look like "on average" to most of the users out there without a similar Mac screen. The "profile" utility built into OS X is worthless, and I'd recommend a software solution such as ColorEyes Display Pro, combined with a sensor such as the Spyder 4. I wish I could have assessed the default profile to find out how much it was off at baseline, but my software can only analyze custom profiles that it creates. Needless to say, things look a lot different after the profiling, and at 75% brightness I was able to get the monitor down to an average dE of 0.51 with a max dE of 2.99 in the greys (less than 1 is great accuracy, less than 5 is sort of standard to start professional work for me). I also notice that the edges of the screen on all sides have a very slight dark tinge/wave that extends for about half an inch. It is only faintly noticeable, shows up most against white backgrounds, and decreases with increased screen brightness. This isn't a defect unique to my unit, as it seems to affect all of the models at the Apple store that I went to see, as well as a few friends with Airs from years past. It would be nice if this screen were perfect, but it works and the minor screen variation doesn't effect the center working space of the image...so I think of it sort of like a built in vignette. This is a well documented complaint you can find on many forums with a quick internet search. If it's persisted into the 3rd generation of modern Air I don't see it going away soon. The resolution is also acceptable and a noted improvement over the 13" standard Macbook pro. Not retina, but the graphics on this model couldn't handle that resolution anyways. Retina display on the Macbook air will be a welcome addition in the years to come when the technology to scale everything down at a reasonable cost becomes feasible. Till then, this does the trick.
Battery life: one of my most important considerations for a laptop. This computer consistently achieves 7hrs of battery life as advertised. Screen brightness can be set to a custom level for increased battery life but I have yet to beat 7.5hrs. Surprisingly, Wifi intensive tasks such as downloading large files seem to have the biggest impact on battery life. I'd love to have a 10hr laptop at some point, but this model can get me through a busy work day every time so long as I start with a fully charged battery before.
Value/Upgrades: I am happy with the 128GB base model with 4GB ram, and made that decision mainly based on the value offered by the Apple upgrades. First off, with the base processor, all of my tasks seem to fly along with the exception of major processing such as photo or video exporting after edits. The i7 2.0 GHz upgrade would only be of marginal help, with the advantage of the "turbo boost" performance at 3.2 GHz versus 2.8 or a 11-14% increase for $100 (but requiring the $300 memory upgrade as well). I seriously considered the 8GB of ram as well, as the $100 upgrade would help to future proof the computer's performance. The problem with this, or any other upgrade over the stock base model is that you need to purchase the custom Air models directly from Apple, without the Amazon discount, with the added sales tax and recycling fee. That's an additional $150 or so in immediate outlay for privilege of even beginning to customize the computer at an additional price (or about $250 extra for 8GB of ram rather than the initially apparent $100 which would have been worth it). I have found that most Mac laptops depreciate at about 10-15% per year from the base price (any additional cost to tax etc is thrown out immediately), so selling this computer in a year or two to stay current with technology is by far the better value for me.
Regarding space, I have all of my programs (Lightroom, Office, Photoshop and a few others) on the 128GB drive with 95GB to spare. That's a lot of extra space for working files so long as they aren't media based. For that, you would need an external drive either way, as a day of photography can produce 60-70GB, and video can get into the hundreds of GB quickly, nothing that the minor 128GB upgrade would cover. The USB3 connection and a 7200RPM external drive does a great job, and ensuring that Photoshop etc are using the onboard flash storage as a scratch disk makes for great performance without compromise. Also, for storage in a pinch, the SD card slot provides an opportunity for a cheap upgrade. A 64GB SD card just barely sticks out of the side and can be had for $50 or so, while a 128GB SD card costs ~$150 with prices dropping fast. These won't have anywhere near the same read write speeds as built in memory, but would be more than sufficient for music, document, image storage etc when needed.
Overall, I'm thrilled with this machine and would recommend it without hesitation. I thought briefly about the new Retina Macbook Pro, since I could find many uses for the extra resolution and processing power. However, I ultimately decided to use this machine for its exceptional value and extra portability. The rMBP is a beautiful machine, but even with its performance it isn't close to a modern desktop machine of similar pricing equipped an i7 3770 processor, SSD boot and scratch drive, GTX 670 or similar, 16GB ram and a nice 24" dual monitor setup all for the same 2k price tag. So I'll take this with me on the road or the coffee shop, and save the serious work for my desktop with multiple monitors etc. No computer can be everything for everybody, but this Air is surprisingly versatile and ranges between best in class and acceptable for everything I've thrown at it. I'm a big fan.
55 of 57 people found the following review helpful.
No longer the undisputed champion of the ultrabook sector, but still the odds-on favorite.
By Mihir Joshi
UPDATES:
1/6/13 - 3 months in, and still going strong. Picked up Applecare about a month in (you can buy it at any point before the included warranty expires). Cost me ~$200 (you can use student discount at Apple stores) for 3 years of support. All the Mac people I know swear by Applecare, and it seems like a pretty good thing to have just in case. Battery life is still a solid 5-7hrs. if not more, depending on my usage. As expected, watching HD movies or playing games does kill the battery life. Bought this neoprene sleeve since it looked solid, was inexpensive, and had good reviews. Definitely recommend a case/sleeve of some kind to avoid scratching up the shell.
Preface: I own a computer I built myself and have been continuously tinkering with and upgrading since 2007. This is my "primary" computer, and I virtually never use my Macbook while at home as a result. Prior to this purchase, the only Apple product I've owned is an iPod Touch from 2010. This is the perspective of a long-time Windows user with access to a computer of considerable horsepower. If you want to hear from someone who spends >90% of their computer time on this Macbook, I'm not your guy. However, I can still talk about the properties that make it strong for my demands of a portable, secondary computer for use whenever I'm not at home. I'll be breaking this review down into the criteria I needed my next laptop to satisfy, and where the Macbook Air fell in relation to the competitors.
One-Sentence Review: The 2012 Macbook Air is not head-and-shoulders above the competition (it's not even the best in any one category) but it's so great at everything that it's hard to say no to.
1. Portability: Both the 11" and 13" model have set the standard for the portable "ultrabook", and competition from Asus, Samsung, Lenovo, Dell, HP, and anyone else has used these laptops' dimensions as the benchmark. This 13" model weighs in at a svelte 2.9lbs., but in 2012 that's not really saying much. Look up the ultrabook offerings from the above companies and you'll see they're all within +/-0.1lbs. It's no doubt a lightweight and portable design, but I can't hand this one to Apple given how close everyone else is.
Verdict: Draw for the Macbook, since everyone has the same dimensions and weight.
2. Design & Build Quality: This used to be Apple's home court. The unibody aluminum shell of the Macbook Air was a league apart from the plastics of certain competitors. However, Samsung's Series 9 and Asus' Zenbook Prime give the Macbook Air a serious run for its money. To its credit, Apple is one of the few manufacturers who grace their ultrabooks with a super-large trackpad (which is superior to any PC laptop trackpad I've ever used) and backlit keyboard. The frame is sturdy, the lid doesn't creak or sway, and there's very little flex in the body.
Verdict: Other guys look nice, but I have to give this to Apple on the back of the keyboard and oversized trackpad.
3. Battery Life: I have yet to run my Macbook from full to empty, but I have used it for long stretches and (assuming the battery meter is accurate) can make a reasonable assessment of battery life. While browsing the web, writing a Word document, and listening to music, with screen at half-brightness, I was going for about 3.5hrs when I hit the 50% mark. A reasonable estimate places total battery life at 6.5-7hrs., which is right in Apple's factory estimate of 7. I bet you could squeeze an easy 9hrs. out of this by turning Wi-Fi and Bluetooth off and dimming the screen some. Regardless, I'm usually not away from an outlet for more than a few hours anyway, so this is a nice cushion to have. Also worth noting that the Sleep function seems to be extremely battery-efficient. 24hrs. of sleep resulted in only a 1% loss of battery life, and the Macbook instantly took me to the login screen when I hit the spacebar.
Verdict: Extremely respectable battery life and fantastic sleep efficiency.
4. Screen Quality: This is in my opinion the laptop's weakest category. The Macbook Airs use TN panels, with resolutions of 1366x768 for the 11" and 1440x900 for the 13". For the unacquainted, TN panels are the bottom shelf of LCD panels in terms of color quality. The aforementioned Zenbook Prime absolutely kills the competition with a 1080p (1920x1080) IPS panel (IPS is the top-shelf panel), and even the Series 9 has a respectable 1600x900 PLS (mid-range panel) display. This fall Apple introduced a Retina 13" Macbook Pro with an insane 2560x1600 display, but did not similarly update the Macbook Air. It may happen next year, but for now you're stuck with a low-end display. This is not to say it is objectively bad (it's not), but the competition does leave this laptop feeling somewhat inadequate.
Verdict: The Macbook Air's TN panel just cannot compare to the IPS and PLS panels on other ultrabooks.
5. Software: I had a passing familiarity with Mac OS X, and thought it to be a generally snappy, good-looking, but not well-supported OS. That last point is mostly untrue, as I have virtually everything I use on my desktop (MS Office, Spotify, Chrome, VLC Player, Steam(!), Dropbox) running natively on OS X without any issues. There's a bit of a learning curve, but I found it a genuine joy to acquaint myself with Mountain Lion's "Mission Control" feature. This allows you to create multiple desktops with independent docks and applications, effectively allowing you to segregate your computer for work and play. Many of Mountain Lion's features, as well as Safari, are well-integrated with multi-touch gestures on the trackpad, so executing commands through the trackpad is wonderfully simple. I miss the comfort of Windows only slightly, to be honest.
Verdict: OS X is a very well-designed OS for anyone who isn't strictly tied to Windows.
6. Value: Value is awkward and highly subjective. You have to make your own goals before any purchase, and evaluate which alternative offers the best chance of fulfilling that goal. As a first-year medical student with a very competent primary computer, my goals were to have a reliable, portable, and decently powerful laptop for bringing around with me to class, the library, lab, and anywhere else that wasn't my apartment. Ideally this would be a 4-year computer, lasting me the entirety of medical school. $1100 is a lot of money to spend on a laptop, so I had to be sure of what I picked. In the end I went with this because of the literally dozens of classmates and friends who have had the same Macbook (Pro/Air/whatever) for years without a hiccup or slowdown. I feel this is due in part to Apple's willingness to make its OS as backwards-compatible as possible, which means you get a non-bloated OS that's designed to work as well on yesteryear's technology as tomorrow's.
Verdict: TBD
If you've made it this far, thanks for taking the time to read, and I hope you found this useful. I would add a final caveat about potential improvements to the 2013 Macbook Air, but honestly don't give it much thought. There's always one more thing coming around the corner, and if you need a laptop now just get this one. Like I said, it's not the best at anything (except the trackpad maybe) but it's great at everything and should last you for years.
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