New macbook air 2014 review update#
New macbook air 2014 review pro#
New macbook air 2014 review windows 8.1#

The necessary adaptor for the Thunderbolt/Mini-DisplayPort has to be purchased, just like the Ethernet adaptor. Meager is also the correct term – typical for Apple – for the scope of delivery. Drawbacks that are more serious are the glossy display and the non-existent maintainability. The standard warranty period of just one year is a bit meager, but can be extended for an additional charge. The performance of the frugal Haswell ULV CPU is usually more than sufficient for most scenarios and offers sufficient GPU performance for standard applications. The internal Solid State Drive is also fast. LTE/4G for the Internet on the road is unfortunately still not available as an option. The notebook can also convince us with a hardly audible system noise and acceptably low surface temperatures.įast data transfers are provided by a fast wireless module with support for the WLAN standard 802.11ac and two USB 3.0 ports. This impression is supported by the great build quality. There is no performance difference between battery and mains power.Īpple might have a polarizing effect, the MacBook Air 13 can still inspire with its timeless design and the compact Unibody chassis.

New macbook air 2014 review windows 8.1#

The stress test under Windows 8.1 with FurMark and Prime95, which stresses the components, quickly shows a throttling of the processor to 800 - 900 MHz. In short: The native operating system can use the components much more efficiently. In terms of performance difference between Windows and MacOS X Mavericks, we can repeat our results from the MacBook Air review, so we recommend our in-depth test for more details. Our review unit only occasionally utilizes the Turbo potential of 2.7 GHz, just like the predecessor, and the CPU usually runs with up to 2.4 GHz.

This means there is no perceptible performance improvement. Cinebench R11.5 64-bit gets 5% more points, the R10 version 5% less, which can be measurement uncertainties. The Thermal Design Power is once again at 15 Watts the chipset is mostly integrated into the CPU and saves power as well as space.Īs expected, the benchmarks (MacOS) do not show big performance improvements because of the slightly increased clock. The new 2014 Intel Haswell CPU, the Intel Core i5-4260U, now runs with 1.4 GHz instead of 1.3 GHz, and the Turbo Boost was slightly raised to 2.7 GHz.

New macbook air 2014 review pro#

Rivals for the MacBook Air are the Asus Zenbook-series, Dell's XPS 13, Sony's Vaio Pro 13 and Duo 13, the Samsung Ativ Book 9-series as well as Apple's own MacBook Pro 13. The configurable top version with a faster i7 CPU and twice the amount of memory and flash storage retails for 1,749 Euros (~$2387). However, there is a difference, Apple charges around 1,200 Euros (~$1638) for our review version, which is 100 Euros (~$136) less than last year. Everything stays the same concerning the display, the port variety and the design. The MacBook Air MD761D/B now uses the latest Haswell processor technology from Intel more precisely a Core i5-4260U clocked at 1.4 GHz in combination with 4 GB RAM and 256 GB flash storage. Nothing changed in terms of design since the first MacBook Air back in 2008, except for the keyboard background illumination introduced in 2010.īecause there have not been big changes, we will focus on some key aspects in this review update, all other information is available in our in-depth review of the Apple MacBook Air MD760D/A and apply for our review unit as well.

New macbook air 2014 review update#

The previously reviewed MacBook Air once again got an update that focuses on the hardware. For the original German review, see here.Įvery year we get an Apple update – at least sort of.