Another worthwhile upgrade.

I just upgraded my MacBook Air to the 2014 model and commend it to you. Most of the press out there has cynically dismissed the CPU speed bump from 1.3GHz to 1.4GHz as irrelevant, though the drop in the price of the 4GB/128GB base model (mine!) of $100 to $899 has been rightly welcomed.

Well, those writers are dead wrong. The speed increase on CPU tasks as measured by Geekbench is significant:

2014 compared with 2013.

In my book that’s a 22% CPU speed gain despite a spec gain of just 8% in CPU speed. That’s very impressive.

GPU speed?

Cinebench GPU comparisons – 2014 vs. 2013.

A 21% speed gain. Not trivial.

The MacBook Air remains the best value laptop for road use, weighs 50lbs less than a real Mac Pro (not the poncy cylindrical version) and runs PS CS5 and LR5 just fine if not as fast as the behemoth. For road trips it’s all you need.

And it commands a 70% of cost resale value 12 months hence. Try that with your garbage Windows laptop.

For comparative data on the 2013 MacBook Air click here.

Highly recommended.