A fine replacement for the 11″ MacBook Air.

The 11″ MacBook Air at left next to the 12″ MacBook.

My son and I have long been aficionados of the 11″ MacBook Air. Light, adequately fast and with sufficient internal chip storage for all but large video and photo catalogs, it was affordably priced. Sadly, Apple discontinued the 11″ version in 2015, and only the 13″ version continues in the line.

As my son works his way to the Ivy League he has stepped up his efforts and just scored an A+ mid-term grade in calculus, so it seemed only fair to hear his complaint about the slowness of his 2013 MacBook and procure him an upgrade. There were, however, two issues. First the closest match in size to the 11″ MBA is the 2017/18 MacBook – the specifications remained unchanged in 2018 – but the asking price of $1300 is outrageous. Second, when the current MacBook first surfaced in 2015 we tried one in the Apple Store and were very disappointed by the mushy feel of the keyboard.

Well, both issues have been happily resolved. First, B&H in New York had a special on the 2017 MacBook a few days ago, slashing the price by $500 to $800, albeit available in gold finish only. No big deal – it looks OK, even if silver would have been preferred. Second, Apple redesigned the keyboard in 2017 and the feel is now superb. The keys are crisp and light and every bit as good as those in the MBA.

Memory is doubled to 8gB and speed is now up to 1867MHz. The latest integrated Intel GPU sees to speedy screen response of the Retina display and data storage is now 256gB of quick RAM compared with 128gB in the 2013 MBA. The CPU is Intel’s Core m3 with a Geekbench score of 6643 compared with 4974 for the 2013 MBA despite the slower clock speed of 1.2gHz vs. 1.3gHz in the older laptop. That’s 33% faster. (The last 11″ MBA made, the 2015, scored 5568).

Display pixels? 1366 x 768 in the MBA compared with 2304 x 1440 for the MacBook with retina Display, or almost three times as many pixels per unit area. My son reports that the Retina Display in the MacBook is noticeably sharper than the regular one in the MBA.

Testifying to continued improvement in engineering the MacBook weighs in at a scant 2.0 lbs compared with 2.4lbs for the 2013 MBA, yet the screen is 19% larger in the MacBook. Wonderful. Battery life is a claimed 10 hrs, presumably measured in a dark room with minimum screen brightness and no activity ….

What’s not to like. Well, yet another connector switch with the MacBook using USB C at both the laptop and power brick ends. And because the laptop has only one USB C socket for power and data (the MBA has two USB A sockets and a power socket) this means that an adapter will be required if, say, you want to use the laptop with an external display while simultaneously charging it. Not great.

Transfer of apps and data from the old MBA was a breeze as my son backs up everything automatically to iCloud. While Apple really should include a progress bar when recovery to the new laptop is in progress – the screen display just remains static and you have no idea if anything is happening – the whole process took but 10 minutes. Very nicely done, Apple.

The old 2013 MBA will sell for $400 or so on Swappa making the net upgrade outlay just $400. Now that’s what I call a bargain, given the six years of hard use my son got from the machine. Be sure to wait for the B&H discount to reappear as the $1300 full retail price is way too high.