Apple’s new 13-inch MacBook Pro, and 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, are the latest models. They all offer slimmer and lighter designs than their predecessors, larger touchpads, brighter and more colorful displays and louder speakers, plus new Thunderbolt 3 ports for the fastest transfer speeds yet. But you don’t get an SD card slot.
But, you can well and truly edit on an 11 inch MacBook Air. I flew from London to Australia, with a desperate deadline hanging over my head. I managed to cut several hours of interviews down to a manageable level, working on the 11 inch MacBook Air and Final Cut Pro X. By the time I landed, some 24 hours later, I’d pretty much cleared the decks of a major piece of work. Not 100% completed, but well underway.
The MacBook Air is the cheapest notebook in Apple’s lineup at$999, especially now that the 11-inch$899 MacBook Air has been retired. It has something else big going for it: 14 hours of battery life on our tests, which makes it the longest running MacBook by far. That kind of endurance and pricing makes the Air a good option for students.
You might also appreciate that the Air comes with full-size USB ports and an SD card slot, which makes it easy to transfer photos from your camera. Not a fan of the new flat butterfly keyboards on the latest MacBook and MacBook Pro? The Air sports a traditional keyboard with more travel, which some may find more comfortable.
For something so thin and light, the Air feels sturdy. I assume that’s due to the unibody construction.
It’s sturdy enough that the hinge between monitor and keyboard can take more force than the weight of the laptop. If you push too quickly and too hard on the monitor you can easily tip the Air.
When the Air is on my lap it hardly feels like it’s there. I haven’t carried it around with me when I leave home, but it’s not hard to see how it will be a joy to travel with.
I have no recommendations regarding the processor for the new MacBook Pro. The performance differences and the price differences between the processors are roughly equivalent.
In others words, Mac computers are durable and worth to use and have it.