Macbook Air Review 2013 no more powerful battery than 9 hours of mixed use

The Macbook Air Review 2013 .Macbook Air is one of a great Apple’s success for initiate ultrabook racing.Whether Macbook Air was showed off or not, Ultrabook also appears but not soon as possible.
After MBA 2011/2012 conference , without much change, excepting cpu upgrade, Apple has released Macbook Air 2013 for 12 hours working battery life. In reality , the battery life can be working to 9 hours. Pretty amazing !

Design :
The Macbook Air keeps the same external look as the previous version, all of parameters didn’t have any change.This thing makes people disappointed because Macbook Air is larger than Macbook Pro at the same size (13’’), while Macbook Pro is much stronger and have higher materials than Macbook Air, especially when look at their hinges . Perhaps we’re gonna waiting for the next few time for the different design of Macbook Air.

To recognize Macbook Air 2013 with lately version , you should take a look at the left side, there’re 2 small microphone holes instead of 1. This is the unique difference between 2 products , that mean it didn’t change to much at the design.

 

Display :
The same with 2 lately generations, you can read the review in my old post, didn’t have any special . For the Macbook Air Retina’s dream we should wait for next year or more.

CPU Performance :
Intel didn’t have change to much about cpu performing when upgrading from Ivy bridge to Haswell, the different between 2 cpu generation is about graphics performance and the battery.

With the Macbook Air 2013, Apple utilizes the core i5 4250u chip with 1,3GHZ pulse for all version instead 1,7GHZ (11’’) or 1,8GHZ (13’’) as usual. It’s gonna decreasethe performance once in awhile. At some tests, the marks of Haswell is better than Ivy that because the modern architecture compensate the disadvantaged of pulse process. If you spend 150$ more you can afford the Core i7 1,7GHZ, higher pulse but keep the power consume and the Haswell Trasactional Synchronization Extensions
(TSX-NI) and TXT. If you want to see the reality of performance CPU, you’re gonna wait into next year for Broadwell, or Skylake!

I made a test with some benchmarks as you can see in the bottom picture, the Macbook Air reachs 6733 marks in Geekbench 64bit comparing with 5643 into Macbook Air 2011. In the Novabench,the marks of Macbook Air 2013 is 595 while compare with 531 into Macbook Air 2011. Because I didn’t have any information about benchmark of Macbook Air 2012 so I’m not able to directly compare with the 2013. But when I consult at some websites ,i noticed that just have a little bit difference between 2 generations performance , it didn’t have much value.

GPU performance :
One thing i want to emphasize a little bit about Macbook Air 2013’s GPU is that ,although Macbook Air 2013 still using a integrated graphic chip but Apple utilized GT3 with 40 EU instead of GT2 20EU as most of other ultrabook manufacturers. Certainly the different’s make the price goes up a bit, but luckily the Macbook Air’s  price didn’t get any change, even reduces a bit when comparing with the lowest 11’’ product . This is the thing makes people give compliments about Macbook Air 2013,
because you may didn’t know that the Core i5 4250U is 350$ (if you bought more than 1000CPU) while the lowest 11’’ Macbook Air is 999$.

From the testing result between HD5000 and HD4000, the HD5000 is higher 30% when doing benchmark and higher 15-20% when playing games, pretty impressive !
Unfortunately Apple is not able to use Iris (HD5100) because battery and radiator issues (TDP 28W)

SSD Performance :
Maybe you didn’t know about bottle neck phenomenon if you’re using with a HDD drive, but people who’s using a modern SSD they understand this problem.But ironically most of people are stuck with a HDD 90MBps. The second SSD SATA 2 has overcome within over 2 years but the SSD SATA 3 is now coming and possibly in 550MBps. Apple utilizes PCIe for their SSD, you probarly knew this PCIe because it’s similar for desktop computer.

The SSD read/write speed are 700BBps, amazing! Back in the year 2011, the SSD speeded on the Macbook Air is all about 250MBps, At 2012 is 550Mb and today is 700MBps, highest into all of Apple products.

Wifi 802.11ac :
Macbook Air is a first Apple’s product within using Wifi 802.11ac,like other previous versions, depends on physical size, so Macbook Air use 2 antenna for max speed is 900Mbps instead of 1,3Gbps for 3 antennas. Anyway in theory , they’re higher 2 times as we tend to take. If you didn’t know about Wifi ac on the mobile, it could be 450Mbps instead n standard.

Battery In theory :
Before talking about battery as well as the strongest advantage on the Macbook Air 2013, we need to explain why apple announces that the battery life can get 12 hours, nearly 2 times in the previous generation. At the first time, when I got this information, I thought that Macbook Air replace their display from LCD to IGZO for saving energy but it wasn’t. The difference come from the changing of CPU and some small things we can not notice from the surface.

First, the thing makes increasing battery for operating is Haswell CPU, TDP from 17W on Ivy CPU to 15W, this is not a large number, but if you noticed the PCH (platform controller hub) motorering PCIe, USB.. are integrated to BGA sole, not separate out of the mainboard.And even PCH plus GPU sole 2 times more on the HD4000 released last year which has maximum consuming at 15W. Otherwise, Haswell ULV allows the machine sleep deeper (C10 state compare C6/7 in the desktop).

The next difference come to RAM. Most of popular computers are using DDR3 or Low voltage (DDR3 L) reducing electric from 1.5 to 1.35v , or even they’re using LPDDR3 (mobile DDR) for the best result which is the pricy RAM type for mobile/tablet because it reduce the voltage to 1,2v.

There’re a lot of things we didn’t know about Macbook Air 2013, some websites noticed that it supported some profile for deep saving (SSD Devsleep ), but no one realized that thing. But we have a sure thing that when Mac OS 10.9 Mavericks release, the battery gonna keep longer than the previous version.

The battery on the Macbook Air 2013 is larger than the 2012 11% which has 7.3V 6700mAh compare with 7,6V 7150mAh on the Macbook air 2013.

Battery in Real Life :
Absolutely you have concern about the battery of Macbook Air in real life. Actualy I didn’t have a chance to utilizing the product in very long time, I’ve just operate it within 2 days so I can’t confirm that it can survives out of 12 hours.

In my test, the battery fully 100%, but there’re two disadvanted things here that I didn’t charge it for 3 times (just 1 time) and I used the 85W adapter for quickly battery recovery (not 45w follow by the product).
The test conditions following :
– Brighness 50% for all the situations
– All the background applications like Skype, iMesseage connected constanly within whole the test
– 3 calendar accounts automatic download each minute.
– Spend 1 hour for led keyboard
– Open the browser , open 5 tabs or more, 1 tab have flash and typing word with evernote app (automatic syncing)
– Watch 1080p movies download from itunes with speaker on within 2 hours.(slow down 19-20%)
– 2 hours downloads old applications that i bought from App Store.
– Using photoshop and lightroom appication within 20 minutes.

With all of that stuff, after 9 hours the battery was died. If you just play around the internet , I guarantee that the time can take longer, maybe 11 hours. If you
utilize Macbook Air for heavy works like photo manager, or watch videos constantly , 4 -5 hours is possible.

Conclusion :
For people who really need a product which is possible to operating whole day, the Macbook Air 2013 is a gift for them, the Macbook Air 2013 even overcomes the
Ipad’s battery while Macbook Air is truly stronger and also has instant on mode similar on the Ipad. If you’re a owner of a Macbook Air 2011/2012 plus you’re a person who have burning desire about the battery life on your Macbook Air, go for it.

Macbook Air is always the product lets Apple getting more money from the customers , but the specification of the product is always in the low level. With Macbook Air 2013, Apple once again push their individual SSD to higher price, Both of CPU and RAM are more expensive than ever. Let take a look at Windows manufacturers in the future, We gonna receive better supporting in the sale prices.

In situation you’re waiting for a big upgrade, you should wait to next year. Macbook Air 2013 revealed this things by itself because they’re using smaller components
e.g (RAM,SSD…), and there’re more spaces inside which Macbook 2012 didn’t have. And by involving between smaller CPU on 14nm process and the thin IGZO display, saving more battery, reducing battery size …, they will not have much trouble for creating a new amazing Macbook Air 2014 in next year.