Trying to guess what Apple is actually planning to do with the MacBook product lines, is about as easy a guess as the fate of the iPad Air. There are some clues, like the fact that Apple still refuses to upgrade the MacBook Air with the Retina display, and still keeps refreshing the laptop with rather modest upgrades.
The latest version of the MacBook Air in his 13.3 inches incarnation features a 1.6 gigahertz dual-core Intel Core i5 or a 2 gigahertz dual-core Intel Core i7 processor. By comparison the year MacBook Retina 12 inch 1.1 gigahertz dual-core Intel core M3 processor and its upgrade to 1.2 gigahertz dual-core Intel Core M5 might seem slower than the MacBook Air 13-inch, and technically it is, however the processor in the MacBook Air 13-inch is not a Skylake 6th generation Intel Core processor, it is a Broadwell which is a full generation behind the 12 inch MacBook Retina.
One of the possible reasons for Apple to hold back on upgrading the MacBook Air 13-inch with retina display Kobe battery life. currently the MacBook Air 13-inch has a better life up to 12 hours. New 12-inch MacBook Retina on the other hand has a battery life of 10 hours. With that said the 12 inch MacBook right now has a resolution of 2304 X 1440 pixels Kama which requires additional power for sharper graphics and higher resolution.
while the MacBook Air 13-inch is indeed faster than the MacBook Retina , the real estate available On the MacBook Air 13-inch desktop it smaller than the MacBook Retina.
Both the MacBook Retina in the MacBook Air 13-inch have the same amount of memory the same as a flash storage , but different graphic cards. did you do on the MacBook Retina is an Intel HD graphics 515, while the MacBook Air 13-inch has an Intel HD graphics 6000. With that said, I mean pet peeves Mac users who have tried MacBook Retina 12 inch is expansion ports. the MacBook Retina 12 inch still has only one USB type-c connector, while the MacBook Air 13-inch features two USB 3.0 ports, 1 Thunderbolt 2 port, and 1 magsafe 2 power port.
With that said the MacBook 12 inch retina can be upgraded with a simple adapter that plugs into the USB type-c port, providing additional connectors such as an additional USB type-c connector an HDMI connector and a USB 3.0 port.
it's also worth noting that the 12 inch MacBook Retina has a fanless design, which makes it more durable with less moving Parts than other laptops. Aside from that, it's very likely that the 12 inch MacBook Retina will be updated this year with a faster processor which will likely match the current processing unit on board of the MacBook Air.
Final thoughts
The main point here is, if you were to purchase a Macbook today would you go for a MacBook Retina 12 inch, or would you go for a MacBook Air?
Both laptops have excellent battery life, very respectable processing power, similar storage and memory specs, And provided and additional investment in regard to the 12 inch MacBook Retina, similar expansion ports.
From a power user point of view MacBook Air 13-inch would be a wiser choice because it allows more resources for applications like Adobe Photoshop and other high-end software. With that said, image editing and video processing, are applications more suitable when using a MacBook Pro or an iMac. Furthermore graphic applications are better-suited on a system that has a higher resolution display like the retina display on the 12 inch MacBook.
From a business customer point of view the difference between the 12 inch MacBook Retina and the MacBook Air 13-inch comes down to the type of applications used. Most tasks requiring Microsoft Office, for example will not weigh heavily on resources, even on a 12 inch MacBook with a slower processor, the same can be said about the MacBook Air 13-inch, as well as its 11 inch version.
On the other hand, tasks involving video editing, for example, may require hardware resources the go beyond both the 12 inch MacBook Retina and the MacBook Air at least in their current iteration.
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