Sarah Tew/CNET
Apple kicked off the back-to-school season with some fairly important modifications to the MacBook lineup, together with worth cuts, trickle-down options and some quiet cancellations, together with the outdated, pre-redesign MacBook Air and the cult favourite 12-inch MacBook.
Getting an replace are the MacBook Air and the lowest-end model of the 13-inch MacBook Professional. For the Air, that is a big level, because the system acquired its largest overhaul in a decade simply final yr.
Each new MacBooks have arrived within the CNET Labs for evaluate. Our testing is ongoing, however this is an early take a look at a few of the preliminary outcomes and our first hands-on impressions.
The entry-level MacBook Professional now consists of Apple’s Contact Bar.
Sarah Tew/CNET
The brand new MacBook Air would not look any totally different, but it surely provides Apple’s True Tone show, which may regulate the display’s colour temperature primarily based on the ambient lighting. It is already discovered on iPad Professional, latest iPhones and a few MacBook Execs.
However extra necessary than that, the beginning worth has been reduce by $100, from $1,199 to $1,099 (£1,099, AU$1,699). That is nonetheless not the basic MacBook Air worth of $999, but it surely’s getting nearer and college students can get it for $999.
Extra consequential are the modifications to the 13-inch MacBook Professional. That $1,299 mannequin was a favourite for some, because it excluded the Contact Bar present in more-expensive MacBook Execs. Now you may now not keep away from the Contact Bar, but it surely’s included for a similar $1,299 worth, together with the TouchID fingerprint reader and T2 safety chip.
It additionally jumps from an older dual-core Intel CPU to a more recent quad-core model, so the least-expensive Professional feels extra like, properly, a Professional. Living proof, we ran the brand new quad-core 13-inch MacBook Professional in opposition to an older dual-core model. Sure, the eighth-gen chips have a bonus over the seventh-gen ones, however the distinction between the 2 base fashions is big.
Geekbench four (multicore)
MacBook Professional 13-inch (quad-core, 2019)
MacBook Professional 13-inch (dual-core, 2017)
Notice:
Longer bars point out higher efficiency
Cinebench R15 CPU (multicore)
MacBook Professional 13-inch (quad-core, 2019)
MacBook Professional 13-inch (dual-core, 2017)
Notice:
Longer bars point out higher efficiency
System Configurations
MacBook Professional 13-inch (2019)
MacOS Mojave 10.14.5; 1.4GHz Intel Core i5-8257; 8GB DDR3 SDRAM 2,133MHz; 1536MB Intel Iris Plus Graphics 645; 256GB SSD
MacBook Professional 13-inch (2017)
MacOS Sierra 10.12.6; three.1GHz Intel Core i5-7267; 8GB DDR3 SDRAM 2,133MHz, 1536MB Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650; 256GB SSD
We’re at the moment testing each the brand new MacBook Professional and MacBook Air, and can report full benchmark outcomes, together with battery life, in upcoming evaluations. Whereas the Professional is getting a giant velocity enhance, I would not anticipate any actual change within the MacBook Air efficiency — the most important transfer there’s the value.
