The price drop of the latest iteration of retina MacBook Pros means the MacBook Airs have new competitors abutting their top-tier models. The original MacBook Pro has faded into the background, and now the base MacBook Air and base 13-inch MacBook Pro are separated by $200 and a pretty good number of spec differences. What’s the better value proposition?

Specs 13-inch 2013 MacBook Air 13-inch 2013 retina MacBook Pro Screen 1440×900 at 13.3" (128 PPI) 2560×1600 13.3" (227PPI) OS OS X 10.9 "Mavericks" OS X 10.9 "Mavericks" CPU 1.7GHz Intel Core i7-4650U (Turbo up to 3.3GHz) 2.4GHz Intel Core i5-4258U (Turbo up to 2.9GHz) RAM 8GB 1600MHz LPDDR3 (non-upgradeable) 16GB GPU Intel HD Graphics 5000 (integrated) Intel Iris Graphics (integrated) HDD 128GB solid-state drive 256GB solid-state drive Networking 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0 Ports 2x USB 3.0, Thunderbolt, card reader, headphones 2x USB 3.0, 2x Thunderbolt, card reader, HDMI, headphones Size 12.8" × 8.94" × 0.68" (325 × 227 × 17 mm) 12.35" × 8.62" × 0.71" (314 × 219 × 18 mm) Weight 2.96 lbs (1.35 kg) 3.46 lbs (1.57 kg) Battery 7150 mAh 6591 mAh Warranty 1 year 1 year Starting price $1,099.99 $1,299.99 Price as reviewed $1,549.99 $1,699.99 Other perks Webcam, backlit keyboard, dual integrated mics Webcam, backlit keyboard, dual integrated mics

I come at this review as someone who has not upgraded her computer in almost exactly three and a half years. My laptop before this was a “mid-2010” 15-inch MacBook Pro that recently took as many as 10 precious seconds opening the System Preferences menu while having fainting spells over simple GIFs. I nearly pulled the trigger on the MacBook Air refresh earlier this year, but the possibility of a Haswell processor, even better battery life, and a retina screen in the next generation of MacBook Pros stayed my hand.



I ended up selecting the mid-range 13-inch retina MacBook Pro, as the top-tier option comes with an unavoidable $300 bump to a 512GB drive (and an improved processor). For that amount of money, I decided it would be better to beef up my home storage situation and try to carry less material around on the computer itself. In this review, I’m holding the Pro up against a 2013 MacBook Air with an i7 processor at nearly the same price point.

The only upgrade I took for my Pro was for the RAM—to 16GB from the stock 8GB, because a healthy portion of my job involves photo and video editing. These tasks are already fiddly and moderately enraging enough without a beach ball cropping up for a few seconds after every action.

Hardware: distinct, but not so different

The retina MacBook Pro weighs 3.46 pounds, and the 13-inch MacBook Air weighs 2.96 pounds—a difference of exactly half a pound. I expected this weight difference to be barely noticeable when spread over the whole body of a computer, but the relative heft is easy to feel in the retina MacBook Pro.

The slightness of the MacBook Air’s design and uneven weight distribution may affect this perception a little. But stacked on top of each other and standing side by side, the Macbook Pro is actually more compact in length and width while sitting lower to the ground than the Air is.



Like its larger 15-inch brother, the retina MacBook Pro has a full-size HDMI port, two USB 3.0 ports, an SD card reader, two Thunderbolt ports, a headphone jack, and a port for the power cable.

The retina screen on the retina MacBook Pro is pin-sharp and beautiful. I will cop to being someone who is less affected by this feature, or at least, I don’t melt into a wailing puddle when I meet a 1366x768 screen. But the screen does make visual tasks more of a pleasure. During photo editing, it’s now extremely evident which of my pictures are really, really sharp and which are just slightly, maddeningly blurry.





Most of the keyboards Apple now makes are near-identical in design, but I do notice that key travel on the MacBook Air is a little shallower than on the retina MacBook Pro. Both are noticeably shallower than my old MacBook Pro. I never liked this march of key wells toward being almost nonexistent, and I don’t really like the flat tactile feel of the MacBook Air keyboard. The Pro’s isn’t a ton better, but it’s something.

This isn't a point of comparison but something that seems worth noting: almost as soon as I brought the Air and Pro into the same house, they began a power struggle over the Wi-Fi connection. Eventually the Air established dominance and blocked the Pro entirely, unless I put the Air to sleep. This was despite other computers peacefully co-existing using the same router. Maybe the Air sensed the competition, but more than likely, this is a router problem. If you happen to be using my same Netgear router, this is an apparent incompatibility worth looking out for.

One of the reasons I originally made the jump from the original MacBook to the MacBook Pro line was the speakers. There's more power, and videos and music sounded less like they were taking place in an Altoids tin. The disparity in volume and quality between consumer and pro Apple laptops is less than it once was. While the Air can get decently loud, it was slightly cracklier and tinnier at the highest volume levels.