The MacBook Middle

Considering the 13-inch MacBook Pro in the same class as the 15-inch model I reviewed last week is almost unfair. That machine was a beast, a gaming and productivity powerhouse — the 13-inch Pro is not. My review unit is powered by a 2.4GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, one of the latest-generation Haswell chips, along with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of solid-state storage. Configured this way, the 13-inch Pro costs $1,499; for $1,299 you get the same processor, 4GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage. You can also upgrade to 512GB of storage and a 2.6GHz processor for $1,699, and there are configurations up to 1TB of storage and 16GB of RAM. Since this is a computer you'll have for a while, and since none of the components are easily upgraded, it's worth spending a little more now.

Budget carefully when you're picking a MacBook Pro

One thing you can't customize are Intel's Iris graphics, which are responsible for constantly powering the 13-inch Pro's pixel-rich display. As with last year's model, I noticed a distinct difference between it and the Iris Pro-powered 15-inch Pro, and especially compared to the larger model with discrete graphics (an Nvidia chip that isn't an option at 13 inches). Heavy websites like The Verge stutter occasionally, in a way that's so familiar to my Air as to be unnoticeable, but that can't compare to the buttery smoothness of the larger Pro. I was able to play two 1080p videos side by side without issue, but a third would occasionally make another jerk through a few frames.

The 13-inch Pro performs basically like the Air

In everyday use, the Pro feels roughly like my Air. With a GeekBench score of 6,303, it's also far closer to the Air (6,057) than to the larger Pro (13,503). It's just perfectly competent and efficient, and that's plenty. It boots in about 15 seconds, and resumes from sleep almost instantly. My daily routine involves a dozen or so tabs, YouTube, Rdio, occasional gaming or Netflix, and perpetual Command-Tabbing between 10 or 15 apps. It handles all of that, and even some image or video editing, without a problem.

I could even play Portal 2 (on the subway or anywhere else) without problems at medium settings, though it's not a particularly intensive game. At high settings, Bioshock Infinite stuttered badly enough to give me a headache, but it became playable at lower settings before graphics got too bad. The Witcher 2 was basically unplayable any way I sliced it. During all three games, the Pro got a little warm and very loud, which almost never happened otherwise. This is not a gaming laptop, and any serious gamer should look to Windows machines anyway — from the Alienware 14 to the Razer Blade true gaming power, and most of the games, are reserved for Windows users. But for everything from movie watching to movie making, the 13-inch Pro holds up nicely.

I never had the overwhelming sense of power I got from the 15-inch model, as if I could solve world hunger or topple foreign governments with the spare processing cycles in my computer. And if you want a device with headroom, that's going to be plenty powerful for years to come, the 13-inch Pro probably still isn't your best option. But for most people, for most uses, what in practice amounts to a MacBook Air with Retina display is an excellent idea.

And here's the best part: even with all those pixels, the 13-inch MacBook Pro still lasted 10 hours, 7 minutes on the Verge Battery Test. That may not be the 13 hours and 29 minutes the Air lasted, but it's more than almost any other laptop, and more than enough to last you a cross-country flight's worth of movies or through a daylong meeting. Part of that is due to the ultra-efficient Haswell chips, part due to the power improvements in OS X 10.9 Mavericks, but whatever the reasons, the net result is a Retina MacBook that can last all day and then some.