At its thickest part it is also 0.7mm thicker than the MacBook Pro. But it is noticeably heavier than the 921g 12in MacBook or 770g Surface Pro 6 (1.08kg with keyboard attached). Weighing 1.25kg, the Air is about the same as rivals such as Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 2 and is slim enough that you don’t really notice it in a backpack. It is big, smooth, responsive and totally solid, despite the feeling of motion when you push down on it provided by the Taptic Engine haptic motor below it.īuild quality is top notch, with no noticeable give or flex in any part of the machine. Everyone should love the trackpad, however, which is the best in the business. It isn’t my favourite keyboard on a laptop but it is crisp and responsive and I have no problem typing for long periods of time on it. Some will love the keyboard, some will hate it because it is still pretty clicky with minimal key travel.

The Touch ID fingerprint scanner in the top right corner of the keyboard is excellent. While the Touch Bar can be useful, many don’t like it and most will probably be happy the MacBook Air does not have it. In the top right is the Touch ID fingerprint sensor, which is noticeably faster than Apple’s previous iterations, but instead of a Touch Bar you have regular F keys. The MacBook Air has Apple’s third-generation butterfly keyboard, a large force-touch trackpad and speakers drilled into either side. Gone are the large grey bezels around the 13.3in screen from the Air, replaced with thinner black borders as used on other Apple laptops. Open it up and essentially what you are looking at is the screen and deck of a MacBook Pro without Touch Bar. USB-C is the industry standard port of the moment, with Thunderbolt 3 adding much greater capacity and future proofing, but the lack of an SD card reader is disappointing. Gone, too, are the old selection of ports from the Air, reduced to only two USB-C Thunderbolt 3 ports and one headphone socket.

Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardianīut side by side it is clear this is a smaller, more modern Mac shrunk in both width and length, but not in height, fitting exactly into the footprint of the current 13in MacBook Pro. The lid looks like a MacBook Pro, but with the wedge-shaped aluminium body of the new MacBook Air’s predecessor.

2017 mac air review