Apple MacBooks are real jewels of technology and design, very beautiful to look at, fluid and fast to use, perfect laptops for those who have to work. The only drawback is the price, really high, which makes us wonder if it is really worth buying it or if it is better not to spend even lower figures of 500 Euros to have a laptop of the same level, even if it does not have the Apple logo . While the fact of preferring a Macbook is largely subjective, the important thing to consider is that today a MacBook is not better, from the hardware point of view, than an equivalent Windows laptop PC, which indeed can even cost more in some cases . As already explained in the past, between Macs and Windows PCs there is not much difference except in the operating system, which is also no longer as radically different as it was a few years ago.
Taking the Macbooks on sale in 2018 as a reference, we see in this guide if it is worth buying a latest generation Apple MacBook or if, instead, it is better to focus on a laptop with Windows.
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1) Design
It is a very light and slender computer, with a very thin thickness, the thinnest Apple laptop ever, with a new keyboard and a single USB-C type port (the standard of the future) expandable with an adapter to be purchased separately, which can be used both for connecting USB devices and for connecting an HDMI display. Apple computers in the MacBook line cost a lot because they are built with quality materials, they are beautiful and very fast.
From what emerges from reading the various opinions on the matter, the new MacBook actually looks much more like an iPad with a keyboard rather than a normal laptop. This essentiality can reward the portability of the computer, but be truly limiting in its daily usability. For example, it can become complicated to connect the MacBook to an Ethernet network cable, an external hard drive or an iPhone or iPad to recharge them.
The differences between the two versions begin to become less and less evident compared to the past, given that the weight and design are very close in this generation (except for the presence of the Touch Bar, the prerogative of the high-end Pro). The new 13 ″ MacBook Pro weighs 1.37Kg and measures 1.49cm x 30.41cm x 21.24cm. The basic version of the Pro 13 ″, however, is not the Touch Bar, present in the more expensive models. The MacBook Air measures 32.5 cm x 22.7 cm x 1.7cm and weighs 1.35kg, making it appear thicker but lighter than the Pro.
2) Technical characteristics
The base MacBook Pro 13 ″ comes with a 1.6GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor (but we can also choose the variant with Intel Core i7, much more powerful), integrated Intel Iris Graphics 540 graphics card, RAM 8GB and a 256GB PCIe SSD as internal memory; the machine is configurable with 512GB or 1TB SSD.
The MacBook Pro provides its customers with a 13.3 ″ LED backlit display with a native resolution of 2560 × 1600 pixels, with two 13 and 16-inch variants, among which you can choose the one with Intel i7 processor and the one with Intel i9 processor.
The MacBook Air integrates a 1.6GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 (with Turbo Boost can go up to 3.6GHz) with 3MB shared L3 cache, the RAM is 8GB LPDDR3 and the PCIe flash drive used as memory internal is 128GB; You can also choose 256GB or 512GB PCIe flash drives when purchasing. The 13 ″ MacBook Air offers a 13 ″ LED backlit Retina screen, at a resolution of 1440 × 900 pixels, unsurpassed in contrast and brightness.
Let's also take a look at the ports and connectivity offered by the two variants of MacBook:
The MacBook Pro offers two Thunderbolt 3 (USB ‑ C) ports that can be used for charging, a DisplayPort Thunderbolt port (up to 40 Gbps) and USB 3.1 Gen 2 (up to 10 Gbps). For the connection of old devices we will often have to use adapters.
The 13 ″ MacBook Air provides its users with two USB 3 ports (up to 5 Gbps), a Thunderbolt 2 port (up to 20 Gbps), a MagSafe 2 power supply port and an SDXC card slot.
The 3.5mm headphone jack is present on both and the FaceTime HD (720P) camcorder is identical to any model we choose. Wireless connectivity is also excellent: including the Dual-Band WiFi module and Bluetooth on both models, so that we can always connect our devices without using any cables.
3) Purchase price
Those who buy Apple are aware that the prices for the products are much higher than the competition and this MacBook is certainly not far behind, with high prices also for the entry level models:
- Apple MacBook Air : € 1279
- Apple MacBook Pro 13 '' : € 1549
- Apple MacBook Pro 16 '' : 2799 €
So let's talk about more than 1000 € to prepare in order to get your hands on one of the new MacBook models on sale. The quality of the materials and the perfect balance of the hardware (albeit with its limits) and the software have always been the workhorse of Apple products and those who are fond of it will spend this amount without any problem, in fact they will tell you that they are even cheap! But it is a notebook that we recommend for purchase to all users "> How to choose the notebook laptop PC and make no mistake
