I’ve been looking for a couple of months now for a new lightweight laptop to replace my 15-inch Lenovo laptop (screen broke). My current laptop is a Lenovo Yoga Pro 3 and I’m very satisfied with it (except for the battery life and storage) but I need another lightweight laptop to carry with me to keep the Lenovo for home use.
I don’t use Photoshop or heavy software and I rarely play games on my laptop, but I tend to open a lot of tabs and files simultaneously and so I’m looking for a fast lightweight laptop (or a 2 in 1) with at least an i7 processor, SSD storage and long battery life.
My first choice was the new Microsoft Surface Book but it’s ridiculously expensive and starts at around $2000 if you want an i7. The Surface Pro 4 is also expensive and I’ve been reading a lot of mixed reviews about it. As far as Lenovo and other laptops are concerned, the Yoga Pro 4 is not yet out which leaves me with the Lenovo 900s which I’m still considering along with the Dell XPS 13 and the Asus ZenBook.
![](https://blogbaladi.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/lenovo900s.jpg)
Of course there’s also the option of buying a MacBook, which I’ve never considered before, but was advised to by a couple of trusted friends, including Techie Dad who has the whole collection of Macs! Also I was checking the MacBook and MacBook Air prices on the Apple website and they’re cheaper than the Surface Book and Pro 4 which was quite surprising so why not give it a try?
The problem here is that I’m having a hard time deciding between the recently updated 12-inch Retina MacBook or a 13-inch MacBook Air. I’ve read tons of reviews online and there are four key points to consider:
– Ultra-thin 12 inch Retina screen vs 13-inch non-Retina screen: There’s a considerable difference between the two.
– Faster Processor & Better Upgrades (MacBook Air) vs Energy-efficient fanless (MacBook) processor.
– Battery Life: 13-inch MacBook Air offers more battery life (12 hours) vs 10 hours for the MacBook.
– Connectivity: MacBook Air has USB 3.0 ports, a Thunderbolt 2 port, 3.5mm headphone port and a SDXC card reader slot. Macbook has one USB Type-C port.
Price-wise, a MacBook with the highest specs (1.3GHz dual-core Intel Core m7, Turbo Boost up to 3.1GHz, 8GB 1866MHz LPDDR3 SDRAM, 512GB PCIe-based onboard flash storage) costs $1,749 vs $1,549 for a MacBook Air (2.2GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.2GHz, Intel HD Graphics 6000, 8GB 1600MHz LPDDR3 SDRAM, 512GB PCIe-based Flash Storage).
All in all, MacBook Air wins in terms of connectivity, battery life and performance but the Retina screen is a deal breaker for a lot of people I’ve asked. So which would you chose?
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