The current 13-inch MacBook Pro has a lower resolution of 1,280x800, and does not offer any higher-res screen upgrades, meaning this Air has the highest-resolution 13-inch display you can get from Apple (not to be outdone, Sony's Air-like Vaio Z crams a 1,920x1,080-pixel screen into a 13-inch laptop, although at great expense).Īpple's displays are invariably clear and bright, with excellent off-axis viewing, but if you find them too glossy, only the 15 and 17-inch MacBook Pro models have antiglare screen options. On the positive side, the native resolution of the display is 1,440x900 pixels, which is a better than the current 13-inch standard of 1,366x768 pixels. We thought this made it less attractive than the MacBook Pro back in 2010, and that continues to be the case. The screen area also lacks the edge-to-edge glass over a black bezel found in other MacBooks instead the screen is surrounded by a thick silver bezel. Unlike the 11-inch MacBook Air, the 13-inch screen is not a 16:9 display. The pad is again hinged at the top, allowing the entire pad to click down, and we suggest going into the Preferences menu and turning on all of the tapping options for further ease of use. Other laptop makers have also moved to larger clickpad-style touch pads, but we have yet to find a touch pad that comes close to this for multitouch gestures. Our standard enthusiasm for the unmatched Apple trackpad and excellent keyboard remains, and applies to both sizes. There are several other new gesture tricks, and fortunately the System Preferences menu shows animated examples of each one. To get back to a clean desktop, you now pinch out from your thumb and three fingers.

The four-finger flick to return to the desktop has been reassigned to a feature called Mission Control, which shows all active apps and alternative desktop screens. For example, you no longer double-tap-and-drag to move a window: instead, just use three fingers while hovering over the title bar. The gestural language is now even further divorced from the Windows standard.

While the keyboard and trackpad are the same (backlighting aside) as on the previous 11- and 13-inch models, using the new OS X Lion gestures can take some getting used to. The trade-off there is that the 13-inch Air feels a bit heavier than its thin body would lead you to expect, especially compared with the 11-inch version or an iPad. As with the 2010 version, which this is physically indistinguishable from at first look, the rigid aluminum construction makes the Air feel sturdy enough to just throw in a bag and carry along with you without a protective case or sleeve.

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