Laptop Batteries, Chargers and AC Adapters

The MacBook Air and the Retina MacBook Pro are portable, beautiful and high-performance laptops. But there is a £250 price difference between the two types of MacBook. Find out what you get for your money in our MacBook Pro vs MacBook Air comparison review. MacBook Pro vs MacBook Air benchmarks, specs, features and buying advice.

The MacBook Air and the Retina MacBook Pro are portable, beautiful and high-performance laptops, but there is a £250 price difference between the two types of MacBook. This is the PC Advisor MacBook Pro vs MacBook Air laptop comparison review, which will help you understand which of the two types of MacBook is best for you. Our colleagues over at Macworld UK have done a more Apple-focused piece comparing the two Apple laptops which you should check out too: MacBook Air vs MacBook Pro review. Also read our MacBook Air 2014 review.

Both the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro have recieved small updates in 2014, reducing the price of both line-ups and also giving each model a little spec boost. We expect Apple to release bigger updates for its MacBook ranges next year when Intel’s Broadwell chips become available.

MacBook Pro vs MacBook Air comparison: build, design, portability
The differences here are small but may be significant. Both MacBook Air and MacBook Pro are stunningly built and finished devices, but the 2014 11-inch MacBook Air is 490 g lighter than the lightest Retina MacBook Pro, at 1.08 kg. While the MacBook Air gives the impression of being slimmer, it’s still 1.7 cm at the thickest point, just a millimeter different. (See also: What’s the best laptop you can buy in 2014?)

The 2014 13-inch MacBook Air model is probably a fairer comparison, and that weighs in at 1.35 kg, just 220g less than the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina. The 2014 13-inch MacBook Air weighs the same as the 2014 model. Let’s take a closer look.

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Apple has updated its iMac with a new option for an ultra-high resolution display, four times that of earlier 27in models, and 16 times the original 720p HD format. Here’s our new iMac with 5K Retina display review.

Apple has updated its iMac all-in-one PC with a new option for an ultra-high resolution display, four times that of earlier 27in models, and 16 times the original 720p HD format. Here’s our new iMac with 5K Retina display review. Also see: Best all-in-one PCs and all all-in-one PC reviews.

Apple’s latest iMac stands out for a number of reasons, but most obvious of all is its amazing 27in 5K display. With a screen 5120 pixels wide and 2880 pixels high, it offers the highest resolution of any display currently available and this feature alone makes the £1999 price tag seem more than reasonable.

Of course you get a lot more than just a cutting-edge Retina display with the new iMac all-in-one PC. Being an Apple product the build quality and ergonomics are second-to-none: it’s incredibly well made and almost impossibly slim. The system comes with OS X Yosemite installed, along with a large selection of bundled software you’ll only get from Apple, including Final Cut Pro X, Logic Pro X and Aperture.

However, there’s also a lot you won’t get from an Apple computer. There’s no built-in optical drive and no touch support. Apple has also disabled the ability to use this amazing display as an external monitor – even at lower resolutions. Placing all of the I/O ports at the rear is also a mild annoyance, but the price you must pay for having such a slim design.

We’ve tested the entry-level 5K iMac here, which includes an Intel Core i5-4690 quad core processor, 8GB of DDR3 RAM and a 1TB Fusion Drive, which uses fast solid-state storage to boost the performance of the storage subsystem. Unfortunately, this feature doesn’t work when running Windows, meaning our tests can’t show the kind of performance you’re likely to get under OS X. So, keep in mind that the iMac is actually even faster than our already impressive performance results show.

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Our review of the MacBook Pro 2016 weighs up Apple’s laptop in terms of design, build quality, features and tech specs – and focuses in particular on the Touch Bar feature and its many possibilities

Unveiled at a dedicated press event on 27 October, the 2016 MacBook Pro comes in 13- and 15-inch screen sizes, features sixth-gen Intel Skylake processors, a slim new design and a cool customisable Touch Bar above the keyboard… and costs a bit of a fortune.

Our MacBook Pro 2016 review evaluates the looks, design, features and value for money offered by Apple’s latest line of professional-focused laptops.

Broadly speaking there are three models of the new MacBook Pro: a comparatively budget-focused 13-inch model without the new Touch Bar, and a 13-inch and 15-inch model with it. This review looks at all three models together, but we will make it clear when comments apply only to certain models.

New MacBook Pro 2016 review: Design & build quality
The MacBook Pros are thinner and lighter than the previous generation: the 13- and 15-inch models are 14.9mm and 15.5mm thick (or ‘thin’, as Apple irritatingly styles it in marketing materials) and 1.37kg and 1.83kg respectively. (Last year’s MBPs weighed 1.58kg and 2.04kg, and were both 18mm thick, so Apple has achieved reductions of 17 and 14 percent respectively in thickness, and 13 and 10 percent in terms of weight.)

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Kaby Lake processors, improved graphics: is that enough to make the 2017 15-inch MacBook Pro a pro laptop?

It’s always an event when Apple launches a MacBook, but in 2017 the then new MacBook Pro simply offered an internal spec improvement rather than radical design overhaul.

There are two size options in the 13-inch and the 15-inch models. As we said in our preview of the 13-inch MacBook Pro, the 15-inch model is more deserving of the name ‘Pro’ than it’s smaller sibling. However, is it truly a pro machine?

The Pro status of Apple’s 15-inch MacBook depends on what sort of ‘pro’ you are. Traditionally creative pros would have turned to the Mac for their needs, be it design work, editing photos, working with video and animation, or other jobs that require decent graphic capabilities.

Other MacBook Pro users might include gamers, programmers, and office workers who need a capable Mac with a larger screen than the 13-inches offered by the other Mac laptops.

We will be considering all these users as we evaluate the 2017 15-inch MacBook Pro. Is the new MacBook Pro going to answer their requirements or would they be better off with a different Mac, or dare we say, a PC or Linux machine.

The two changes to the MacBook Pro models launched at WWDC in June 2017 are the Kaby Lake processors and the improved graphics. Do those updates combine to make this a five star machine?

Price and availability
The 2017 MacBook Pro is no longer officially on sale, but you may find secondhand or refurbished models available. At retail it was an expensive computer:

2.8GHz Kaby Lake i7 quad-core processor, Touch Bar, 16GB RAM, 256GB storage, Radeon Pro 555, £2,349/$2,399
2.9GHz Kaby Lake i7 quad-core processor, Touch Bar, 16GB RAM, 512GB storage, Radeon Pro 560, £2,699/$2,799

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The best and most powerful iMac ever assembled is an olive branch for creative professionals, but total and utter overkill for the consumer market. Reviewing it on balance proved tough.

Let’s face it. Just like when the iPhone 5 dropped, you lust after the iMac Pro because it is Space Grey. That phone was a substantial but reasonable upgrade – the same cannot be said for the iMac Pro.

This is a phenomenally powerful machine, one that far outstrips the needs of all but a select few users. It is the first Apple ‘Pro’ product that really will only be purchased by professionals with the need for its high-end internals.

Available with an already-insane eight cores up to an almost incomprehensible 18, this is the Mac upgrade the professional world has been clamouring for – except we probably all though it’d be in the form of a new Mac Pro, expected this year.

Instead, a brand new Apple product line is born in the iMac Pro. But do you have five grand spare?

The iMac costs from £4,899 in the UK. This price gets you the base model with a configurable 32GB RAM, 1TB storage and the 8-core Intel Xeon W processor. In the US, prices start at $4,999.

Apple allows you to configure at point of purchase, and the fully specced-out iMac Pro will set you back a touch over £13,000. Yes, we put the comma in the right place.

As you have already balked at, this is a lot. We don’t normally review such expensive computers but, you know, it’s Apple and this is an important product in its history.

The model we had for review was the £9,188 version, with 3GHz 10-core Xeon processor, 2TB storage, 128GB RAM and Radeon Pro Vega 64 graphics with 16GB memory plus the Magic Mouse 2 and Magic Trackpad 2 in that alluring Space Grey.

As we will explore, this is overkill for all but the top tier of Apple’s intended user base.

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