It's 2008 and Steve Jobs stands before a large audience. He pulls something out of a manila envelope--oh my God, it's a laptop! One so impossibly thin and compact that it fits in an interoffice envelope. And so the world of laptops was changed. Years later, Intel wanted to see Windows PC makers offer up something, anything that might compete, and the Ultrabook was born. Apple is hoping to change the world of mobile computing again with the MacBook, a 12" laptop that's not much larger or heavier than the first iPad, yet it's capable of getting real work done. Just as the original 13" MacBook Air was port-constrained, a little slow and expensive, so is the MacBook. Just as the Air had one of the best displays on a 13" laptop at the time, so the MacBook has a stunning Retina display. Like the Air, I wouldn't be surprised if the MacBook gained a port or two in the years to come, and the price might even come down in a few years.

The new Apple MacBook, or 12" MacBook or Retina MacBook (whatever you want to call it to differentiate from MacBooks of old) is as polarizing as it is striking. This 2 lb. laptop is one of the most gorgeous on the market, and one of the smallest. It sits between the iPad Air and 13" MacBook Air in terms of size, though functionally it's a Mac and not an iPad. In fact, we suspect Apple is targeting those of you who bought an iPad and keyboard as a laptop replacement, but have since realized it can't handle everything a laptop can. For $1,299 you get a 1.1 GHz Core M CPU with Turbo Boost to 2.4 GHz, 8 gigs of RAM and a fast PCIe 256 gig SSD. The $1,599 bumps the CPU 100 MHz and doubles storage to 512 gigs. Either way you get one of Apple's best displays in years, the 2304 x 1440 IPS Retina display exceeds 100% sRGB color gamut and it has excellent contrast and high brightness. The laptop has dual band WiFi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0 and a just OK 480p webcam.

What do you get for your money? Not horsepower and not a huge screen. This is meant to be a second computer for folks who have an adequately large and powerful main desktop or laptop. You get a head-turning design, incredible portability (it weighs as much as in iPad Air in a case and takes up virtually no room in a bag) and a phenomenal screen. You certainly don't get ports: it has just a 3.5mm audio jack and a single USB-C port that also handles charging. Like the MacBook Air that Steve Jobs slipped out of a manila envelope in 2008, it's pricey, port constrained and not wildly powerful. Like the Air, it's an attention-getter and a feat of engineering, though some might wonder if this little guy is just too small.

It's an Apple Mac, and that means exquisite attention to design, fit and finish. There are no gaps, unsightly seams or pointless design elements. It's clean, well balanced and comfortable in the lap and easy to pass around when open or closed. The lid isn't difficult to open with one hand and the hinge is firm yet not stiff. The machine is available in the usual Apple silver, Space Gray and gold, not unlike the iPhone 6 and iPad Air 2. All are attractive and have a matte aluminum finish that resists fingerprints and maintains grip.

As ever with recent Mac laptops, you can remove the bottom panel if you have a pentalobe screwdriver, but there's little point since RAM, the CPU and the SSD are soldered permanently onto the motherboard. The stacked battery isn't all that easy to remove either. The MacBook has a 3.5mm combo audio jack (headphones and mic in one) and a single USB-C port that supports HDMI and DisplayPort 1.2. You'll also use that port for charging via the included compact charger and USB-C cable. If you wish to connect USB peripherals, you'll need a USB-C to female USB adapter that Apple sells for $19 (other companies make them too, and they're often less expensive). You can't charge the laptop and use the USB port for a peripheral at the same time with the $19 adapter, instead you'll need the $79 AV adapter with a charging port, USB port and HDMI. I'm sure 3rd party companies will make all sorts of adapters for the MacBook, but keep in mind that the port doesn't support Thunderbolt, so you won't be able to use Apple's Thunderbolt display or any other Thunderbolt peripheral.

The keyboard is just plain weird, yet it's good. I type thousands of words per week and I'm picky about keyboards. I didn't like the miniscule key travel at first, but after 20 minutes I acclimated and typed as well on the MacBook as I do on my 13" Retina MacBook Pro. Each key has a tactile click thanks to the butterfly mechanical switches under each key, and they provide tactile feel that makes up for the lack of travel. The backlit keyboard has an LED beneath each key for even lighting, and our unit's keys are very evenly lit in soft white (you can adjust keyboard backlight level).

Apple makes perhaps the best trackpad on a laptop, regardless of OS platform. Somehow they've managed to make it ever better with the Force Touch trackpad. It might sound like a gimmick, but it's actually more accurate and efficient. On normal trackpads just the bottom edge moves. For large trackpads, it's easy to have the hand and fingers wander higher, where it will do no good because the top half doesn't register clicks (unless you enable tap to click). With the Force Touch trackpad, you can click in any corner and there are four spring-like mechanisms under each spot. Yes, the trackpad actually does move just a little, and your mind will tell you it moves quite a bit thanks to the force feedback that creates the sensation of a tactile click (what Apple calls their Taptic engine--a cross between tap and haptic). You can even adjust the force setting in trackpad settings for a light, medium or heavy touch and feedback. The end result is a trackpad that feels even more responsive and precise. I generally hate clicking trackpads because it slows me down and the required force causes my pointing finger to wander, resulting in errors. Problem solved with the Force Touch trackpad. I've stopped using tap to click in fact, which was my old preferred method even though it wasn't very precise and sometimes resulted in accidental clicks.

Even more interesting, there's a secondary deeper click if you continue to press down with some force. That can bring up a word definition in quite a few programs and in Safari force-clicking on a link brings up a small preview of the web page. I'm sure Apple and third party developers will come up with even more uses.

The superb 12" IPS display is a selling point for the MacBook, and it's likely one of the reasons folks will consider it strongly vs. the MacBook Air models with their lower resolution TN panels. This panel is every bit as good as the Pro MacBooks, and in fact it slightly exceeds them in color gamut at 102% of sRGB and 80% of Adobe RGB. Contrast is high, colors are accurate and saturated and the panel can get very bright (we measured 350 nits). The brightness ramp is a little odd and it doesn't get very bright until the last few ticks--perhaps Apple wants to conserve power.

The 16:10 aspect ratio "Retina" panel has a resolution of 2304 x 1440. Usually Apple does pixel quadrupling for Retina displays, so the effective "looks like" resolution is one quarter of the absolute panel resolution. That makes for efficient performance, but in this case Apple runs it higher at an effective 1280 x 800 resolution, and we set it to 1440 x 900 to match the 13" MacBook Air (that's also my preferred setting on the 13" MacBook Pro with Retina display). The machine can drive a 4K monitor at 30 Hz according to Apple, but we found that the Intel HD 5300 integrated graphics struggled a bit with both the laptop display on and anything higher than a 1920 x 1200 monitor attached. The MacBook really isn't for graphics pros who need to drive very large high resolution external displays--I'd go with the 13" Retina MacBook Pro or the 15" rMBP for that. Even the MacBook Air with Intel HD 6000 graphics can handle high res monitors, including Apple's Thunderbolt display, which the MacBook can't.

The MacBook runs on the new Intel Core M CPU, a low power 4.5 watt CPU that sits above the Intel Atom and below the 15 watt Core i3/i5 used in the MacBook Air and many Windows Ultrabooks. This is a 5th generation Broadwell dual core chip with Turbo Boost that's paired with Intel HD 5300 graphics that sits below the HD 5500 and 6000 commonly paired with the Core i5. Apple pushes the wattage a bit and the normally 900 MHz Core M 5Y31 can be TDP up-clocked to 6 watts and 1.1 GHz, which is exactly what Apple does for the base model MacBook. There are 1.2 and 1.3 GHz Core M options, but honestly you won't see much performance improvement. You may however like the 512 gig SSD that comes bundled with the $1,599 1.2GHz model if you need lots of storage. All models have 8 gigs of RAM soldered on the motherboard (not upgradeable).

Core M has high Turbo Boost speeds, and the 1.1 GHz MacBook has Boost to 2.4 GHz. Turbo Boost offers very short speed bursts to accommodate processor intensive tasks and it can make a low clocked CPU feel considerably quicker. Still, if you compare that to a 5th generation Core i5 like that in the Dell XPS 13 with a base 2.2 GHz clock speed and Turbo Boost to 2.7 GHz, the MacBook is clearly not going to be a performance powerhouse. It's fine for common light loads that include MS Office or iWork, web, email, streaming 1080p video, occasional video editing for fun and even some fairly serious Photoshop work. I wouldn't pick it if you intend to frequently run Parallels (Windows VM), do frequent 1080p or 4K video editing or if you have to compile large programs for software development. It's best as a second highly portable machine for those who have a beefy laptop or desktop to do the heavy lifting. It could however work well as a primary machine for those who have light computational needs.

The Core M is also used in the equally expensive Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro (a Windows 8.1 convertible), the $699 Asus Zenbook UX305 13.3" Ultrabook ($999 with a QHD display) and a few other models. As you can see, it runs the gamut in terms of price point and position, even though it's not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Mac OS X Yosemite is quite good at processor management and it's not a CPU hungry OS, so the Core M never feels slow in everyday use when doing productivity tasks or streaming video for fun. In fact, the MacBook rarely stuttered with 10 tabs open in Safari while MS Word 2016 and Photoshop CC were running. The fast PCIe storage and ample 8 gigs of RAM help keep things moving along nicely too. But when editing and exporting 15 minute 1080p videos, we found ourselves waiting and grabbing a few sodas during export.

Apple's laptops generally top the industry for runtimes, and their runtime claims are accurate rather than the more common overly optimistic claims from other makers. The little MacBook obviously has less room for a beefy battery, so Apple stacked slices of Lithium Ion polymer to fill the diminutive notebook's every internal nook and cranny. The 39.7 Whr battery is good for 9 hours of actual use time according to Apple, and we found that to be accurate with brightness set to 50% with ambient brightness enabled and WiFi on. That's in a mix of productivity and casual use tests that include working in iWork and MS Office, editing 10 RAW photos in Photoshop 6, watching an hour episode of Mad Men on Netflix, email and playing a few short YouTube videos. One of our editors prefers brightness set to an eye-searing max (with auto-brightness disabled), and that dropped battery life to 7.5 hours. These runtimes are similar to the 11" MacBook Air but fall short of the 13" MacBook Air's 12 hours and the 13" Retina MacBook Pro's 11 hours.

The Mac ships with a compact 29 watt charger that's a bit bigger than the iPad Air charger but considerably smaller than the MacBook Air charger. Though its output wattage is low compared to the 45 watt average for Intel Core i5 Ultrabooks, it provided sufficient power to continue charging the laptop even under load. We charged the MacBook from 8 to 98 percent in 2 hours while the Mac was sleeping.

The MacBook Air hardly needs an introduction. It started the Ultrabook craze before Intel coined the word "Ultrabook" as a way to gain PCs some market share and encourage manufacturers to produce good looking, light laptops in the face of Apple's challenge. The mid-2013 MacBook Air gets special notice because it's one of the first ultraportables to run the new fourth generation Intel Haswell CPUs (the Sony Vaio Pro is the only other Ultrabook with Haswell at the time of the new Air's launch, and the Sony Vaio Duo 13 convertible will follow in a few weeks). While we've seen a few desktops and gaming quad core machines with Haswell, they're largely the least to benefit because Haswell's improvements particularly target Ultrabooks and thin and light laptops where they can amp integrated graphics and bring significant battery life improvements. The MacBook Air, much like the Sony Vaio Pro 13 Ultrabook and Vaio Duo convertible, stand to gain the most. As it turns out, the Air gains a bit more in the graphics department since it uses the faster Intel HD 5000 graphics rather than HD 4400 graphics found in the Vaio Pro. Don't get too excited, because as it turns out neither HD 4400 nor HD 5000 come anywhere near dedicated graphics performance (watch our video review below where we play Diablo 3). We're talking a few percentage points and 5-7 fps gains in demanding 3D games.

So how about CPU performance improvements? These are small compared to the outgoing third generation Ivy Bridge platform, but they're impressive because they slightly outperform Ivy Bridge while running at lower clock speeds and consuming less power. The mid-2013 MacBook Air isn't a genius compared to the outgoing model in terms of CPU performance, but it does show gains in graphics thanks to Intel HD 5000 graphics, and better yet it runs even cooler and much longer. Part of that battery life improvement is thanks to Apple increasing the battery size a bit; the 13" MacBook Air has a whopping 7150 mAh battery that's larger than most Ultrabook batteries (the Vaio Pro 13, whose goal in life is to be super-thin and 3/4 lb. lighter than the MacBook Air has a 4740 mAh battery). Our review unit is running on the 1.7GHz Intel Core i7-4650U, while most reviews cover the 1.3GHz Intel Core i5-4250U, yet battery life is still amazing. We're talking 10 to 12 hours at 50% brightness with WiFi on in a mix of productivity tasks plus some YouTube and Netflix streaming. No external sheet batteries or clip on barrel battery required.

Intel fourth generation Ultrabook ULV CPUs are paired with Intel HD integrated graphics. There are two versions: Intel HD 4400 and HD 5000. The HD 5000 is the faster of the two, and while it shows a modest improvement over Ivy Bridge HD 4000 graphics and is a few points faster than the HD 4400, it won't compete with anything beyond a low end dedicated graphics offering. The MacBook Air has never been a gaming or CAD workstation machine, but the Haswell MacBook Air does gain 5-8 frames over the HD 4000 and HD 4400 in some current popular 3D games like Diablo 3 and Civ 5. The gain is sufficient to make these games playable as long as you go for lower resolutions and graphics settings. Apple offers only the faster HD 5000 graphics on the MacBook Air, and it's matched with slightly slower clocked CPUs to keep the power requirement at 17 watts total, which is Haswell's power cap for the CPU and GPU combined. If most of your work is CPU intensive (calculations, compiling software), then this offers less of an advantage. However, if you do play games or depend on Adobe Photoshop's use of the GPU, the Intel HD 5000 is more attractive. If you need more computing power, the full mobile CPUs in the 13" MacBook Pro with Retina Display offer considerably more. The dedicated graphics plus full mobile CPUs in the MacBook Pro 15" and 15 inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display are good for serious computing plus good gaming with dedicated graphics. Of course, those Mac models are larger, heavier and more expensive than the MacBook Air.

 

The rest is the same old MacBook Air 13" that we know and love. The design is unchanged from the last generation model, and it has two USB 3.0 ports (one on each side), a Thunderbolt port that also functions as a mini DisplayPort, 3.5mm audio, MagSafe 2 charging connector and an SDXC card slot. It weighs 2.96 lbs., is clad in curvy silver aluminum, has a large glass trackpad that's as good as it gets and a good backlit keyboard. There's a webcam for Skype and FaceTime video chat, and new for this model are dual built-in mics. Build quality is always superb with Apple computers and the Air is an essay in visual perfection. There are no gaps, pointless angles or creaking and the casing is extremely rigid (I'd hate to drop it on my foot). Our only complaint with the MacBook Air is that the front edge feels sharp against the palms when typing.

The gloss display's resolution stays at 1440 x 900, which hurts a bit in the face of today's premium 1920 x 1080 and higher Windows 8 Ultrabooks. My guess? Apple didn't want to cannibalize the Retina line of Mac laptops, and a full HD display would drag down that record-setting battery life. Obviously there's no touch screen here, Apple doesn't do that (at least not yet). That's not to say this is a bad display, rather it's quite good. Viewing angles are comfortably wide (except when viewed from below, but few people sit lower than their laptop) and colors are pleasing. Movies look bright and color saturated and there's sufficient sharpness to make text look good. Those who've grown accustomed to Apple's much higher PPI Retina displays will likely think that text looks a tad fuzzy, but those who've been using standard resolution laptops will find it very good.

This isn't a wide color gamut display that you'll find on some high end laptops like Apple's own Retina 13 and 15 inch models that cover 99% of sRGB or the Sony Vaio Pro 13 that covers 95% of sRGB. The 13" MacBook Air covers 67% of sRGB and 51% of Adobe RGB. At 300 nits, it's as bright as the Retina Macs and brighter than the 250 nit Sony Vaio Pro 13, but contrast is lower at 550:1 in our tests vs. 900:1 or higher for the Vaio and Retina. That's decent contrast and the display doesn't look washed out, but blacks aren't as rich and black on white text isn't as crisp compared to the Retina and Vaio Pro. Contrast is above the industry average though, as is brightness.

The 13" MacBook Air starts at $1,099 for the 1.3GHz Intel Core i5 with 4 gigs of DDR3 RAM and a 128 gig SSD drive (now using the significantly faster PCIe interface). You can get the machine with the 1.7GHz Intel Core i7, 8 gigs of RAM and a 256 or 512 gig SSD drive. The Core i7 with 8 gigs of RAM and a 256 gig SSD costs $1,549. For those of you who really love traveling small, the MacBook Air 11" ($999 base price) is available with Haswell and Intel HD 5000 graphics too. Battery life is lower at 9 hours according to Apple because 11.6" notebooks don't have room for as large a battery as their 13" brethren.

If you're a Mac person, the choice is between the 13" MacBook Pro with Retina Display and the MacBook Air. The 13" Retina is heavier at 3.57 lbs. and more expensive at $1,499 (base price), but you get a much better display and faster full mobile CPUs in trade. If you're looking for extreme portability and the least expensive Mac you can buy, the MacBook Air is the better choice. Both can handle productivity work with MS Office, email, web, streaming HD video playback and image editing perfectly well. Neither is well suited to gaming since both models use integrated graphics. You can play casual games on either, but you'll have to resort to lower resolutions and settings for current 3D titles. Of course, there's the standard 4.5 lb. 13" MacBook Pro which offers a full mobile CPU and Intel integrated graphics like the Retina, but it adds a built-in DVD drive, Ethernet and FireWire 800. It's the heaviest of the three, and has a lowly 1280 x 800 resolution display (really, Apple?). That said, if you need an all-around laptop that can be your one and only machine, the base $1,199 MacBook Pro has all the creature comforts like plentiful ports, an optical drive and a fast CPU for a relatively low price by Apple standards.

And how about the world of Windows? I generally don't recommend a Mac If you plan to run Windows 7 or 8 most of the time. Apple's Windows drivers aren't nearly as good as their Mac OS X counterparts. Power management and the trackpad, which are two highlights under Mac OS X become mediocre under Windows using Bootcamp. If you only sometimes need Windows, then a Mac is fine (via Bootcamp or Parallels).

For those of you who are Windows users, you've got a great selection of Ultrabooks to choose from. A few years ago the Air had a significant lead but now the Asus Zenbook Prime UX31A Touch, the Sony Vaio Pro, Dell XPS 13 FHD, Samsung ATIV Book 7 and Samsung Series 9 (also called ATIV Book) are compelling alternatives with classy designs, full HD displays, touch screens and good backlit keyboards.

We need more machines like the Asus Zenbook UX305: stylish, highly portable, quite capable and priced at just $699. We were already impressed with Asus' $899 Zenbook UX303 that was recently refreshed with Intel Core i5 Broadwell CPUs. The UX305 is the more affordable version of the UX303 (higher numbers don't always mean better in Asus' world). But the key point here is that Asus cut very few corners to create the $200 less expensive UX305. You do give up the touch screen, which is the biggest drawback given Windows 8.1's push to use touch, but since it's a pure laptop form factor with no convertible-tablet feature, we'll forgive it. Instead of the Intel Core i5 used in the UX303, the UX305 has the lower power and slower Intel Core M CPU, and the UX305 loses the backlit keyboard. But there's plenty of goodness left: an all metal casing with Asus' signature swirled aluminum lid, plenty of ports, a striking and slim design, and a full HD 1080 matte IPS display (QHD 3800 x 1800 will be available in April 2015 for $999).

The Asus Zenbook UX305 is a traditional laptop that looks quite similar to previous Zenbook models, from the swirled aluminum lid to the tapered side view. The UX305 particularly reminds us of the 13" MacBook Air with a similar lid and hinge design, a large metal bezel and a keyboard that's a lot like the Air's (that's not a bad thing even though we wish Asus would stop placing the power button where the delete key should be, as does Apple). The entire external casing is made of metal, including the bottom panel that's affixed with several torx T5 screws and two Phillips head screws hidden under the back rubber feet. The metallic plum color is a mix of blue and purple, which isn't my favorite look, but color preference is personal. We've seen Asus use silver, gunmetal, champagne and black on other Zenbook models; clearly they're not afraid of playing with hues. The machine is rigid and we couldn't twist or torque it. If you press really hard on the keyboard deck, it will flex, but it's hard to imagine anyone would apply that much pressure when typing.

Despite its impressive slimness, the Zenbook UX305 has a healthy selection of ports for a 13.3" Ultrabook: 3 USB 3.0 ports, micro HDMI, 3.5mm combo audio, an SD card slot and Gigabit Ethernet via the included USB 3.0 to Ethernet dongle. We'd give Asus a hard time about micro HDMI but there really isn't room for a full size HDMI port and compared to the single port 12" MacBook with which it competes on some fronts, it's doing just fine. Asus includes their usual square charger with a relatively short and thin cord. The UX305 is an attractive looking laptop for the price, though it doesn't hit quite the high note that some more expensive Zenbook models do, since there's less attention to esthetic detail like the flat-cut stainless steel look on the sides of the UX303 or the glass lid of the UX301. But for $699, it's wildly good looking and it keeps up nicely with machines priced considerably higher.

The Intel Core M doesn't require a fan, so the UX305 doesn't have one. That means the laptop is always dead silent, and happily we didn't see significant thermal throttling when the Zenbook worked on heavy loads like Benchmarks and gaming with Skyrim for 30 minutes. The bottom doesn't get hot, but the strip just above the keyboard does get warm to hot--fortunately that's not a place most of us touch often.

The good news first: the keyboard is very good and not noticeably different from the UX301 and UX303, both of which had keyboards we thoroughly enjoyed. Asus might not employ ergonomically shaped keys like Lenovo with their ThinkPads and Dell in the XPS line, but I typed well with the Zenbook UX305. It has 1.2mm key travel, which is a little lower than the 1.5mm travel of larger and thicker laptops, but par for the course with a slim 13" Ultrabook. Unlike most Zenbooks, the keyboard isn't backlit; something had to go to meet the low price point. Happily the black keys and white masking are easy to see even in dim rooms.

The trackpad is fairly large (almost as big as the MacBook Air 13"), and we have the Microsoft Signature Edition that avoids Asus' sometimes tepid drivers. Still, the trackpad was passable but nothing more. It was reliable and didn't skip or falter, but it sometimes missed touches when we tapped, didn't always register two-finger scrolls and the click is loud.... loud enough that my colleague turned to stare at me (granted that's happened with some ThinkPads too). It's not a horrid trackpad, but it's not among the best.

Our $699 model has a 1920 x 1080 IPS matte display. I love matte displays--the much reduced glare doesn't induce eyestrain, and you can set the brightness lower since there's no need to combat reflections. The bad news is that there's no touch screen option, so those of you who actually enjoy using touch in Windows 8.1 are out of luck. Since this is a traditional laptop that doesn't convert into a tablet, it's not an outright necessity, and it did allow Asus to price the UX305 lower. Asus will offer a $999 version with a QHD 3200 x 1800 display in the future, and we'll be interested to see how much it taxes the Core M CPU and Intel HD 5300 graphics.

Like most things in this world, IPS displays come in different qualities, and this isn't the lovely matte non-touch display of the $1,800 MSI Ghost Pro full HD or even that of the UX303. It has noticeable light bleed when displaying dark backgrounds and when booting up. We could see bleed all along the bottom edge and the lower sides that extended about 1.5" toward the center of the display. For those who aren't familiar with the term, light bleed is when the white backlight bleeds out around the edges of the screen, resulting in lighter areas that you'll notice when watching a letterboxed movie. It's not bad enough to affect colorful desktop wallpapers, photos or full screen video playback that has no letterboxing. Again, for the price, we're not going to complain too much, especially when we've seen more expensive Asus models with backlight bleed at the same level a few years back.

The display is fairly bright at 294 nits, and contrast is decent at 500:1 but not stellar (gloss panels tend to deliver higher perceived contrast). Color gamut falls just a few points below the $900 Ultrabook pack at 92% of sRGB, which is still quite good overall and great for a laptop at this price point with a host of good specs. Color calibration from the factory was wildly off, making the panel look cool with excessive contrast (colors were a little blown out). We've seen Asus put out panels with quite good calibration (the UX303), and when they don't, they tend to be hiding panel deficiencies (they're not the only manufacturer to do this). When we calibrated the panel using our Spyder 4 Pro Colorimeter, brightness dropped 10 nits but colors looked more natural and that slight solar flare look was gone.

Here's the section many of you were waiting for. The Zenbook UX305 runs on the 5th generation Intel Broadwell Core M CPU rather than the more common Core i5 and i7 CPUs used in Ultrabooks. The Core M is the evolution of the Y series CPU in 4th gen generation Haswell, and it was intended for Windows tablets and 11" laptops. It's paired with Intel HD 5300 graphics rather than the HD 5500 used with the Core i3, i5 and i7 Broadwell CPUs. No, it's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but Asus is always good at performance tuning and that, coupled with 8 gigs of RAM and a quick SSD, mean that the Zenbook UX305 never felt balky or sluggish when doing everyday tasks like web browsing with 5-10 tabs open in IE, MS Office, email, social networking and streaming 1080p video. It feels quicker than the more expensive Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro that uses a slightly higher clocked version of the Core M, and we suspect this has much to do with drivers and good hardware tuning. The 800 MHz (no, that's not a typo, we're back in megahertz land here) has Turbo Boost to 2 GHz, and that helps it feel quick--the CPU can ramp up clock speeds for short bursts as needed to handle demand. Of course, this has its limits, and the UX305 isn't our pick for those who need to accomplish more challenging work like frequent 1080p video editing and encoding, compiling tens of thousands of lines of code for software development, or juggling a few concurrent VMs. It's an everyday productivity machine, not a powerhouse. It's also not a great pick for those of you who want to run recent 3D games in the desktop environment (Metro Live Tile games are fine, though touch-oriented ones won't be a joy here). We tested a few games and we demo Skyrim in our video review. It managed only 22 fps at 1366 x 768 with all settings at low except textures which was set to medium (AA was off). When we dropped textures to low the game was a more playable 30 fps, though it didn't look great at that low a resolution and quality setting combo. If you need more horsepower, Asus is hoping you'll consider the $899 Zenbook UX305 instead (of course Dell would like you to think of the XPS 13).

Intel Core M is supposed to be all about better battery life since it's a 4.5 watt CPU vs 15 watts for U series Intel Core i3/i5/i7 U series CPUs. Broadwell itself focuses on battery life improvements, and while we've seen those materialize in the first Broadwell machines, we haven't seen Core M significantly beat the higher powered Core i5. So our expectations weren't very high for the UX305 and its 45 Wh battery, but we were pleasantly surprised by its 9 hour average battery life (that's actual use time, not sleep time). In our real life tests using the laptop for web browsing with 5-10 tabs open, working in MS Office, streaming an hour of House of Cards in 1080p via Netflix, watching several short YouTube videos and editing 10 RAW files in Photoshop CC, all with WiFi on and brightness set to 50%, our unit averaged 8-9 hours. That's a very respectable number for a 13" Windows laptop, and only the non-touch full HD Dell XPS 13 and the MacBook Air beat it among Intel-based portables.

In all other respects, the MacBook looks a little weak compared to its Windows brethren when it comes to hardware specs. These days a grand gets you an Intel Core i5 CPU and 4 gigs of RAM and a similar GPU. We've all heard of the "Mac tax"; that extra you pay for the pleasure of running Mac OS, and that is indeed part of the deal. Do you want to run Mac OS for its fluidity and near stranger relationship with viruses and driver update maladies? You pay for a Mac. But there's more: as with higher end machines like the HP Envy and upscale Sony Vaio models, you're paying for chic design, superb build quality and an excellent display.

The MacBook is no longer relegated to the bargain bin among Apple notebooks, and the gloss LED display is very color saturated and reasonably bright, though not as bright as our MacBook Air's display. Viewing angles, particularly side viewing angles are excellent. It's as good as Sony's XBrite displays and it beats $1,000 Windows laptops for display quality. Still it hurts when you have to live with 2 measily USB ports and no HDMI, though at least HDMI with both audio and video out is an option now via 3rd party Mini DisplayPort to HDMI adapters. While the MacBook Pro has an ambient light sensor that can adjust display brightness, the MacBook lacks this feature, and that's one omission we prefer since the Pro's ambient light sensor tends to drive us mad.

The huge glass multi-touch trackpad is still unique to Mac notebooks. Yes, there are plenty of multi-touch trackpads on Windows notebooks, and some like the Envy's, even copy the button-less design. Sadly none of them work nearly as well as the MacBook's. It's so easy to use, so intuitive it almost kills my desire for a touch screen. The chiclet style keyboard is one of the better on the laptop market, and being white, it's easier to see in the dark. That said, we miss the backlit Pro keyboards.

The superior GPU in the new MacBook is one of the strongest reasons to upgrade from an older MacBook, though we're bummed that Apple is still stingy with the VRAM-- the NVIDIA 320M gets only a paltry 256 megs of dedicated memory. That seems a few years out of date compared to Windows notebooks. Still, when running Mac OS it's more than enough for speedier window opening and better graphics performance in video and photo apps that use the GPU. If you attach a very large, high resolution display, the low VRAM and introductory-level discrete GPU do take a toll on performance though. The MacBook doesn't have switchable graphics where the machine switches between Intel integrated and dedicated graphics like the larger MacBook Pro models. It's all NVIDIA all the time.

If the MacBook doesn't have enough horsepower for your needs, moving up to the 13" MacBook Pro won't help matters. The base level 13" MacBook Pro performs identically to the 2010 MacBook and the $1,499 stepped-up 13" model only slightly improves CPU performance. Unfortunately for those of you who want the portability of a 13" but need more power, you'll have to move up to the 15" MacBook Pro with an Intel Core i5 CPU (starting price $1,799).

The machine has Apple's Mini DisplayPort (what have they got against HDMI?). That means you can use a variety of $29 adapters to connect to VGA, DVI and Dual-link DVI (the Apple 30" Cinema Display) monitors and HDMI via 3rd party adapters. The Dual-link adapter for the 30" display will actually set you back a painful $99, but at least you can do it. Gone are the days when MacBook's were intentionally limited to smaller external monitors.

Audio out is still the combined 3.5mm jack that's compatible with VoIP headsets and Apple's iPhone headset. The jack does support digital output, and there are the usual built-in mic, iSight camera and decent stereo speakers.

Like all Intel Macs, the MacBook can run Windows via Bootcamp (where you select which OS you want to use when you boot the Mac) or virtual environments like Parallels that run Windows in a window on Mac OS. The 2010 MacBook supports Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 including 64 bit versions via Bootcamp. Windows 7 runs very well on this Mac which is as fast a machine as the recently dethroned Sony Vaio Z running a Core2 Duo. While we wouldn't throw Crysis at this Mac, it's more than capable of playing Warcraft and even Call of Duty Modern Warfare with effects turned down or off. In our 3D gaming tests, frame rates were 30% improved over the last gen MacBook with the NVIDIA 9400M.

The MacBook uses the same MagSafe charger port and connector as the MacBook Air and it comes with a 60 watt world charger.

Acer often takes the affordable road with their notebooks and Ultrabooks. The Aspire S3 was a tad budget among first gen Ultrabooks with more liberal use of plastics and a spinning hard drive rather than the then ubiquitous SSD drive. The Acer Aspire S5 changes all that. This is a premium Ultrabook; and Ultrabooks already tend to be premium relative to mainstream laptops. The 13.3" third generation Intel machine is dressed in a gunmetal black casing that looks and feels premium. And it's one of the first Windows laptops to have a Thunderbolt port. And yes, it works just fine with our Apple 27" Thunderbolt display.

This is one of the thinnest Ultrabooks on the market: it tapers from 0.44 to 0.59 inches and it weighs just 2.65 pounds. That's almost as light as the most underweight Ultrabook on the market, the Toshiba Portege Z835/Z935. But unlike the Portege, the Acer has no flex and feels seriously solid.

What else makes this a premium machine? Ultrabooks generally start at $999 for a Core i5 and 128 gig SSD. The Core i7 plus 256 gig SSD drive generally costs $1,300 to $1,500 for most brands. The Aspire S5 is available only with the high end 1.9GHz Intel Core i7 ULV, 4 gigs of DDR3 RAM and a fast 256 gig SSD. It's not cheap at $1,399. The machine benchmarks very well and it's at the top of our PCMark Vantage collection for Ultrabooks with a 13,190 score.

Other features include a glossy 13.3", 1366 x 768 display of just average quality, an HD webcam, comfy but not backlit keyboard, and Acer's MagicFlip, a motorized rear port door that drops down and rises up at the touch of a button. Gimmick? Yes. Kinda cool unless it breaks? Yes.

Honestly, we like everything about the Aspire S5 except the display: viewing angles are extremely narrow, and we expect better from a machine this expensive. Even when viewed straight on, contrast isn't terribly high and colors are just average. In every other way, this Ultrabook pleases us with fast performance, a gorgeous design and the bonus Thunderbolt port.

The Acer Aspire S5 runs fairly cool and surface temperatures never exceed body temperature. The fan is fairly audible if the machine is working moderately hard, and we suspect the fan noise is amplified by turbulence created by the drop down rear door (fan noise changes when the door is dropped down and is actually reduced a bit).