Mini MacBook Air Review

The MacBook Air is one of the most anticipated notebooks in the history of computers, mainly because it packs a ton of technology into an extremely slim and compact chassis. But does it deliver?

Here's the advertisement that sparked it all:
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Common abbreviations used in this review:
MBA- MacBook Air
MB- MacBook
MBP- MacBook Pro

Specifications:

• 13.3" WXGA LED widescreen
• Intel Core 2 Duo 1.6GHz (2MB Cache, 800MHz FSB)
• 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 667MHz
• 80GB 4200RPM Hard Drive
• Intel GMA X3100
• Multitouch Touchpad and Backlit Keyboard

As of writing, this configuration of the MacBook Air is currently $1799.99.

Build & Design:
Obviously, the biggest reason to even buy a MacBook Air is because of it's new revolutionary design. And I have to say, this design is extremely startling to me when compared to my Dell Inspiron 1520. The notebook is very light and thin, and it doesn't sacrifice in the build quality department. The screen doesn't feel like it has any flex and putting force on the cover doesn't produce any ripples. However, the touchpad seems a little like it would break after some time of use. Also, the button of the touchpad is a little sticky and the keyboard has too little travel. Nevertheless, I do like the spacing between the keys and the multi-touch touchpad is amazingly intuitive.

Screen:
The LED screen is very bright, with good contrast all around. There is little to no backlight bleeding and no stuck or dead pixels. However, one major complaint I have about the screen is that it can only fold back to about 120 degrees, making standing up and typing a minor discomfort. As covered above, there is no flex on the screen and I cannot produce any ripples when pressing on the back of the screen.

Performance:
Because I can't install any software on this test computer, I can only base the performance of the MacBook Air on comparing it to the MacBook, and I have to say, it is slightly slower in most tasks, especially when navigating the dock and opening applications. Also, there is a slight delay in minimizing a window to the dock, especially when compared to the MacBook. One small test I did was opening a slightly more resource hogging program, such as Photo Booth. It took 8 seconds to open on the MacBook Air while only taking 2 seconds to open on the MacBook Pro and 3 seconds on the MacBook. This is probably due to the 1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and the 80 GB 4200 RPM. Similarly, Time Machine took almost 2 minutes to open up on the MacBook Air compared to the 10 seconds of the MacBook Pro and the 20 seconds of the MacBook. This also is probably because of the slower CPU and the hard drive. The difference between the MacBook and the MacBook Pro is that the video card is faster on the MacBook Pro, leading to slight performance gains in the video intensive program.

Heat and Noise:
I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of heat generated by the MacBook Air, especially when compared to the MacBook Pro, which is called by some as a giant heat sink. The MacBook Air is extremely cool (about as cool as my Dell), with the only heat coming from the vents in the back of the notebook.

Wireless:
The wireless router here is a N router (I'm pretty sure), but it takes the MacBook Air around 10 seconds to connect to it after waking from sleep. However, surfing the internet is pretty fast.

Battery Life:
Since I don't have enough time to actually measure the battery life accurately, I'm going to have to let it drain for ten minutes or so and calculate the expected battery life. At the end of the 10 minutes of Better Performance and full brightness, the MacBook Air lost 6 percent of battery from 100% to 94%. However, as WilliamG pointed out, the percent drops a lot in the first couple minutes, so actual usage can amount to about 4 hours of battery life or more.

Other Pictures:

This is the farthest you can open the screen to.
















Leon

 

Nice first thoughts, Leon!

Post lots of pictures! Even if its from the Apple Store .

 

LMAO. Nice one brkhobowriter.

 

Lol, I don't actually own it. Just testing it at the Apple Store.

 

After re-reading, I realized . Still, take pictures!

 

Haha that's what I thought too! And that he couldn't wait to get home to review it for us, so did it at the store.

 

I have to agree with the build quality. I spent about 15 minutes with the MacBook Air at a local Mac reseller, and it certainly was well built, especially considering how thin the lid was. I'm amazed at what Apple did with its build quality.

 

Yeah, I'll add some pictures when I get home and a nice video of me opening it and closing it.

 

Updated review, will add my pictures and videos later.

 

Nice review

regarding heat most users are complaining of MacBook air getting very very hot. How come u felt its very cool?

 

You know, I'm not too sure myself. I heard about the heat problems, but I don't know if the test unit had liquid nitrogen in it or something, but it was cool.

 

Alright, just added a bunch of pictures.

 

Tried for half hour but couldn't get videos up. Sorry guys.

 

Thanks for the pictures, though your battery impressions are way off. Most batteries drop the first few percent quite quickly. Actual battery life is 4-4.45 based on actual usage.

 

I think a majority of the owners are reporting that the MBA's CPU gets hot when doing processor intensive work. The chassis itself remains relatively cool.

 

Thanks WilliamG for that note and I fixed it.

 

No probs.

Also, in my experience, unless the system is running hour after hour at full load, the heat is NEVER an issue. I actually wore shorts and had the MacBook Air on my lap when writing my review, whereas my MacBook Pro is too hot even doing basic tasks to use on bare skin.

 

Yeah, the MBP is amazingly hot.

 

No pun intended.

 

Not any more.

 

Had a chance to play around with one today, heres what I thought:

Pro:
Thin
Light
Nice screen

Cons:
No optical drive
No ethernet
One USB
Felt very slow just opening windows and programs
IMO, Black keyboard on white machine doesn't look very good

I guess in my opinion, a MBP is a much better buy for not much more.

 

Nice review and pictures.

I spent almost an hour today at a store playing around with one. Here's my thoughts from what little time I used it:

Build quality and design just floored me. Wow. Absolutely amazing and nothing short of impressive. The seem lines were perfect, alignment was spot on and the screen opening/closing mechanism was smooth yet solid-feeling.

The screen was excellent but at times I found the glare and reflection a little annoying in harsh lighting. I'm still a big fan of matte screens.

The unit remained cool to the touch from all angles of the chassis.

The little door for the USB and headphones was perfectly smooth and locked/closed in place perfectly.

The touchpad was huge and very responsive but the touchpad button seemed unusually thin. The keyboard to me looked exactly like the MB keyboard which I'm not a huge fan of.

What I didn't like was how sluggish everything was. It was noticeably slower overall than my MBP to the point that I thought there was something wrong with it. I restarted it and it was the same so I'm not sure what the issue is.

And I still think that it was a mistake leaving out the optical drive as that's, IMO, the only thing that it's really missing. All the other compromises made for the design are reasonable.

 

Everyone's been playing with a MBA!!!

Thanks, guys.

My 700th post!

 

Well I have one, and I don't think it's sluggish. Actually, it's quite speedy - not MBP speedy - but speedy enough!

 

I own an MBA, and the heat issues right out of the box in a lot of the reviews were by users who did not know to do an SMU reset. I had similar problems, once I did the reset, no problems, the heat management is GREAT on the MBA. Also, one of the reviews judged based on its boot camp heat, the MBA is a very hot windows computer. In OSX it's no problem.

 

Yeah, I thought the heat was great too. I guess that the Apple Store employees reset it.

 

Nothing to do with the MBA, but I can tell you my MBP is a cool running machine. I have it on my lap right now, and it is not even toasty. This is the Penyrn refresh BTW.

I have used it all day at work for a week, and it gets only slightly warm on the underside. Way cooler than my Asus W3J. With Vista, that think would constantly put out a stream of hot air.

 

Yeah, the Penryn MBPs are a lot cooler than the older ones.