MacBook Air First Thoughts Review

by Jerry Jackson

For those of you who have been living in a cave for the last month, the MacBook Air is Apple's newest 13.3" ultra-thin notebook offering cutting edge design in a remarkably thin package. With Intel Core 2 Duo processors, Intel X3100 integrated graphics, an optional 64GB solid state drive (SSD), and a stylish yet tough design, the MacBook Air might be one of the hottest 13-inch notebooks on the market in 2008. Let's take a closer look.

The Apple MacBook Air (starting at $1,799) is available with two choices of Core 2 Duo processors and a choice of 80GB hard disk drive or 64GB solid state drive. There is only one 13.3" screen offering, a 1280x800 WXGA glossy display with LED backlighting.

(view large image)

Our MacBook Air has the following specifications:

• Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard
• Intel Core 2 Duo P7500 1.6GHz (4MB L2 cache, 800MHz frontside bus)
• 2GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
• 80GB 4200rpm parallel ATA hard disk drive
• 13.3" glossy widescreen TFT LED backlit display (1280 x 800)
• Intel GMA X3100 graphics (144MB of shared memory)
• iSight webcam
• AirPort Extreme WiFi (IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n)
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR (Enhanced Data Rate)
• Micro DVI, USB 2.0 port (480Mbps), Audio out
• Dimensions : 0.16-0.76", 12.8", 8.94" (H, W, D)
• Weight: 3.0 pounds
• Integrated 37-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery
• 45W MagSafe power adapter with cable management system

Build and Design

The MacBook Air is quite simply the most stunning notebook we've seen in recent memory. There just isn't any way to prepare yourself for the thinness of this notebook until you hold it in your hands for the first time. A thickness of just 0.16 to 0.76 inch with a solid aluminum chassis that weighs just three pounds makes the MacBook Air the thinnest and lightest 13.3" notebook currently on the market.

Despite the impressive thinness of the design, the MacBook Air is quite solid and durable thanks to the aluminum construction. We don't recommend dropping the MacBook Air (or any notebook for that matter) but the MacBook Air should survive the average use and abuse that any other notebook can handle.

MacBook Air and an Asus Eee PC 4G ... with a Leopard Windows XP theme. (view large image)

The MacBook Air lid does not have a latch to hold it closed, but the hinge mechanism works well and firmly holds the lid in place. There is almost no flex to the screen. While we're on the topic of the screen lid, the back edge of the lid hangs off the back of the notebook due to the ultra-thin design, so it's possible to catch clothing or skin when you open the lid on your lap. (Of course, catching your skin with the back of the lid would require you to have the MacBook Air sitting on your lap while you aren't wearing pants ... which means you probably have bigger problems in your life.)

The edge of the display hangs off the back. (view large image)

Below is a video overview of the MacBook Air in case you want a detailed walkthrough. (Yes, I said it weighs two pounds in the video, but the MacBook Air weighs three pounds.)

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Performance and Benchmarks

The MacBook Air has reasonable performance based on the 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P7500 processor developed for the MacBook Air. That said, the XBench benchmarks indicate that the MacBook Air is the slowest Mac in Apple's current lineup. As you'll see in chart below, the MacBook Air has roughly half the performance of a previous generation MacBook. The startup into Leopard actually takes almost as much time as my old PowerBook G3 (Pismo) takes to startup into Panther. In a nutshell, Apple had to sacrifice some performance in order to bring this ultra-thin laptop to consumers.

The Intel X3100 integrated graphics should provide adequate performance for average games. That said, don't expect this notebook to play the latest graphics-intense games ... we're not dealing with a dedicated graphics card here.

The 80GB hard drive in the MacBook Air provides a reasonable amount of storage but isn't anywhere near the amount of storage that most consumers are likely to want in a modern laptop. Sure, you've got enough storage for travel needs, but if you download tons of music, movies, and TV shows from iTunes and store them on the MacBook Air's hard drive then you'll quickly run out of space. Additionally, the slow 4200rpm speed of the 80GB hard disk means the MacBook Air wastes more time trying to access data.

You can also configure that MacBook Air with a 1.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor (a modest performance increase) and a much, much faster 64GB SSD. Unfortunately, the faster processor and faster drive increase the price of the MacBook Air to a jaw-dropping $3,100.

With the basics out of the way, let's jump into the performance benchmarks.

XBench is a comprehensive benchmarking solution for Mac OS X commonly used to compare the relative speeds of two different Macintoshes.

XBench 1.3 summary results:

Model	Overall Score
MacBook Air (1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo)	50.76
Mac Mini (1.83GHz Intel Core 2 Duo)	94.58
MacBook (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo)	95.89
MacBook Pro (2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo)	106.05
PowerBook G3 Pismo (500MHz G3)	18.47

HDTune (Windows Vista Ultimate) results:

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wPrime is a program that forces the processor to do recursive mathematical calculations, the advantage of this program is that it is multi-threaded and can use both processor cores at once, thereby giving more accurate benchmarking measurements than Super Pi.

wPrime (Windows Vista Ultimate) comparison results:

Notebook / CPU	wPrime 32M time
Apple MacBook Air (Intel Core 2 Duo P7500 @ 1.6GHz)	68 seconds
Asus Eee PC 701 4G (Intel Celeron M ULV @ 900MHz)	200 seconds
Sony VAIO TZ (Intel Core 2 Duo U7600 @ 1.20GHz)	76 seconds

Screen

The 13.3&quot; WXGA glossy screen on the MacBook Air isn't ideal for HD video, but it does offer sharp contrast, excellent color, and reasonably even backlighting. Unlike many other 13.3&quot; 1280x800 pixel displays the screen on the MacBook Air doesn't suffer from &quot;graininess.&quot; Horizontal viewing angles were excellent although vertical viewing angles were only average. The screen itself didn't suffer from ripples or stuck pixels, but we did notice some obvious light leakage from the top edge of our display.

In short, the screen on the MacBook Air is nice, but Apple could have done better.

(view large image)	(view large image)
(view large image)	(view large image)

Keyboard and Touchpad

The full-sized keyboard on the MacBook Air has no flex and is remarkably solid thanks to the laptop's aluminum construction. The keys have excellent cushion and response and were quiet during use. The keyboard lacks dedicated keys for home, end, page up, page down and also lacks obvious function keys for those keys. The f-keys also control a range of features (such as raising or lowering screen brightness) when they are pressed in combination with the control key.

The backlit keyboard is a nice touch that proves quite useful when working in low light environments. That said, we would have liked the backlight to be even stronger.

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(view large image)

The touchpad is nice and large and features a durable and responsive surface. The multi-touch functionality gives the touchpad some extra usefulness when editing photos or manipulating other files. The touchpad button has extremely shallow feedback and produces quiet, cushioned clicks. That being said, we generally prefer to have a bit deeper feedback in touchpad buttons. In general, the liberal size of the touchpad makes for a genuinely enjoyable experience.

Input and Output Ports

Ports? What ports? There isn't a normal selection of ports on the MacBook Air simply because the ultra-thin form factor cannot accommodate the standard array of ports you'll find on other notebooks. The complete list of ports includes:

• Micro DVI out
• USB 2.0 port (480Mbps)
• Audio out (headphone minijack)
• Micro-DVI to DVI (with included adapter)
• Micro-DVI to VGA (with included adapter)

Although Apple engineers deserve serious credit for developing the ultra-thin shape of the MacBook Air, we can't help but feel a little disappointed by the lack of ports. There's only one USB port, no FireWire, no Ethernet port, no microphone in port for audio enthusiasts, no ExpressCard slot for expansion purposes, and no dedicated docking port on the bottom of the notebook. In short, the MacBook Air lacks almost every port that &quot;power users&quot; are likely to want (or even &quot;need&quot on a notebook.

Front view. (view large image)	Rear view. (view large image)
Left side view. (view large image)	Right side view. (view large image)
Bottom view. (view large image)

Audio

The built-in monospeaker in the MacBook Air is, in a word, horrid. Most budget laptops have terrible speakers that sound like someone speaking through a tin can, but at least most laptops have stereo speakers. The monospeaker is weak and it's, well, mono. The speaker quality of the MacBook Air is simply unacceptable compared to other notebooks in the $1,800 price range.

The good news is that the audio out port (headphone minijack) provides excellent audio output. There's little or no distortion or static and the sound on my earbuds was quite enjoyable.

Battery

The MacBook Air uses an integrated 37-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery. On the bright side, lithium-polymer should have a longer lifespan than standard lithium-ion batteries found in most notebooks. On the other hand, the fact that the battery is sealed inside the body of the MacBook Air means that you can't just pop in a new battery when the battery runs out of power or replace the battery if the battery is damaged.

Apple claims that the battery inside the MacBook Air provides &quot;5 hours of wireless productivity.&quot; In our initial real-world tests we can't say that estimate is very accurate. With the MacBook Air's power management set to maximize battery life and a 100 percent charge the battery life was initially reported as 4 hours and 17 minutes with the display set to minimum brightness and wireless on. The battery life quickly dropped to just above three hours in less than 30 seconds.

We'll have more detailed battery life tests in our final review, but initial results suggest that battery life (even with the screen set to minimum brightness) won't come close to five hours.

First Impressions

As the old saying goes, &quot;you never get a second chance to make a good first impression.&quot; Somehow, I don't think everyone in Cupertino was thinking about this famous phrase when they developed the MacBook Air. While the Apple MacBook Air is an impressive design with some innovative features, the number of sacrifices that had to be made in order to create this ultra-thin notebook severely limits this laptop.

The lack of ports, low-capacity slow hard drive, and slow overall performance make the MacBook Air the weakest performing MacBook we've seen in the last few years. On the other hand, the MacBook Air is the sexiest looking MacBook we've ever seen.

Sure, you can fit the MacBook Air in a manila envelope ... but most consumers won't be impressed if the $1,800 laptop that comes out of the envelope isn't very powerful. Stay tuned for our full review of the MacBook Air in a few days.

 

Great review, thanks! rep ^ .

 

can someone tell me what this thing is good for?? besides wasting money.

 

In case anyone is interested in the details from XBench, here you go:

Results 50.76
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.5.1 (9B2324)
Physical RAM 2048 MB
Model MacBookAir1,1
Drive Type SAMSUNG HS082HB SAMSUNG HS082HB
CPU Test 86.99
GCD Loop 184.80 9.74 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 82.78 1.97 Gflop/sec
vecLib FFT 66.61 2.20 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 74.19 12.92 Mops/sec
Thread Test 154.60
Computation 137.89 2.79 Mops/sec, 4 threads
Lock Contention 175.92 7.57 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
Memory Test 132.64
System 126.68
Allocate 124.83 458.40 Kalloc/sec
Fill 118.20 5746.94 MB/sec
Copy 138.70 2864.89 MB/sec
Stream 139.19
Copy 129.19 2668.45 MB/sec
Scale 127.55 2635.23 MB/sec
Add 152.56 3249.82 MB/sec
Triad 151.46 3240.20 MB/sec
Quartz Graphics Test 100.44
Line 108.56 7.23 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 110.41 32.96 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 89.15 7.27 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 97.59 2.46 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 99.52 6.23 Kchars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 17.50
Spinning Squares 17.50 22.20 frames/sec
User Interface Test 110.25
Elements 110.25 505.99 refresh/sec
Disk Test 27.60
Sequential 44.56
Uncached Write 49.97 30.68 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 59.83 33.85 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 26.30 7.70 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 66.56 33.45 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 20.00
Uncached Write 6.57 0.70 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 66.76 21.37 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 50.28 0.36 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 76.48 14.19 MB/sec [256K blocks]

 

Thanks for the review, MBA = overrated?

 

As typical, the Macs cost well more then I'd be willing to pay. I like the idea but the lack of ports kills it for me. I'm all for thinner and lighter but not at the expense of accessorizing. I ~NEED~ my USB ports >.>

Also a pity that the SSD ramps up the price so much. I'm not much of one for needing a lot of space on my notebooks though, I just keep everything in an external drive.

 

God that hdd tune score is dissapointing, 20ms responce time + 50% CPU usage!!!!!! my raid card (fake raid ) dosnt use over 3% of the cpu. 50% is awfull.

 

cpu usage readings aren't really accurate. they just take whatever the cpu usage is at a certain time point that may not be due to the hd at all.

 

I'm surprised there's no Page Up/Page Down keys. Looks like there is plenty of room for them.

 

Thanks for the preliminary review Jerry. Good or bad, the MBA is very much like I expected it to be.

 

If I was given the choice of burning $2000 or spending it a macbook air, I guess I would buy it... but later I would take it back for a refund when the people who were going to make me burn my money were gone.

 

Excuse me? Am I the only one who goes to the bathroom with their laptop? I'm doing it right now.

 

i used to bring my zv6000 into the bathroom when i take a dump.

 

I must say, the MBA is a pointless, useless, impractical product. Especially if considering the price.

If weren't so expensive, and it had a better HDD, then yeah, MAYBE.

Matt

 

Um...just want to state that the MBA ISN'T the LIGHTEST 13.3" on the market. The Toshiba R500 is lighter at 1.7ish pounds with a built-in optical drive and 3 USB ports. However, its CPU is slower, and uses a larger 4200 RPM harddrive than the MBA. But, it has much more connectivity value period.

 

That is a 12.1" notebook.

 

I'd rather have a last-generation 12" PB, even with its weight and thickness.

 

i have an african bamboo dingus that was propably meant to be some sort of kitchen tablet or whatever. but it so nicely fits for my inspiron 8600 15 inch heavy ugly machine that i carry it on my lap ALL DAY. i do so now, and i also take with my notebook to the toilet.

i take any bet that my bamboo dingus fells exponentially more comfortable on my naked lap than the cold steel of this tin-foil-air cripple. Which is somewhat intriguing methinks since it's called macbook air but you can't take it for a vent.

 

Hahaha

I'd like to hold one of these. I don't want one, I just want to hold it and admire how light and thin it is. Maybe I'll make my way to a local Apple store and see if they have one...

 

Ah, right. My bad, sorry . I still kinda expected it to be lighter though.

 

You expected a 13.3" notebook to be lighter than 3 lbs??!? I guess it could still be slightly lighter with a SSD drive.

 

to illustrate what i said before about the macbook air: it's really the best tin-foil hat to date

 

:laugh:

For the record, I really like the MBA for a number of reasons. For starters, two of the biggest deal-breakers for me are the screen and keyboard (feel), and the MBA excels in both areas. I strongly prefer thin with a larger footprint over smaller and thicker.

The MBA is obviously not practical for everyone and it's not meant to be. If you don't like it, don't buy it. It will be interesting to see how the rest of the notebook world reacts to this thing.

 

Indeed, the team here at NBR works under the philosophy that "there's a buyer out there for every notebook." That said, the MacBook Air lacks a lot of features and doesn't provide a lot in the way of performance. Add to that a price tag of $1,800 or $3,100 and you'll quickly see why the MacBook Air probably won't see huge sales numbers compared to the MacBook and MacBook Pro.

That said, the design (thin, light weight, and durable) makes it very attractive for some people.

 

Great review. Btw, in the youtube video, I thought I saw the Eee pc running OS X Leopard?

 

Oh, it's an XP theme, sorry, missed that.

 

The Eee PC 4G in the video (my personal Eee PC) is actually running a perfectly legal version of Microsoft Windows XP ... with a Leopard theme and the Stardock Objectdock with a Leopard theme:

http://www.stardock.com/products/objectdock/

I used to use Macs exclusively but switched to using mostly Windows-based PCs after Panther (mainly because of work requirements). Although I have more Windows-based PCs in my life now I still perfer to use themes and software that make XP and Vista look and feel more like Mac OS.

 

Concerning the average vertical viewing angles for an LED screen, is the clarity of vertical viewing angles a function of the rendering technology or the glass itself? (thus nothing to do with the LED back-lighting). Just curious as very wide vertical angles are important to me and I was waiting to get an LED notebook. Or is the LED-aspect orthogonal to viewing angle? (no pun intended). Thanks.

 

ive tried the MBA from a mac friend, it feels razor sharp like if you throw it at someone it might just cut them in half, and yet i really dont want to put it in a bag and run with it to class, might break like a wafer, but it is a solid build indeed. other than that its a total waste of money imo, with 1800 i can get 3 notebooks. an asus eee and two budget notebooks at 600usd each or a really decent one with an asus eee ^^

 

The market for this looks to be Mac users who ALREADY HAVE a desktop or decent laptop, and need something artsy fartsy and skinny for super-mobility. I mean, this is really not a work-laptop, or a do-everything laptop... Too many sacrifices means you do most of your work on another machine, and bring this machine to your presentation for the "wow" factor... I'm sure, SOME work could be done on the go, but its just too impractical...

Thanks for the Asus eeeeee PC comparison... That machine makes the MBA look big!!! I think I found my new ultralight mobile companion -> the Asus eee PC 2nd generation. When they finally decide to fill that extra-wide bezel on the Asus with a 9 or 10" screen, they'll sell like hot-cakes...

 

68 secs in wprime?
my x61t which has an L7500 gets 53 seconds
ouch apple?

 

The key labeled "Delete" is actually Backspace.

 

Great review but the way I see it, the MBA's only advantage is its light weight, good looks and the nice LED screen.

 

The first thing I thought when I saw a picture of the Air was, "That's beautiful." The second was, "You could buy a D430 from Dell Outlet and have plenty of money left for a desktop."

 

I was more thinking "Wow, you could buy 7 of those Asus' for the same price as 1 Air."

 

Apple should make MB Wind, 14inch with hardware more than MBP then it might have my consideration.

 

Hey JerryJ, can you load Vista on the Macbook Air using Boot Camp? I want to know if it runs at a decent speed and if the aero function works. Also, I'm just curious to know if you can run Parallels and also be able to access Vista natively using Boot Camp. Thanks for all the help!

 

We installed Vista Ultimate (32-bit) on the MacBook Air using Boot Camp ... which is how we ran wPrime and HDtune for the performance and benchmarks section of this first thoughts review.

In general, performance under Vista was decent, but not amazing. Actually, I'd say that applications opened up a bit faster under Vista than under Leopard, and web pages rendered faster using IE in Vista than using Safari in Leopard. That surprised me.

A more detailed analysis of the MacBook Air's performance in both Leopard and Vista is coming soon when we publish the full review.

 

1 USB port!! I have extenders on the 4 in my Ferrari 5000.

 

You guys didn't happen to run some of the tests / benchmarks while Spotlight was indexing the drive? It takes quite a while to index a fresh install, and I'm sure it takes even longer with the slow 1.8" drive.

 

I predict this will be a whopping failure. The XPS 1330 weighs at 4lbs. The MBP is sacrificing a LOT of performance for just 1lb.

 

Nice review,thx

 

Hey JerryJ, could you post a CPU-Z shot of the MBA? I'm a bit curious as to what special processor the MBA is using. Thanks!

 

Very impressive notebook, i wish the price would be lower...

 

No, no Spotlight indexing. The biggest impact to the overall Xbench score was the graphics:

OpenGL Graphics Test: 17.50
Spinning Squares: 17.50, 22.20 frames/sec

 

<html><head><title>CPU-Z 1.43 HTML report file</title></head><body bgcolor=FFFFFF>

CPU-Z 1.43 report file

<small>Processor(s)</small> <small><small>&nbsp</small></small>

<small><small>Number of processors</small></small> <small><small>1</small></small> <small><small>Number of cores</small></small> <small><small>2 per processor</small></small> <small><small>Number of threads</small></small> <small><small>2 per processor</small></small> <small><small>Name</small></small> <small><small>Intel Mobile Core 2 Duo L7500</small></small> <small><small>Code Name</small></small> <small><small>Merom</small></small> <small><small>Specification</small></small> <small><small>Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P7500 @ 1.60GHz</small></small> <small><small>Package</small></small> <small><small>Socket P (478)</small></small> <small><small>Family/Model/Stepping</small></small> <small><small>6.F.B</small></small> <small><small>Extended Family/Model</small></small> <small><small>6.F</small></small> <small><small>Core Stepping</small></small> <small><small>G0</small></small> <small><small>Technology</small></small> <small><small>65 nm</small></small> <small><small>Core Speed</small></small> <small><small>1197.1 MHz</small></small> <small><small>Multiplier x Bus speed</small></small> <small><small>6.0 x 199.5 MHz</small></small> <small><small>Rated Bus speed</small></small> <small><small>798.1 MHz</small></small> <small><small>Stock frequency</small></small> <small><small>1600 MHz</small></small> <small><small>Instruction sets</small></small> <small><small>MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, EM64T</small></small> <small><small>L1 Data cache (per processor)</small></small> <small><small>2 x 32 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size</small></small> <small><small>L1 Instruction cache (per processor)</small></small> <small><small>2 x 32 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size</small></small> <small><small>L2 cache (per processor)</small></small> <small><small>4096 KBytes, 16-way set associative, 64-byte line size</small></small>

<small>Chipset & Memory</small> <small><small>&nbsp</small></small>

<small><small>Northbridge</small></small> <small><small>Intel GM965 rev. C0</small></small> <small><small>Southbridge</small></small> <small><small>Intel 82801HBM (ICH8-ME) rev. 03</small></small> <small><small>Memory Type</small></small> <small><small>DDR2</small></small> <small><small>Memory Size</small></small> <small><small>2010 MBytes</small></small> <small><small>Memory Frequency</small></small> <small><small>332.5 MHz (3:5)</small></small> <small><small>CAS# Latency (tCL)</small></small> <small><small>5.0 clocks</small></small> <small><small>RAS# to CAS# (tRCD)</small></small> <small><small>5 clocks</small></small> <small><small>RAS# Precharge (tRP)</small></small> <small><small>5 clocks</small></small> <small><small>Cycle Time (tRAS)</small></small> <small><small>15 clocks</small></small>

<small>System</small> <small><small>&nbsp</small></small>

<small><small>System Manufacturer</small></small> <small><small>Apple Inc.</small></small> <small><small>System Name</small></small> <small><small>MacBookAir1,1</small></small> <small><small>System S/N</small></small> <small><small>W88040PQY51</small></small> <small><small>Mainboard Vendor</small></small> <small><small>Apple Inc.</small></small> <small><small>Mainboard Model</small></small> <small><small>Mac-F42C8CC8</small></small> <small><small>BIOS Vendor</small></small> <small><small>Apple Inc.</small></small> <small><small>BIOS Version</small></small> <small><small>MBA11.88Z.00BB.B00.0712201139</small></small> <small><small>BIOS Date</small></small> <small><small>12/20/07</small></small>

<small>Memory SPD</small> <small><small>&nbsp</small></small>

<small>Software</small> <small><small>&nbsp</small></small>

<small><small>Windows Version</small></small> <small><small>Microsoft Windows Vista (6.0) Ultimate Edition (Build 6000) </small></small> <small><small>DirectX Version</small></small> <small><small>10.0</small></small>

</body></html>

 

thanks for the nice review.

by the way I have to admit that I am quite tired of people stating again and again that they wont buy a MBA because they could buy so many whatever notebooks instead. Sure you can buy 7 eeePcs for that price but you can't compare those two machines.

And even if the MBA isn't a laptop for everyone its honestly an option for me. I have been trying to buy an ultraportable for three years now but there were always no-gos. I was interested in Samsungs famous Q30/Q40 systems but they started at 4000 euros over here and when the price finally dropped Samsung missed to offer a Core Duo ULV processor while everyone else had it.

I tested a TZ-series laptop (as I am reviewer for a German magazine) but the screen is too tiny with a resolution that is not ergonomic in my opinion. So no, I didnt buy it. I liked the SZ series as well, but the laptops too heavy. Somewhere between 1,8 and 1,4 kilos is for me the subjective heavy-or-not-border.

Of course, I checked Dell's D420 and D430 but I didnt like the slow hard-drives. Im using the system on the road but as well at home - and I dont like switching. And IBM - alright, nice machines, these x61, but I like widescreen-displays and I dont ignore design. Last but not least I had my hands on the famous Toshiba R500. The reviewers unit I had was gorgeous (it only had flimsy touchpad buttons) and I would have bought the SSD version immediatly. BUT Toshiba came up with a terrible screen for the real model. A no-no again.

And now: There it is, the MBA. I am getting a unit for review next week (Apple is slower in Europe). I am curious for the SSD-models performance and its battery life. If it comes close to 4 hours this will be my machine. I can live with one USB-Port as I only use it to syncronize my camera and my phone (which actually has bluthooth as well). I use my 3g phone as bluetooth modem and I can live with an external drive once in a month when I need new software. The only concern as I said is battery life and the battery exchange policy. The pros are obvious: design, quality, Mac OS (even if I am a fifty-fifty user, I would prefer it on an ultraportable), screen and, yeah, lightness. And yes, I can afford it and I am willing to pay a premium. So please stop saying there was really nobody who could use and like this piece of technology.

LeonX

 

Off the bat I think the MBA should be able to get 4+ hours. So far even during updates and installing software it has come up barely under 4 hours. With a system that has stabled with disk access and other activity it might do fairly well.

Oh and for the love of god you have no idea how much I wish I had a USB hub laying around.

 

LeonX,

you have some points there, but your comparison is quite unfair. The MBA is *brand* new while all the others you compared it with are not. It should rather be compared with the Lenovo x300 that comes in march or the Dell M1330. Comparing the MBA with these two means that you have to decide wether you prefer these solid work horses with very reasonable mobility over the ultimate designer piece. Choice is yours of course.

Form factor wise the Air is very interesting, but in my opinion comes like one year too early (I think about ultra wide broadband, new 45nm line with better battery life and performance).

And finally.... I wish that Palm decides to revive the Foleo! Palm... your market analysis was crap. ie EEE PC sells like hot cakes. They should bring the Foleo with Diamondville (1,6GHz at 8W single core). Put a fat battery pack in there and let it have ~10 hours working time for the price of say 2 - 2.5 eee pc.... But since I used to be a Palm developer an saw you selling your souls and technology I see you failing again (like PalmSource <--> ACCESS deal and Microsoft <--> Palm "Cairo" Simulator... Hell, MS didn't have have decent simulator for years, I hope you at least get those WIn Mobile licenses with a rebate).

 

i was not comparing, i was telling you my considerations over the last years - and why I kept my money. there might be lots of nice machines coming up in the future (the lenovo x300 might be one of them), the m1330 is no option for me, its basically to heavy (i could have gone with the sz-series).
i dont need a fast horse, a reliable pony for texting and web browsing is fine. Yihaaa!