Apple's 2010 MacBook Air (11 & 13 inch) Thoroughly Reviewed
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 26, 2010 10:08 PM EST- Posted in
- Mac
- Apple
- MacBook Air
- Laptops
Final Words
I really like the form factor of the 11-inch MacBook Air. It's great to carry around. It's like an iPad for people who have to get real work done. I just wish it was faster. If Intel made a 32nm Core 2 Duo, clocked high enough the 11 would be perfect. I guess that’s what Atom is eventually supposed to be, but right now the performance is just too low. Intel appears to have been too conservative with Atom. Perhaps Bobcat and ARM’s Cortex A15 will light a fire under Intel's Atom team.
The 11-inch MacBook Air is effectively a $999 netbook from Apple. I call it a netbook because it can do all of the things you could do on a netbook, without any of the performance or quality headaches. You get a great display, a beautiful chassis and much better performance. The problem is that it’s $999.
Granted that’s not all that much more expensive than an iPad with all the trimmings, and much more useful to actually get work done on, but it’s still a lot of money. At $599 or even $699 the 11-inch MacBook Air would be a steal. It would probably do wonders for Apple’s marketshare as well. But at $999 it, like many of Apple’s products, is a luxury item.
For me, I’d have to own the 11-inch, plus a 15-inch MacBook Pro plus my desktop. That’s three machines, plus a smartphone and I’d be set. I’d carry the 11-inch on most business trips, the 15-inch for big shows that I’d have to cover and any heavier work I’d do at home on the desktop. I don’t mind the setup, it’s just a costly setup to have.
Unlike the 11, the 13-inch MacBook Air is far easier to recommend and can actually replace a machine in your arsenal. If you’ve got another machine (e.g. desktop), the 13-inch MacBook Air can easily replace a 13-inch MacBook Pro. You give up some performance but you do get a more portable machine, a higher screen resolution and an SSD for only $100 more than the base MacBook Pro configuration ($200 more if you add the extra 2GB of memory needed to equalize things).
You will get much better battery life on the 13-inch MacBook Pro, but otherwise the Air is actually quite compelling - particularly if you have to carry this thing with you all day. I suspect the decision will be a lot easier once Apple moves the Pro line to Sandy Bridge, but if you’re buying today the race is close.
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Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
Not at all. But workloads, even within a given field, have grown much more intense over the past 5 years. While my example was simply photo editing, compile times for large projects should also be much longer on the 11 compared to any of the Core i-series platforms today. I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm saying you'll begin to impact productivity as a result.Obviously what you do for a living is real work - it'd just take longer on the 11-inch MBA vs. one of the MBPs.
Take care,
Anand
lemonadesoda - Thursday, October 28, 2010 - link
I've added a different usage picture for comparison. My "real work" workflow is something like this:1/ Read emails
2/ Read attachments, e.g. word, excel, PDF documents
3/ Take phone calls on VoIP/skype
4/ Log in to corporate webserver, check activity
5/ Send emails
6/ Write offers, workplans, status reports, invoices, in word. Convert to PDF
7/ Review training material/videos incl. created by us on SD card
8/ Fool around on the web during breaks
9/ Check anandtech
10/ Check emails
11/ Prepare articles and presentations, use a beamer (VGA D-SUB)
12/ Online banking
My "real play" workflow is something like this
1/ Read emails
2/ Fool around on the internet
3/ Play a few flash games with my kids
4/ Download pictures from camera on SD card
5/ Check, select, fix, upload to fileserver/website
6/ Download a video from my camcorder
7/ Upload to youtube
8/ Read anandtech
No, I do not expect to use my "netbook" for DirectX gaming. Not sure why everyone wants to do this. Havent they got a full-size desktop for this. A "netbook" has a different life-purpose and shouldnt be expected to replace a desktop.
On an Atom netbook, my workflows struggle with the video material and skype video. Skype audio is OK.
On the Apple 11" the workflows would be fine except we are missing the SD card slot. PITA for me. Not sure how we would connect to a beamer. I guess some kind of "converter dongle" would be needed to get from displayport to D-SUB VGA which is what 99% of beamers (and their room installations) require.
titeroper - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
Anand and gang and fellow forumites - I know I may be shot down for asking this, but perhaps for xmas, can you write a quick article on how you think Apple will deal with Sandy Bridge upgrades early next year for MBP's?How does Nvidia fit in? Is there space for both a dedicated 400m series GPU + Intel HD and Sandy Bridge? Is it as easy as updating the current 2010 config with these parts?
I hope someone can help answer here, as I am looking forward to this update come Q!/Q2 2011.
Pantsu - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
I'll soon update my old white macbook of early 2008, but this isn't quite up to snuff. While the form factor is superb, everything else is not. Weak CPU, only 2GB memory, limited although fast storage, and of course the price. It's probably better to wait for Sandy Bridge or Zacate in early 2011. Those should really bring something new, and I hope Apple will update the MacBook Pro at that time, otherwise I'll have to go Windows again, which I don't care to do in a laptop environment.new-paradigm - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
Just looking at the specs of the 11.6" MBA, and the fact that it's 11.6" ... can apple honestly claim not to be in the netbook game anymore?Seriously, any laptop under 12" in screen size is a netbook, and bizzarely apple's reasoning behind omitting the dvd drive and other sundry pieces of usual hardware/connectivity (i.e. expected use and target audience) is almost exactly the same as those used when explaining their omission on netbboks.
SraCet - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
The term "netbook" was coined to describe the small cheap laptops that were coming out a couple years ago with 7" screens, miniature keyboards, and barely enough storage space to run Linux. NETbook because they were only powerful enough to do basic web surfing--get it?Now everybody is calling every small laptop a "netbook," I guess because the word sounds cool, and everybody has their own made-up criteria for what is and isn't a netbook.
If you want to arbitrarily declare that anything with a < 12" screen is a netbook then fine. But surely you realize this isn't what Steve Jobs was referring to when he expressed his displeasure with "netbooks."
lemonadesoda - Thursday, October 28, 2010 - link
The word "netbook" is a living and evolving term. I don't think it was coined to have a fixed meaning of "cheap and 7 inch" and nothing else! Many years ago a laptop was something that was 11-13". Now we have laptops with 15" and 17" screens. Nobody is shouting "you cant call it a laptop, it doesnt sit on your lap anymore". The term laptop has evolved. Just as has the term desktop. Does desktop have to mean a very expensive Intel 386 with ISA, PCI, floppy and VDU? No, of course not.I think it is better to let the term netbook be defined as a "underspecced compared to a workstation" and "portable enough to put in your briefcase" and "powerful enough to run "net" applications" then I think we can allow the Apple 11" to be called a netbook. It is helping to redefine the term netbook perhaps, just like a mercedes or bmw has redefined our expectations of what a car is, or can be.
webdev50 - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
Unfortunately, reviews like these don't consider how these machines will hold up after you start using them on a daily basis. Apple's equipment is developing a notorious reputation for having quality control issues. Search TS2377 on Google. Apple is using commodity hardware just like other manufacturers do, so Apple's equipment is prone to failure like everyone else's, regardless of price.My 2008 MacBook Pro 17" was repaired twice for the same Nvidia issue within a couple of months this year, so I switched to a Windows 7 machine instead because I need a reliable computer. I still have my MacBook Pro, but I'm running a stress test on it 12 hours a day trying to break it so I can get it replaced from Apple. When I get the replacement, I'm not even going to open the box; just sell it on craigslist.
Sure, OS X is pretty, but what good is it if the hardware is unreliable? And I can't legally use OS X on anything but Apple hardware. (Besides, after using Mac OS X software for 7 years, I've actually found it to be quite limiting and not as robust and mature as Windows software.) I'm not going to buy more than one Mac just so I can have a spare to use while Apple spends weeks repairing my computer.
Dealing with the "Geniuses" at the Apple Store can be very unpleasant too. When I called Apple Tech Support to verify what I was told at the Apple Store, they suggested I go to another Apple Store.
What am I supposed to use when my Mac breaks down and is getting repaired? It's cheaper to buy two Windows machines if one of them needs to be repaired than to buy one Mac.
My perspective now is not to buy anything from Apple that can't be immediately swapped if it's faulty. An iPhone or iPod can be quickly swapped out. Macs need to go through Apple's three-ring circus to get repaired. And who knows what the gorillas in the back room are going to do with it (and the spinning hard drive)? After I got my machine back from them, I needed to clean the lens on the DVD drive so I could burn a backup DVD. I don't want to know what they stuck in my DVD drive.
iwodo - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
Isn't that a known issues that happen on ANY nvidia Gfx Laptop?AMDJunkie - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
iwodo is right. HP, Dell, anyone who used the mobile (and desktop) Nvidia 8600 chip was affected. Research "bumpgate."I think Apple's pretty damn generous to have a program in place to replace your logic board, even out of warranty, seeing as just last month Nvidia finally settled and made a page for owners of PCs with the afflicted chips to get refunds or repairs. If you had an HP, I had heard (hearsay, now), that if you were out of warranty, tough, and this was the only (and only recently available) recourse.
I know for a fact that Apple's not as generous to give you a whole new model though, as long as it's for the graphics issue. Your best bet is to go here:
http://www.nvidiasettlement.com/