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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
185 Comments
View All Comments
Z25MN6 - Monday, November 1, 2010 - link
Great review. But I have yet to see a review of the new MBA's that *thoroughly* describes the SDHC port. Specifically, can it, in practice, be routinely used as an auxiliary hard drive? Does the SDHC card fit all the way into the body of the computer (like in a Dell Mini 9), or does a portion of it remain sticking out when inserted (like a Dell Mini 10v), leaving it vulnerable? Spare SDHC cards are trivial to carry, and terrific for expanding a small hard drive. For example, movies or music kept on an SDHC card leave a lot of room for programs on a 64gb internal boot drive. Especially with Snow Leopard cutting down on the amount of hard drive space the OS needs relative to programs, there is a lot of creative use (e.g., Photoshop scratch drive) to which a "permanent" SDHC card can put.jintoku - Monday, November 1, 2010 - link
I couldn't find a way to contact the authors but am wondering if I can reach them this way. There seem to be multiple displays for the new Macbook Air's. In particular for the 13" one there are at least two, with the above two numbers being revealed by going to System Preferences, Display - Color -> opening the default profile, scrolling down to the bottom and looking at the model info.DarkUltra - Monday, November 1, 2010 - link
I wish there were more focus on where and under what circumstances the electrical devices I buy where manufactured. And what impact on the environment is has. And if it uses coltan from african miners that work under very very poor conditions, and support bad militias. There should be a chain of documentation with each product that any online reviewer goes through to see if there are any bad or uncertain/questionable conditions.Please Anand, try to look into it in some of your reviews and write a few words about it. Change the world slowly to a better place :)
jintoku - Monday, November 1, 2010 - link
THANKS IN ADVANCE!jedimed - Tuesday, November 2, 2010 - link
In response to a question about, the SD card DOES stick out. It seems to work fairly well, though I haven't speed tested it as yet.billy_kane - Tuesday, November 2, 2010 - link
iPad was pecfect & MBA11 need a bobcat core apuBreakingStrata - Thursday, November 4, 2010 - link
"If all you do is write, browse the web, write emails and talk on IM - the 11 gets the job done. Ask more of it for long periods of time and I think you’ll be disappointed."Wow. You've just described a $1000 netbook. Granted its nicer looking but also 3x as much. What a joke.
jintoku - Thursday, November 4, 2010 - link
Please provide this information if you have it. I have a question about the review. Thanks.ChunkAhoy - Friday, November 5, 2010 - link
I find that its lacking gaming benchmarks on Mac OS X.i.e. Left 4 Dead, StarCraft 2, Half-Life.
I'd love to see the difference between the 11.6 and the 13.3 in games.
Beside this little detail, this review is great. Thank you :)
jintoku - Friday, November 5, 2010 - link
I'm wondering which display model their Airs had, as multiple ones with apparently discrepant quality are used in each the 11 and 13 inch models...