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
Performance
Benchmarking under OS X isn’t difficult, you just need to get creative. Luckily I’m in dire need of creative outlets so creating OS X benchmarks works for me. I’m using the same tests I introduced in my Holiday 2009 Macbook Pro roundup and running on the launch hardware for each notebook listed in the charts.
We’ll start with general application performance.
General OS usage is a difficult thing to quantify, but one measure of performance has always been the number of bounces an icon in the dock makes before an application loads. I decided to take it to the next level and write a quick script to launch 15 applications in a row, timing how long the entire process takes.
I launched, in order: Mail, Safari, Activity Monitor, iTunes, iCal, DVD Player, iPhoto, Photo Booth, Quicktime Player, Disk Utility, Preview, iMovie, Front Row, Garage Band and Aperture.
The entire process stresses both the disk and CPU, which is why we see a huge improvement when going to an SSD as well as differences between CPU speeds.
What a difference an SSD can make. The 13-inch MacBook Air is the fastest standard shipping configuration Apple offers in this benchmark. The fact that there's a measurable difference between the 13-inch and 11-inch models shows you just how slow that 1.4GHz Core 2 really is.
Adobe Photoshop CS4 Performance
The Retouch Artists Speed Test we use for our CPU testing under Windows also works under OS X. We're running the exact same benchmark here, basically performing a bunch of image manipulations and filters and timing the entire process.
The 13-inch MacBook Air performs as well as last year's 13-inch MacBook Pro. But if you plan on doing real work, you'll be hampered by the performance of these systems. Apple really needs to find a way to get an Arrandale or Sandy Bridge into this chassis
Aperture 2 RAW Import
For my Aperture test I simply timed how long it took to import 203 12MP RAW images into the library.
The SSD makes the 13-inch MacBook Air far more competitive than it should be here. It's even faster than a two year old 15-inch MacBook Pro. The 11-inch MBA is faster than the old 13-inch MBA due to its better thermal characteristics as we pointed out earlier.
Cinebench R10
I’m a fan of the Cinebench test because it lets me show off both single and multithreaded performance in the same workload. First, the single threaded performance:
The performance in both of these tests in line with the rest of the results. These notebooks aren't very good at intensive workloads. It is worth pointing out that the 13-inch MacBook Air posts better numbers here than the old dual processor 2.5GHz PowerMac G5 :)
Quicktime H.264 Video Encoding
Our final benchmark is more consumer focused. Here I'm taking an XviD and converting it to an iPhone-supported H.264 format.
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khimera2000 - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
I love me m11x R2 :D looking at this thing... im happy that its still speedier, and i dont care who you are something as thin as the macbook would freak me the !@#$ out if i droped it... more so then the one i have right now. (mono frame = expensive fix)The0ne - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
"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."Essentially this means the 11" MacBook is NOT suitable unless you want to wait and wait. You won't get any "real work done" by any means as it is. So why even bother to praise it and at the same time downgrade it.
A netbook is both usable AND CHEAP. These are not and thus should not be called or even be consider netbooks. That's just crazy talk there. Might as well call all the rest of the ultra light notebooks netbooks.
kmmatney - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
It has an SSD, so no, you don't need to wait and wait. I agree with Anand's review - it is like a netbook in terms of portability, but its much faster, and has a much better screen. It's certainly more usable than the average netbook.KarateBob - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
Good review so far, until you listed the system temperatures in Fahrenheit. I understand Apple lists the temps in (F), but the industry-standard units for temperature reading is Celcius. It's what most enthusiasts can understand. (ie. We 60C is getting hot for a pre-i7 CPU, but I couldn't tell you what 60C is in F)Can you please add Celcius numbers to the review, perhaps next to the Fahrenheit numbers, it will make the article much more comprehensible. Thanks
Sufo - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
I was just about to make this point - good thing i read through the comments before hand heh.I was very very disappointed by the use of F here at all, let alone it being the only scale used. Technical hardware reviews, for me, fall into the realm of science (albeit loosely) and C is the de facto standard in the scientific world (well, at least while it isn't K). Many component monitoring applications do not even have the option to display temps in F, and if they do, it is rarely (if ever) the default selection.
So +1 to the request for at least displaying both numbers in future, and perhaps you could consider dropping F completely as i'd argue it has no context within the world of computing hardware.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
Temperatures in C as well as F are both present now :)Take care,
Anand
SraCet - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
To the reviewers and many commenters, it is tedious to listen to you divide the world into people who do "real work" and people who just fool around with IM and check Facebook.I do software development and scientific computing and for my purposes, the 11.6" MacBook Air is more than powerful enough.
Reading your review, it sounds like the only things you consider "real work" are editing 12 megapixel photos, doing 3D renders, and (ironically) playing 3D video games.
5 years ago, a 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo would have almost been the fastest CPU money could buy. Are you saying that people only started doing "real work" with their computers sometime in the last 5 years?
Sorry, let me go back to writing code and running simulations, and stop interrupting your "real work"--i.e., resizing your pretty pictures because you took them at 20 times the resolution you actually needed for web publishing.
Sufo - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
"5 years ago, a 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo would have almost been the fastest CPU money could buy. Are you saying that people only started doing "real work" with their computers sometime in the last 5 years?"Well, only if you interpret his comments as suggesting that these tasks are _impossible_ to perform on the 11" MBA. Of course, that would be a gross misinterpretation - as i'm sure you can see. A more relevant extrapolation might be that 5 years ago, performing said tasks was a sluggish and intolerable chore - and on that we probably see eye to eye.
As for the "real work" slur - i can understand your frustration, however you must realise that a large part (probably the largest part) of the non-casual MBA-buying demographic will be people who consider the "real work" of the article as well... "real work" - and you can't get angry at the reviewers for trying to include usage statistics tailored to the people most likely to be buying the device. If anything it is to their credit. Similarly, it is unrealistic to expect them to cover every single usage scenario.
SraCet - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
I suspect a very small percentage of professionals do anything that would stress out a Core 2 Duo. Most people do word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, e-mail. Editing and compiling code (developers). Accessing other computers remotely (IT types). Web browsing for business, like arranging travel. etc. etc.According to the reviewers, and apparently you, all of this stuff can be lumped in with "casual" (your word) use and is not "real work" because it can be done without taxing a dual core 1.4GHz processor.
Sufo - Friday, October 29, 2010 - link
Ah, you've somewhat misinterpreted me here - the term "non-casual" was merely meant to identify people who use their machine for work purposes. Perhaps i should have used "professional". My overall point (as misguided as it may be) was really only alluding to the generalisation that most people who buy macs are artsy, journalist types - for whom editing pictures and obscenely flash-heavy websites etc is their normal, "real" workload. And yes, i realise this thread is dead :)