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
The Screen: Very Good
Many netbooks and notebooks have shipped with 11.6 inch screens. They deliver a good balance between screen size and portability. But the 11.6-inch displays we’ve encountered in the past have been crap. It’s not rocket science, but rather a matter of cost. The majority of users will pick a cheap, bright, glossy display over something with better viewing angles, higher resolution or more accurate colors. And when you’re competing mostly based on price, it’s tough to make a decision that won’t increase sales (I’d argue that it makes the most important part of your customers happier but then again, I don’t run Acer/ASUS/Dell/Gateway).
Apple opts out of low margin competition. The cheapest MacBook Air starts at $999. You pay a premium, and part of that premium goes towards the best 11.6-inch display we’ve ever tested.
Most 11-inch screens don’t get very bright and have sub-par contrast ratios. The 11-inch MacBook Air has neither of these characteristics. It’s 127% brighter than the Alienware M11x R2 and has twice the contrast ratio of anything in its class. It’s not the most amazing display we’ve ever seen, but it’s way better than the majority of what’s out there. In actual use it does look good. The contrast ratio in particular sells the display.
The 13-inch panel is pretty close in performance. The max brightness is a bit higher and black level a bit lower. The resulting increase in contrast ratio is appreciable. For the most part you don’t make any quality tradeoffs when going with one MBA over another. It just boils down to screen size and resolution.
Both the 11 and 13-inch MBAs use TN panels, but they are better than your standard TN panel. Viewed above center the display washes out, viewed below center the display gets very dark.
The dark underside of TN panels
Color reproduction is above average, but not quite as good as the 15-inch MacBook Pro we reviewed earlier in the year.
Color gamut isn’t very impressive at all. It’s in line with what you’d expect from a panels of these sizes though.
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dsee15 - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
Great thanks. Until then as a technical site, does anyone have a sense what the faster proc and additional 2GB mem do to performance? For example, it should run 20% faster for cpu intense apps, etc.Shadowmaster625 - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
Well if you're spending money on any of these crapple concraptions then you are either not being productive or simply getting paid too much. Like those retired public employees who get paid 6 figure pensions for doing nothing. I dont know when that crap will stop, but I imagine it will be at around the same time apple flirts with bankruptcy.michael2k - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
They have more cash than Microsoft. So after Microsoft flirts with bankruptcy?Shadowmaster625 - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
They do have a lot of cash. But I can easily see them burning up half of it buying back their own stock once it starts tanking. And the other half could be burned up by just one or two flops. And that can easily happen once most apple lovers realize we are in fact in a depression and there is just no place for a company like apple in a depression.ShepherdH - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
they just gave you more RAM and a larger hard drive at them. Same with most other Apple products.iwodo - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
When Apple gets SandyBridge, i suspect 32nm, SandyBridge 1.8Ghz could do so within the same 1.4Ghz C2D Power envelop. But will be much more powerful. The only trouble is Apple wants CPU to be CPU, not a CPU with GPU built in.khimera2000 - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
im not sure about that. they might just be looking for a sweet spot with CPU and GPU performance. in which case AMD's APU chips should be an intresting prospect since it gives you modern architecture on both sides in one chip.where intel took two dies and just slaped them together,AMD made it so the CPU and GPU can actualy talk to each other, also if AMD is to be beleaved this core would be retasked in the presance of another AMD card so the video chip on the CPU dosent become dead weight like the intel solution which just shuts down entirely in the presence of another card. (at least thats what i read)
personaly i think apple should get back into building there own hardware just like the g4 days. but that would require building there own OS, and seeing as mac hasent built an OS from the ground up for a long time (last time being os9? check out something called OpenStep) it might not be in there best intrest with win 7 getting so much traction and the failings of there previous Operating Systems it might not be good for the company to build something there not good at creating.
khimera2000 - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
actually i dont think thats the case. there looking for a balanced system, and to this day intel has not released anything that can run a modern title (that i know of) if intel had a half way descent architecture on there vid cards i could see apple using it.however as things stand intel does not have a descent processer, and thats the reason why they have to use an nvidia video card. being that these notebooks use intergrated memory i can see that apple is looking for a specific perfomance point for there systems.
with that in mind i dont see why they wouldent consider AMD's soon to releas offerings. these chips has better gpu/cpu intergration then intel's options and sports the latest DX11 video architecture AMD has. I dont think theres anything in intel's arsinal that would be able to but heads with these chips from a graphic stand point, the only rogue facter in this is the new CPU architecture, since it has to yet be released.
Speaking of which... when can we expect to see reviews of the amd APU offerings from Anand? i would love to see how well it ticks, and a review to better define what makes it so differant from the intel chips that are comming out... perhaps an architetual comparison sometime in the future???
khimera2000 - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
wow... i didnt know my first post went through for this response.. sorry about that. my connection hickuped. Love the sight keep up the good work :Dblufire - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
You stated that the software restore drive is not write-protected, but Apple states that it is read-only. Who's right?http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4399
Thanks for the review!