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 11-inch as a Windows Notebook
As a follow-up to our Nvidia 320M/MacBook Pro 13 article last week, I’ve been running our Windows test suite on the MacBook Air 11”. I, like Anand, have the lowest end 11”er, with 2GB memory and the 64GB SSD. This makes installing Windows an interesting proposition since after the two OS installs, you’ve got right around 30GB of free disk space to work with. My suggestion - if you plan on installing Windows and dual booting often, save yourself the headache and get the 128GB model.
The other quirk with putting Windows on the Air is that it must be done with a USB optical drive - no hard drive/thumb drive installs. Interestingly, my external optical drive wasn’t recognized as a bootable drive, so I had to run out and grab an Apple SuperDrive. Apple says that you just need an external DVD drive, without specifying the MacBook Air SuperDrive, but your mileage may vary.
Boot Camp Drivers are now downloaded from Apple's servers prior to the Windows installation
With the Windows install out of the way, we were free to test the living daylights out of it, and that we most certainly did. The 11” Air has the same 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo SU9400 as the similarly thin Dell Adamo 13. Months after we move to Arrandale ULV, leave it to Apple to bring the good old CULV platform back to relevance. As expected, Cinebench and the x264 encoding test gave us results around the same level as the Adamo and the rest of the old CULV gang. Versus the 13” MacBook Pro, you’re looking at roughly a 40% decrease in the CPU compute-heavy benchmarks, roughly equivalent to the reduction in clock speed from the 2.4GHz Pro to the 1.4GHz Air. Arrandale ULV notebooks, such as the Alienware M11x and its Core i7-620UM, are another matter entirely, with the newer architecture posting numbers nearly doubling the Air’s Core 2 processor.
The gaming benchmarks get a bit more interesting. We’re looking at the same GT 216-derived GeForce 320M that was in the MacBook Pro 13, with the same 450MHz core and 950MHz shader clocks. Based on the performance we saw out of the Pro 13, we know that the Air, even in 11” form, can still hold its own in games.
At low detail settings, the Air is pretty consistently 20% slower than the Pro 13, except in SC2, where they were roughly equal. Given that the GPU is identical and that both are using 256MB of the system’s DDR3 1066 memory, it is likely that the 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo is slow enough to put a bottleneck on gaming performance. It’s still a ways ahead of the ASUS Core i3/G 310M combo, and all of our games are playable at native resolution.
At medium settings though, the Air starts to fall off a bit. Where the MBP13 was borderline-playable, always between the 25-35 fps range, the Air is about 10% behind and makes it to the magical 30fps mark in STALKER, but nothing else. DiRT 2, Left 4Dead 2, Mass Effect 2, and StarCraft II all ended up between 22 and 26 fps, still faster than the G 310M, but not quite playable. Another interesting concern during gaming is heat. The Air isn’t the coolest notebook in the world, with idle temps hovering around 50C, but while running the gaming tests, I saw GPU temps rise up into the 70s. Nothing too alarming, but still pretty toasty and more than enough to get the fans spinning to the max.
But let’s put this all in perspective. This isn’t about just an 11.6” notebook that can game - the 11.6” M11x is the fastest gaming notebook under 5lbs, but even then it’s still a full two times heavier than the MB Air 11. The Air 11 shoehorns quite a bit of power into one of the smallest form factors on the market. Having a GT 216 core in an enclosure this small and being able to run these games at 40 fps at native resolution is definitely very impressive.
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p05esto - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
Seriously, Apple represents everything evil and stupid in this world. It represents self-indulgent morons who think Steve Jobs is a god and know little about computers. When Apple products are priced right, non-restrictive, don't use horrible software like iTunes and support open standards THEN start reviewing them. But until then I have little use for seeing articles on their products - no interest whatsoever!deslock - Thursday, October 28, 2010 - link
You have no interest whatsoever for articles like is, yet you were interested enough to post?If you're a Linux user and have no interest in either Windows or Apple news for the reasons you mentioned, then my hat's off to you. If not, then you're view is skewed.
There's not much question that Steve Jobs is a giant douche-bag. But for the most part Apple is simply annoying and smarmy, treats computers more like appliances, and doesn't sell any low-end hardware. More recently they've taken an authoritarian approach over software distribution, which is worth criticizing, but let's be honest: most Apple haters made up their minds long before the app store.
Putting it another way, Maybe that Apple has pissed me off only a couple times (like when they didn't approve Google Voice) is because Microsoft set the bar so low when it comes to unethical tactics and abuses. After Microsoft issued directives about creating DR-DOS incompatibilities, threatened partners over Netscape, plotted to steal Java and break APCI for OSes other than Windows, funded SCO lawsuits, and implemented numerous EEE and FUD campaigns, I don't have high expectations for tech companies' business practices.
My point with this isn't to bash Microsoft, but to illustrate why I scratch my head when people call Apple evil, insult their users, and spread misleading facts about them while giving Microsoft a pass (though as I mentioned before, perhaps p05esto is a Linux user).
deslock - Thursday, October 28, 2010 - link
No edit function? Not sure how "you're view" (instead of "your view") made it in there.doubledown21 - Thursday, October 28, 2010 - link
Or he's a microsoft user anyway.You can still be a user of a product that you find worth criticizing. I use all of the above...err, below:
OSX
Linux
Unix
Windows
And can find things to complain about with ALL of them, from usability to corporate practices. Doesn't mean I don't still have a use for their products.
deslock - Thursday, October 28, 2010 - link
True enough, but almost all companies can be described with "Seriously, X represents everything evil and stupid in this world."So when someone bashes Apple with that, I wonder if they're aware of all the nonsense that Microsoft has pulled.
ultrageek1111 - Thursday, October 28, 2010 - link
Apple has always been a leader in forward engineering and the new MBA is no exception. Jobs' commendable transparency with Apple's vision for its customers is apparent with the prediction of this being the "future of the MacBook". This subtly eerie feeling of a Nostradamus'esque prediction likely not only means that the physical design and hardware specs will be around for a while but, on a deeper level, be the company's marketsh-air social experiment to determine what concepts will be used across the future MacBook lineup.For starters, we have the first 16:9 notebook by Apple. Depending on its success we may finally see the MBP have this aspect ratio in the future. Also, Apple's decision to streamline hardware in a more proprietary fashion than ever before in order to achieve maximum design efficiency may carry over into the MB and MBP line if sales prove that consumers are willing to accept this trade off.
Lastly, we may truly begin to see the death of optical media. Many consumers who have been holding their breath for Blu-Ray drives in the MacBook will begin to see that it wasn't a rebel's self asphyxiation that stopped the tanks in Tiananmen Square but a self sacrificing physical obstacle. Unless society physically stops supporting streaming content (which it won't) it shouldn't complain about Apple's cost-saving decision to exclude Blu-Ray drives and its high licensing cost HDMI counterpart. Shortly after HD-DVD's defeat, Jobs was asked if Mac's would get Blu-Ray drives and he replied simply by stating that Apple is waiting to see how the Blu-Ray market will play out. At that time, who could have known the future impact media streaming was about to have except perhaps the Nostradamus of computers himself...Steve Jobs (1984 anyone?). Die hard Apple fans also know that the company, besides making green, is all about being green and their decision to evolve into a file streaming with flash storage system supports Apple's design disposition.
As the price per gigabyte on SSD storage drops and ULV processors get more efficient this design will stay relevant until cloud computing matures and becomes the next future standard. I personally hope that the MBP continues to always be more user serviceable and upgradable than the MBA but that might not be saying much as iFixit has already rated the new MBA's repairability a 4 out of 10.
Apple has nearly perfected a design that finally delivers a more affordable alternative to the MBP and original MBA. However, it wouldn't be an Apple product if there wasn't room for improvement...
1.) More SSD storage space at same cost (will come)
2.) Faster processor at same cost (will come)
3.) Better battery life (will come)
4.) USB 3.0 (should come)
5.) Integrated mobile broadband support (Apple says they used advanced technology from the iPad in this MBA refresh but this, unfortunately, was one important portability feature left out)
6.) Strengthen the hinge (as AnandTech points outs it's the only durability weakness)
7.) Bring back the backlit keyboard (Brian Tong better throw a "bad apple" at Apple for that one)
In a PC world of stagnant designs this marvel deserves recognition and celebration! The iPhone and iPad may have been Apple's most revolutionary and contrasting products compared to traditional computers but this MBA is arguably the first evolutionary product that will bridge many Mac "Universe" concepts, both software and hardware, together. Only the future will tell.
ImSpartacus - Thursday, October 28, 2010 - link
Maybe you've had different experiences, but my MBP13 is a champ. I also own a Thinkpad and I would say they are both right there next to one another on the build quality front.quiksilvr - Thursday, October 28, 2010 - link
See, this is the problem. Do you really think things like the trackpad, the LCD and battery are SUPERIOR to others? Not at all. They are made by other manufacturers that most all PC makers have.The only unique and possible price increase is in the aluminum housing. Even then, they claimed that because its unibody it saves them on aluminum costs and is more economical.
Its the veil they have over the consumer. They make them think that this is as good as it gets and you have to pay literally hundreds of dollars more for no reason.
The sooner consumers realize that $1000 for a 13" laptop is a frigging rip-off the better.
ImSpartacus - Friday, October 29, 2010 - link
That trackpad will never see another laptop, it's an Apple-only feature. Every other trackpad is tiny and has enormous buttons.And the battery is absolutely superior to other manufacturers. When I get my MBP13'09, there was no other laptop in its price range that had a full voltage processor and 7 hours of battery life.
I agree that there are other laptops that have satisfactory screens, but they are few. I am struggling to think of a laptop manufacturer whose entire lineup feature good LCDs. They might have one overpriced standout, but that's it. Apple puts a decent screen in every one of its laptops.
darwinosx - Tuesday, November 2, 2010 - link
Kids, kids, you need to look beyond whatever cheap plastic POS your daddy bought you at Best Buy for $500. look at a equivalent business level PC laptop like the HP W series. Compare prices. usually Apple wins and you don't have to put up with Windows or crappy service.You really need to get out more.