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 Battery Life
Light Web Browsing
Here we're simply listing to MP3s in iTunes on repeat while browsing through a series of webpages with no flash on them. Each page forwards on to the next in the series after 20 seconds.
The display is kept at 50% brightness, all screen savers are disabled, but the hard drive is allowed to go to sleep if there's no disk activity. The wireless connection is enabled and connected to a local access point less than 20 feet away. This test represents the longest battery life you can achieve on the platform while doing minimal work. The results here are comparable to what you'd see typing a document in TextEdit or reading documents.
As glorified typewriters, you can’t beat the battery life offered by the MacBook Air. Light web browsing, document creation and music playback have minimal impact on the Air’s battery life. In fact, we actually beat Apple’s battery life claims in our light tests. The 11-inch Air delivers nearly 7 hours on a single charge and the 13-inch managed 11.2 hours. For a writer, you can’t do better than this.
Flash Web Browsing
The test here has three Safari windows open, each browsing a set of web pages with between 1 - 4 animated flash ads per page, at the same time. Each page forwards onto the next after about 20 seconds.
As always, the display is set to 50% brightness, audio at two bars, screensaver disabled and the hard drive is allowed to go to sleep if idle. The wireless connection is enabled and connected to a local access point less than 20 feet away.
If you use the MacBook Air as a full function P...err Mac, the battery life drops steadily. In our Flash web browsing test battery life dropped to 4 - 5 hours depending on which Air you’re looking at. And the difference between the two isn’t all that great. The 13-inch only managed an extra 30 minutes of battery life.
Multitasking Battery Life
Our final battery life test is the worst case scenario. In this test we have three open Safari windows, each browsing a set of web pages with between 1 - 4 flash ads per page, at the same time. We're also playing an XviD video in a window all while downloading files from a server at 500KB/s.
Our heavy multitasking test is the biggest issue. Neither MacBook Air was able to deliver more than 3 hours of battery life on a single charge. The problem here isn’t just battery capacity but also the performance of the CPUs themselves. A major component of long lasting mobile battery life is a concept known as rush to idle.
Let’s say we have two CPUs. The first is an ultra low power CPU that only consumes 10W under load, but 0.5W at idle. The second is a high performance CPU that consumes 40W under load and 1W at idle. If it takes the first CPU 5ms to decode a frame of video at 10W but the second CPU can do it in 1ms, the total energy consumed over 33ms is is 0.064J for the first CPU and only 0.036J for the second CPU.
The longer the first CPU is idle, the more its typical and idle power advantages will come into play (hence the results in the light web browsing test). The more CPU bound the workload however, the more the advantage over the second more high performance CPU will disappear. Our heavy downloading/multitasking test is the most CPU bound of all of our battery life tests and the workload is consistent regardless of how fast you execute it. In other words, a faster CPU won’t be able to do more work, it’ll just be able to rush to idle quicker.
The battery life story boils down to your usage model, even more so than with the MacBook Pro. Light users are going to get wonderful battery life out of the new MacBook Air, particularly the 13-inch model. However, if you are the type of user who does a lot of multitasking or if you’re running particularly CPU intensive apps (e.g. Photoshop, iMovie, etc...) then these two notebooks will hardly last you. I suspect this is the distinction Apple is looking to make. If you’re a regular user, just playing around on Gmail and browsing the web then the MacBook Air is all you’ll need. If you are doing any work with your machine however, you’ll want to look towards the MacBook Pro.
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JVC8bal - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
Good case. Another example is Porsche, who has the widest profit margins of any car company. A 911 doesn't cost anything near what people will pay for them, and adding a $8,000 turbo doesn't equate to the $40,000 premium they can charge for it.ImSpartacus - Thursday, October 28, 2010 - link
Did you even bother reading the entire comment? I thought it was logical enough.A business is in the business of making money, not selling things. If a business can make more money by selling fewer things, they will do it.
quiksilvr - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
I should have been clear:It will never happen because it makes to much sense to US. I'm not talking about the general unwashed masses that have an orgasm over an Apple Logo.
I'm talking about sensible people that would rather spend half as much for an ASUS Eee PC 1215N, or people that want luxury would get the HP Envy 14 or 17.
tno - Wednesday, December 29, 2010 - link
Wow. Sorry to kick up a dead thread, and I really hope I don't restart it. I just was really surprised by that comment. If you're kidding, maybe you're one of those griefers that says this stuff for kicks, then I guess that's your bag and you carry it, but seems silly to me. If you're serious, then you really have quite the glut of self esteem.My advice. Try it out. Want to keep your nose up? That's fine, don't buy one, just hackintosh a rig you've got. Don't game on it. Work on it. Read all the griefer blogs you want. Write on it. Produce something with it. I'm not an owner, yet, I'm a hackintosher. And having used XP, Win 7, Ubuntu and OS X on my netbook, laptop and desktop, OS X is my favorite platform to get work done, and the only one I would want to use on something with a screen smaller than 17".
If you give it a try and you still think Apple b10ws and you r001, fine. Us unwashed masses will just keep getting things done and loving every minute of it.
robco - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
There's a few technical reasons why some of these things don't exist in the MBA. Apple can't use the iSeries chips in their low-end products because Intel has blocked third-party integrated graphics. The MBA doesn't have space for a discrete GPU. Intel's integrated graphics don't support OpenCL, something Apple intends to make use of going forward. USB 3.0 is a nice idea, but at the moment, requires a separate controller chip, something else there isn't room for. Hopefully either Intel will make decent graphics (I'm not holding my breath) or AMD will come out with a decent mobile CPU with better integrated graphics. I would imagine the microphone got moved because it wouldn't fit into the new, thinner display. Including an adapter isn't something that can be done at the factory - which would they include? Some folks will want VGA, some DVI, others might spring for the Cinema Display and not need it. As for the ExpressCard slot, I do with they remove the optical drive from the MB and MBP and add that, plus an extra USB port or two. I can count on one hand the number of times I've used an optical drive in the past four years.No offense, but I imagine Apple's engineers considered all these things and more. I looked at Windows laptops before getting my 15" MBP and good quality laptops are expensive no matter who makes them. I had a hard time finding anyone who could offer a fully featured notebook in a case less than an inch thin, with a high quality display, excellent battery life and rated EPEAT Gold. Apple just doesn't compete at the low end. By the time you take that $699 Windows laptops and start adding options, the price difference shrinks considerably.
softdrinkviking - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
that's a very "can't do" kind of attitude.i really like apple's designs, but i really don't like the outdated processors they are using.
i refuse to believe that there is NOTHING that apple could do to bring better tech to it's fans.
it's very disappointing. :(
coldpower27 - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
Well Apple wants to support a certain feature set, and they can't do so if they go Intel and their lackluster integrated Graphics. They want nVidia graphics.If they tried to add Intel's Westmere based products with Integrated Graphics it would become a 3 chip solution. They have done this for the 15/17 markets where the chasis can hold everything and the larger battery required.
On the 11/13 where space is premium it's integrated nVidia graphics, once Sandy Bridge rolls around, we may see that change....as Intel graphics is on the CPU itself.
tno - Wednesday, December 29, 2010 - link
This is exactly it. While Dell/Asus/Gateway churn out laptops designed to be able to fit whatever will be required of them from the next CPU/GPU/chipset, Apple chooses a set of function requirements and build their design out of that. The 11/13 size laptops are all about portability, so big batteries and thin designs at the expense of the newest, fastest processor. It's pertinent that when Dell decided to build an MBA competitor (the Adamo) they went with a rather similar specification, and ended up with worse battery life.So, could Apple sell a laptop for $600? Yep. It'd have a plastic chassis, carry whatever the cheapest processor they can squeeze out of Intel, the same crappy Clickpad everyone's slapping on their laptops, have a craptastic LCD, mediocre battery life and run Windows 7. Thanks, but no thanks. I'll go get a Mac.
OrionAntares - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
Something about the MacBook Air and the processors. If they moved away from the Core 2 I'm pretty sure given the size constraints they'd need to stick with the Pentium and/or i3 ULVs. Making the Air thicker would be contrary to the whole point of the Air line. If you want a stronger processor (and more thickness) you'd go up to the regular Macbook line that is already thicker.JVC8bal - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
I concur, this guy is a tard that doesn't know anything about systems engineering or manufacturing or "productizing".