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
While both models are extremely light, the 11-inch MacBook Air is portable perfection. It’s the closest thing to an iPad with a keyboard (short of an iPad with an actual keyboard). I’m afraid that’s where the comparison ends. Despite what Apple would have you feel, the new MacBook Air is no more an iPad than its predecessor. The size and form factor is really nice however.
Apple won’t call it a netbook, but that’s exactly what the 11.6 inch MacBook Air is: a netbook with much better hardware. You get a full sized keyboard, an old but faster-than-Atom processor and a great screen. If you’re a writer, the 11-inch MacBook Air is the perfect tool just at an imperfect price.
While $999 is much more affordable than the previous generation MacBook Air, it’s at least $400 more than you would expect to pay for a notebook with these hardware specs. We’re talking about 2GB of memory, a 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo CPU with 3MB L2 cache and an NVIDIA GeForce 320M integrated graphics chipset.
Using the 11-inch MacBook Air is great. Closed it’s small enough to painlessly carry around and open it’s functional enough to get real work done on. The keyboard is mostly unchanged from the rest of Apple’s lineup.
You do make three sacrifices with the 11-inch’s keyboard: thinner function keys across the top, a not-as-tall trackpad and not as much wrist-rest area. Overall they are worthy tradeoffs as none of them impact typing speed. Despite the smaller than normal trackpad, it’s still much larger than what you get on most similarly sized notebooks from other vendors.
Build quality is of course excellent. The MacBook Air employs Apple’s unibody construction. There’s a removable plate at the bottom of the machine that covers the internals, but the typing/mousing surface is carved out of a single piece of aluminum and is solid.
The weakest link in the design is the hinge, which I feel is actually a bit looser than the hinges in other Apple notebooks. While the display is far from floppy, the hinge isn’t strong enough to keep the display from opening/closing more when faced with sudden movements of the notebook. Picking it up from a desk without closing the lid would sometimes cause the lid to tilt back . I didn’t have the problem of the lid auto closing due to gravity when I used the 11-inch Air while laying down, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if that developed over time. In the quest for weight savings sacrifices have to be made. While the rest of the construction is flawless, the hinge isn’t.
The screen is an odd (for Apple) 16:9 ratio 1366 x 768 panel glossy, LED backlit panel. You don’t get the glass bezel from the standard MacBook Pro and as a result the display doesn’t seem quite as glossy. Reflections indoors were minimal at worst, but it’s not a matte screen.
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solgae1784 - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
Retracting my last part of my comment.....Dell XPS 15" line does have a 1080p option.Accord99 - Thursday, October 28, 2010 - link
Lenovo offers a 1920x1080 option on the T510/W510, Dell also offers it on their Studio 15, Latitude E6510 and Precision M4500 models. Asus has a number of models like the N and G which have this option, as does Sony, including the expensive 13.3" Z.Penti - Thursday, October 28, 2010 - link
Business laptops like from HP, Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo, Sony and Fujitsu has high-res screens, 13.1" 1600x900 displays, 14" 1600x900 displays, 15" 1600x900 displays and 1920x1080, and so on. (With Dell think E5510 or E6510). Those start at ~999 dollar though. But everything isn't consumer shit.ssd_trimmer - Tuesday, October 26, 2010 - link
I understand that Mac OS X does not yet support TRIM, but does the underlying SSD support it? I hope to run Fedora on a Macbook Air 13.MacTheSpoon - Tuesday, October 26, 2010 - link
As a writer, I paid a premium for my Vaio X so I could have a very light machine with all-day battery life and a bright, matte screen to use outside on sunny days. The tradeoffs have been a cramped keyboard (especially annoying for its horribly small "shift" key); a puny track pad (without two-finger scrolling, which I really miss); and a sluggish processor.I had some hope that the 11" MBA might be a viable alternative, but its lack of a matte screen, its low battery life (compared to a good netbook and certainly compared to my 12+ hour Vaio X), and even its surprisingly high weight for its battery life are keeping me from switching over, even taking into account its fantastic keyboard/track pad that I am drooling over with envy.
Furthermore, thought it's more an observation than a major purchasing reason for me, comparing the two premium netbooks I have to give the edge to the Vaio X in terms of razzle dazzle factor, too, which is sad. I really thought Apple could one-up Sony in this respect. I'm not talking visual design as much as overall "cool" factor. How cool is it that I can swap out my extended battery and have a laptop that weighs as much as an iPad but plays Flash and lets me run desktop class programs? And even its ridiculously large maximum screen angle thrills me after years of suffering from my 15" 2007 MBP; I can open up the Vaio X screen so wide that it's practically flat. It's so comfortable to sit in bed and type with it propped against my knees and its screen wide open.
Anyway, I sure would have liked the 11" MBA to equal the Sony in its battery life and weight, and to throw in a matte screen for good measure, because I knew Apple would get the keyboard and track pad right--which they did. A similarly large screen opening angle would have been great, too. Then I would have switched very, very happily. As it is, I just can't justify it. I can't give up this battery life and outdoor suitability, even if typing is somewhat irritating.
solipsism - Tuesday, October 26, 2010 - link
The Vaio X runs an Atom CPU with an Intel GM500 IGP. When running the same Light Browsing test as Anand how much time can you actually get from your Vaio X? It’s really a $1300 netbook. It’s a great machine except for CPU/GPU/RAM, but you pay a lot for it. As for weight, it’s the same weight for the Vaio X once you pay extra for the 12 hours battery (that I hear gets you about 8-9 from Light Browsing).I disagree with calling any small ultra-portable a netbook based on the display size. These came about because of the cheap, low-power and slow Atom CPUs, and built up from that was the rest of the cheap HW, with a small display and cramped keyboard. The 11” MBA is not any of those things. That CPU alone cost more than most netbooks.
Wilcomhs - Tuesday, October 26, 2010 - link
Can we have some numbers for battery life under Win 7 please? 5 hours sounds acceptable but knowing the battery life hit going from OSX to Windows would help with making a decision here.CharonPDX - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
Find me one other Core 2 Duo SU9400 equipped notebook that weighs under three pounds for anywhere near this price.Find me one other Core 2 Duo SU9400 equipped notebook with anything other than Intel graphics that weighs under three pounds - for ANY price.
The 11" MacBook Air is not a netbook. Repeat that again. The 11" MacBook Air is NOT A NETBOOK. It competes in the "ultra thin/light performance notebook" segment, and it dominates it. It is lighter than almost every other notebook in its class, has the best graphics in its class, hands down (I have found a few four-pound models that have a GeForce 105M,) and it costs significantly less than anything else in its class.
The 13" model has a *LOT* more competition, because at 13", you can actually get moderate graphics and/or a decent price. But in the 11" space, the Air is all by itself.
khimera2000 - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
its a netbook becaus other then web, writing, and instant messaging theres not much more you can do with it. not to mention it impimants its HDD in a similar maner as netbooks, and has no optical drive just like net books, has a weaker video card just like a netbook... this thing is a netbook, becaus theres nothing much else it can do. it fills the lower performance segmant of the notebook market, and its ultra portable which was what the netbook did.Demoure - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
However, optical drives are not as important as they used to be, the video card is more powerful than that of many large notebooks sporting intel graphics, many netbooks use real hard drives, and a laptop of this power can do more than just web, writing, and messaging. It will manage to play movies, to photo editing, and low end gaming just fine, and I can't think of anything else you would want to do with a mobile device?