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
Can You Be Productive With the 11-inch?
The new Airs are slow, they are great for writing and browsing the web (sort of like fast iPads) but they are noticeably slower than the Pro lineup everywhere else. To get a good feel for what could be done with these machines I put them through my normal review publication workflow. In particular, I focused on my Photoshop experience on both of these systems.
I edited 43 photos for this article, and of course I split the editing time across both the 11-inch and 13-inch MacBook Air.
Each photo was a 12MP RAW, imported into Photoshop, cropped, color/contrast balanced, and saved twice as a compressed JPG (once at 1900 pixels wide and once again at 600 pixels wide). I brought 10 photos into Photoshop at a time, trying to be mindful of the memory constraints each of these systems presented.
I started on the 11-inch.
The import process was noticeably slower than what I was used to. It took seconds for each photo to appear in Photoshop once I’d told it to process the RAW files. Over the course of 10 photos imported at once, that amounted to a reasonable amount of down time.
The SSD kept things moving however. Performance was consistent between editing one photo to the next.
The slow CPU impacted everything. Basic tasks like opening and saving the images took longer than I was used to. Even bringing up Spotlight to launch Chrome felt slower than I’d like.
The screen size and resolution never made me feel cramped, although it was difficult to see detail in the high res photos without zooming in.
While it’s possible to do work like photo editing on the 11-inch MacBook Air, it’s not very pleasant. If you’ve got no other computer around you can do it, but if you’ve got access to anything faster you’ll be a lot more productive.
I realized this when I switched to the 13-inch machine. The 33% higher clocked CPU makes a big difference. Everything pops up quicker, the editing process takes a lot less time and the screen is just a good enough size/resolution where you don’t have to do a ton of zooming to prepare web presentable photos.
I edited half the photos on the 11-inch and the other half on the 13-inch. The half I did on the 13-inch took about half the time as the group I did on the 11. If you need a machine for content creation/editing, the 11-inch won’t cut it.
As a pure writing device however, the 11-inch is great. The SSD ensures that performance is consistent and applications launch quickly. If all you do is write, browse the web, write emails and talk on IM - the 11 gets the job done. Ask more of it for long periods of time and I think you’ll be disappointed.
The 13 isn’t a productivity workhorse, but it’s possible to get heavier work done on it if you need to.
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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?