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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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?