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 13
13-inch MacBook Air (left) vs. 15-inch MacBook Pro (right)
The 13-inch MacBook Air feels more like a regular notebook. It’s like one of those cartoons where you see the character straight on and he looks normal sized, but turn him 90 degrees and he’s pencil thin. When viewed from above you’d think you had a 13-inch MacBook Pro on your desktop. Its footprint isn’t that different:
But pick it up and you’re dealing with a much thinner notebook. Like the 11-inch MBA, the 13-inch model ranges from 0.11 inches to 0.68 inches in thickness. You get the same angular ID from the 11-inch model, just on a bigger scale.
13-inch MacBook Air (left) vs. 15-inch MacBook Pro (right)
The underlying hardware is unchanged, although you do get a noticeably quicker CPU. While the 11-inch model ships with a 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo (3MB L2 cache, 800MHz FSB), the 13-inch model comes with a 1.86GHz part by default (6MB L2 cache, 1066MHz FSB). I call it a noticeably quicker CPU because it is noticeably quicker, even in typical day to day use.
The 13.3-inch diagonal screen features a 1440 x 900 display (16:10 ratio). That’s the same screen resolution as the 15-inch MacBook Pro but in a smaller package. And it really makes a big difference when it comes to getting work done on the MacBook Air. This is a big improvement over the limited 1280 x 800 found in the previous two MacBook Airs and a high enough resolution to actually get work done on.
The old 13-inch MacBook Air (left) vs. the new 13-inch MacBook Air (right)
I’d go as far as to say that Apple could’ve bumped pixel density even further and the 13-inch MacBook Air would still be useable.
The 13-inch screen is a bit brighter and has a slightly better contrast ratio than the 11-inch, but it’s not something you’ll notice in use. The same vertical viewing angle limitations apply here. Unlike the 11-inch model however, you’re more likely to notice them because of the size of the display. On a plane when the passenger in front of you leans back all the way you’re probably going to have to angle the 13-inch display, while the 11-inch model may give you enough room to clear.
From left to right: 11-inch MBA, 13-inch MBA, 15-inch MBP
The trackpad on the 13-inch model is a taller rectangle, identical in size to what you’d find on a MacBook Pro. The wrist rest area is also normal-sized. In fact, other than the thickness there’s very little that separates the 13-inch MacBook Air from a 13-inch MacBook Pro.
Apple integrated an SD card reader with the 13-inch MBA which further identifies its light workhorse nature. It’s a nice addition that does make the MacBook Air more useful if you have a camera that uses SD cards (*grumbles at the D700*). The rest of the ports are unfortunately just as limited as the 11-inch model, but if you really want an Ethernet port you can either go the USB route or you can get a MacBook.
The 13's SD card reader
The stereo speakers are an improvement over the original MacBook Air. The old mono speaker was horrible to listen to. Now you've got two of them, which somehow makes the sound better. This isn’t exactly a set of Klipsch drivers but you get far less of a laughable sound out of them than before
The keyboard is identically sized to the 11-inch. You get larger function keys but there’s still no backlight. The backlit keyboard continues to be the biggest miss from the old MacBook Air.
Apple calls the new MacBook Air the future of the MacBook. If we take that literally it could mean that all future MacBooks will be the Air. Pro users will simply buy the bigger machines if they need the added performance, but the majority of users could get by with the Air. I tend to agree with this philosophy. There’s really no reason to get the base MacBook. The 13-inch MBA sacrifices a bit of performance and expansion, but you get a far more portable machine. For users who need the performance, there's always the Pro line.
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khimera2000 - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
but on the flip side many of those larger notebooks make up for graphic loss with a stronger processer, which these will not be able to compete with, not to mention that although it is using a NV320, it is not the discreet model it is the intergrated model which saps your ram just like a netbook not to mention that you can play movies on a netbook. the point of a hard drive is rather mute since you yourself acknowledge that solid state drives exist on netbooks.to assume that netbooks will stay as slow as there oridional releas is kinda off, since technolagy moves at a fast rate. comparing this system to new systems that are released by other companies there is no where that it fits other than as a netbook since your going for the bottom of the barrel for Nvidia cards, and going for a CPU that can be smacked by a I3 mobile theres nothing coming out slower for PC then this unless you look at netbooks.
with this in mind it still just looks like a netbook performance revision.
appliance5000 - Friday, October 29, 2010 - link
So somewhere in this verbiage you're saying it a really really fast and powerful netbook. Ok - if it makes you happy -OK.Demoure - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
Why must it be under 3 pounds? I can't think of a good reason for requiring a laptop under 3 pounds, other than that you are intentionally being picky so as to show it in a better light. At four and a half pounds you have the m11x, a far superior laptop. It is not thin or light, but it is not thick and heavy. Being a scrawny person myself, I cannot think of a person where the 1.5 extra pounds would be a deal breaker.And I do agree with you, it is not a netbook, unlike what the other replier said. It is powerful enough to do what netbooks cannot. As I describe netbooks, they fall short if you try to do anything other than text-based stuff. Ion blurs the lines a little, I've owned an ion laptop before. It was able to play movies flawlessly, but beyond that it was still limited in a netbook way. However, my m11x, and as the performance of the air is not too far off, are quite competent at a variety of things. Just about the only thing I would use my desktop for, but not my m11x, would be the heavy work of encoding, transcoding, that sort of stuff. For everything else, it really does feel like a full fledged laptop, if not a decent desktop. The processor being the limiting factor of the laptop, it is fast enough for everything reasonable.
tno - Wednesday, December 29, 2010 - link
This might sound slight to you but is reasonably significant to me. I'm a paramedic with a transport service based out of a tertiary care center (large hospital). This is very much a transient job, you are either in an ambulance going from one place to the next or in a helicopter doing the same. I like to keep some essentials with me at all times: food, water, phone charger, phone, reading material, lightweight computing option. Now phone goes in a pocket. Water has its own bottle. The rest has to go in my bag.After making do with a bulky laptop bag I decided I needed something slimmer and more useful. So I now have a 20L day pack from North Face. It has a laptop compartment/hydration bladder sleeve, and two water resistant compartments, as well as a few smaller pockets and a rain cover for real wet work. And it ways about 1/4 pound. It's amazing, especially compared to my old two pound bag that was bulky while not actually carrying much more stuff.
Food (two Power bars, a PBJ, an apple and some dried fruit/nuts) is about 1 1/2 lbs. Reading material is about 1/2 lbs. Phone charger's a few ounces. So that's about 2 1/2 lbs, including the bag. A 4 1/2 lbs laptop would bring me up to seven pounds. My Lenovo S10 with a 9 cell battery weighs about 3 lbs and having put both used that and my old Dell 15" lappy (about 4.5 lbs) I was much happier with the S10. One handed transitions from one place to another without having to close the laptop is one maneuver that definitely favors the S10 and one I do a lot.
As much as I'm bumping up all these Mac posts I'm going to start to sound like quite the fan boy. That said I still don't own one. And am having trouble making up my mind on which one to buy. The 13MBA and 13MBP vary by just enough to make the MBP's performance equally as tempting as the MBA's lightness. What a travesty of options.
omega12 - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
Did you just compare the power consumption of an unplugged laptop vs a plugged in laptop? The photo on the left says 0W DC Input and on the right we have 22.97W DC Input. What's up with that?Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
Cropped the wrong screenshot, the actual processor power consumption doesn't change when plugged in vs. not in OS X but I ran the test both ways just to be sure.Fixed :)
Take care,
Anand
QChronoD - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
Did you guys test the battery life for the air while running windows? Did I miss it on the charts?I need to replace my old laptop w/ something small so I can carry it all day at school. I don't need lots of power, but most of the software I need to use in lab don't run on OSX (AFAIK).
Anyone know anything else for about $1K that is as thin and light and runs for 4+ hours??
JMS3072 - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
Try the ThinkPad X201.kavanoz - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
You can also check Acer Aspire TimelineX AS1830T-3721. Just make sure to swap out the HDD with a SDD. I put a 40 GB Intel X25-V when I bought it and it just flies. Nowadays a 64 GB Sandforce based SSD makes more sense. You can find them for as low as $120.Demoure - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
Compare it to a netbook and you will be delighted at how speedy and thin it is. Compare it to the ipad and well.. okay so the ipad is a bit silly no matter the comparison. Compare it to asus's UL series, and there you have a decent comparison. Thats one where it could really go either way, based on personal preference and which camp you side with. But when the new air launched, I wondered why a reasonable person would want it over an m11x. It is thinner, certainly.. but, is that really important? No laptop these days is really the thickness of a brick, to judge size, you would think people would be more concerned about length and width. Screen size. How thin the air is.. seems like it would never factor in to any situation. Places where an air can fit, a culv-type laptop would as well. If not for it being thin, I really can't think of a reason to get it over the m11x. Neither are really BAD buys, but the air just seems less impressive in comparison. With the money saved by getting the old r1 (you know, the one with more battery life, cheaper, just as useful, only lacking in its lack of optimus) you could get yourself a fancy ssd, to complete the package. Perhaps I am just baised after finding the m11x to be the perfect little laptop, but despite it being a hideous looking thing, I see no reason to get the air unless you just have to have an apple computer. However if the m11x did not exist, I would not blame anyone for getting an air. It is well rounded.