The 2011 MacBook Air (11 & 13-inch): Thoroughly Reviewed
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 28, 2011 3:25 AM EST- Posted in
- Apple
- Mac
- Intel
- Sandy Bridge
- MacBook Air
- Laptops
Thermals & Power Consumption
Both the 11 and 13-inch MacBook Air use the same 45W MagSafe power adapter as the 2010 models. To get an idea of how much power the platform as a whole uses I measured power using the same power brick and a fully charged battery on all three MBA systems (2 new, 1 old). I chose two high-load scenarios: Cinebench R11 and Half Life 2 Episode 2. The former is a purely CPU load while the latter is a good mix of CPU and GPU load.
Peak power consumption has gone up significantly since last year. The 11-inch MacBook Air draws 35% more power under full load compared to its 2010 counterpart. In Cinebench R11 however, the new 11 is over twice as fast as the old one. A 35% increase in max power for a 2x increase in performance? I'll take it.
Overall power consumption isn't too bad. You're looking at under 35W for full load on the 11 and around 40W for the 13. Neither exceeds the maximum power draw of a 13-inch MacBook Pro.
How hot are the new Airs on your lap? For the most part they aren't too bad. Under a light load the fan won't spin up and you won't feel more than 31C on your lap:
It's under load that these things can get warm. If you're just measuring surface temperature then the new 11 can hang with the 15-inch MacBook Pro:
The 11-inch MacBook Air actually has it the worst. With a more cramped chassis things seem to get hotter more quickly in there compared to the 13. However max temperature is no where near as bad as the 15-inch MacBook Pro:
Overall the thermals seem to be in line with a 13-inch MacBook Pro, despite being confined to a much smaller chassis.
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dertechie - Thursday, July 28, 2011 - link
Actually, I can see a $500 19x12 14" Thunderbolt Panel doing pretty well for them. It certainly won't move numbers but it is a more practically priced Thunderbolt display. I'd buy one, but admittedly I already want a 24" IPS panel with DisplayPort for an Eyefinity setup, using it as a docking station for my laptop is gravy.To be bluntly honest, if Intel wants to see Thunderbolt take off, the Thunderbolt-fed multipurpose displays are where it will happen, and it needs to encourage that. Storage won't sell it outside the Mac niche, USB3's backwards compatibility with * will destroy it there. But a display with the connectivity that desktops take for granted is an easier sell (and likely easier to tunnel that it would be over USB3). I can see other OEMs selling 22" 1080p ones with good connectivity at ~$250-300 (the TB chip itself is something like $40)
I think given a few years we'll have seen manufacturers test out displays and docking stations with everything from backup HDDs (complements an SSD laptop well) to external GPUs integrated into them. With a low enough latency connection, you can do all sorts of cool things.
darwinosx - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - link
You could show them a TN panel next to an IPS display. The differences are obvious.Wally Simmonds - Thursday, July 28, 2011 - link
If I were looking at buying a netbook today, I'd probably go out right now and grab this, however I already have a HP DM1Z. Okay, CPU performance isn't nearly as good, its body isn't as good looking or solid, and doesn't have a SSD, but looking at the battery life and graphics performance the E-350 based netbooks seem to fare better.It'd be nice to see some other pc manufacturers do something similar in looks/specs to the air but get some halfway decent graphics performance in there - Llano anyone?
Might see some price drops on the Samsung Series 9 too, here in NZ they're selling for *more* than the new MBA's....
quiksilvr - Thursday, July 28, 2011 - link
Just get an SSD for your DM1Z now and save the money wasted- er I mean spent on this.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
There really is no real need for crazy pixel pushing CPU performance in this day and age for an ultraportable since almost everything is hardware accelerated (GPU pushing). Having said that, the E-350 you have runs faster than the fastest DESKTOP Atom processor.
Plus you can also upgrade to 8GB of RAM too for pretty cheap, giving your laptop a real great edge:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
Broheim - Monday, August 8, 2011 - link
I'm curious, why would a CPU push pixels... seeing as that's the job of the (i)GPU.darwinosx - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - link
If you read the review you would know this is not a Netbook.Netbooks are cheap miniature laptops with poor quality screens, slow, clunky, and poorly made.
Rasterman - Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - link
DM1Z? lol you must be joking, you are comparing apples to xylophones.damianrobertjones - Thursday, July 28, 2011 - link
It's a shame that the Elitebook review didn't get this much attention and time spent on the review :(Either way I appreciate the information
damianrobertjones - Thursday, July 28, 2011 - link
P.s. How has the thermal paste been applied on these models as there have been reports stating that it's literally slapped all over the place which will lead to issues down the linedarwinosx - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - link
Those '"reports" are BS and they were't about this model anyway.