 B&H Photo-Video $1749.95 $1799.00 from Apple Inc. $1639.00 from California Computer Center |  Best Buy $1799.99 $1794.00 from Newegg.com $1739.94 from ClubMac |
Specifications :
Intel Core 2 Duo (1.6GHz)
2GB DDR2
80GB hard drive
Double-layer DVD±RW (external)
13.3-inch TFT
Integrated graphics
Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Review :
Whether or not it's truly the "world's thinnest notebook," the Apple MacBook Air is certainly a sight to behold and to, well, hold. Pictures and TV commercials—where the Air emerges from a brown document envelope—don't really do Apple's first ultraportable justice. You really have to handle it to appreciate the feat the company's design team achieved in combining a 13.3-inch wide-screen display with a 3-pound aluminum chassis that measures only 0.76 inches at its thickest point. Of course, that unbelievably svelte profile demands some sacrifices, and the Air has quickly become as notorious for what it lacks—an optical drive, connectivity options, and mobile broadband—as for what it offers: a capable computing experience for those for whom style and portability are foremost.
Though just as wide as its mainstream cousin, the MacBook, the Air is unmistakably thinner—just 0.16 inches at its front edge. Apple clad the Air in the same silver aluminum it uses on its MacBook Pro line, which should lend some extra durability on the road. We suspect the sturdy chassis is also why, when held in hand, the Air feels heavier than its 3-pound weight. Carrying the notebook in a messenger bag or backpack, however, was a joy: We could barely feel its weight on our shoulders, and its bulk felt more evenly distributed than other ultraportables we've tested, even the tiny 11.1-inch Sony VAIO TX-N15P.
Open the notebook's slender lid and you're greeted with a gorgeous 1,280x800-resolution display that, thanks to its LED backlighting, is noticeably thinner and brighter than the 13.3-inch LCD panel found on the MacBook. Road warriors used to being saddled with smaller 11.1- and 12.1-inch displays will definitely appreciate the Air's increased screen real estate: We found our eyes lasted longer when watching movies, working on documents, and surfing the Web with the Air than with other ultraportables. The glossy display also features an ambient light sensor that automatically adjusts the screen brightness to suit the lighting in the room. Embedded in the silver bezel above the screen, you'll find an iSight Webcam and mic. Beneath the display, Apple included a full-size keyboard with backlit keys also controlled by the ambient light sensor. (You can also disable the backlighting all together.)
Second to its thinness, the Air's standout design feature is its excellent TrackPad. Measuring nearly 5 inches diagonally, it's easily the most spacious—and versatile—we've seen on an ultraportable. In addition to the two-finger scroll function we saw on the original MacBook, the Air's pad (as well as those on the latest MacBook and MacBook Pro models) incorporates three of Apple's signature "multi-touch" gestures, first seen on the iPhone. You can "pinch" with your thumb and forefinger to zoom in and out of documents, photos, and Web pages; use two fingers to rotate pictures in iPhoto; and, our favorite, swipe three fingers right or left over the pad to go forward or backward in your Web browser history. The gestures are all very intuitive, and we're psyched that Apple has ported multi-touch over to its other MacBook models. The only thing we would add is the ability to flick through music albums in iTunes' Cover Flow mode, much like you can on the iPhone or the iPod Touch.
As you might guess considering its chassis' size, the Air, like a legion of other ultraportables, does not include a built-in optical drive; if watching DVDs on the road is a must, this system may not be the best buy. Our review unit came bundled with a slim external USB DVD burner (a $99 add-on), but more noteworthy is Apple's software-based solution, Remote Disc, which lets you use the optical drives of other PCs or Macs on the same network. We had no problems setting up Remote Disc on our Windows Vista desktop—once we installed the setup software and enabled "CD and DVD sharing" in the Windows Control Panel, the Air recognized discs in the desktop's optical drive. Remote Disc is a great solution for porting over files and installing applications, but unfortunately, you can't use it to stream DVD movies or music CDs. In lieu of a FireWire port, the Air allows you to use Apple's Migration Assistant to migrate data wirelessly from another Mac.
This brings us to what we consider to be the MacBook Air's biggest shortcoming: connectivity. Though ultraportables rarely have many ports, jacks, or slots, the Air's selection is especially sparse. You won't find usual offerings like an Ethernet jack, a FireWire jack, or a media card reader. The notebook includes just three wired connections—one USB 2.0 port, a headphone jack, and a display port—all hidden beneath a small pull-down door that's slightly recessed on the right side of the case. (The notebook also comes with VGA and DVI dongles that plug into the display port.) On the bottom left, you'll find a three-pin power connector; Apple redesigned its magnetic power cord to be flush with the bottom of the case (a nice touch).
While we're not bemoaning the loss of increasingly outdated connections like modem jacks and S-Video ports, we do think Apple was a little hasty in confining nearly every conceivable accessory—be it an iPod, digital camera, or the $29.99 USB-to-Ethernet adapter that came with our system—to a single USB port. Needless to say, anyone who regularly uses more than one USB device or occasionally needs to plug into a wired Internet connection would be well served to invest in a USB hub—or an ultraportable with a few more ports.
What's more, though the Air was purportedly "designed for the wireless world," Apple did not equip it with all the latest wireless technologies. 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1 come standard, but unlike ultraportables from Dell, Lenovo, and HP, you can't configure the Air with wireless mobile broadband (WWAN), an increasingly popular option for users who want to stay connected in the absence of a Wi-Fi signal. An Apple rep we spoke with said the company shunned WWAN so as not to limit its customers to a specific carrier, an odd argument considering Dell currently offers built-in radio options from all three U.S.-based WWAN carriers—AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon—for its Latitude and Inspiron notebooks. Without an ExpressCard slot, the only way to add WWAN to the Air is to connect a USB mobile broadband modem, which would, again, monopolize the system's sole USB jack. Less critical, but still worth noting, is that the Air also lacks built-in GPS and wireless USB, forward-looking technologies that are available on the comparably svelte Lenovo ThinkPad X300, a business-minded ultraportable that's arguably the Air's biggest competitor with its 13.3-inch screen, built-in optical drive, and WWAN options.
Compared to other ultraportables, the MacBook Air is reasonably priced at its $1,799 baseline configuration, which includes a 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, an 80GB hard drive spinning at a sluggish 4,200rpm, and Intel GMA X3100 integrated graphics. (Our review unit came to $1,928 with accessories.) By comparison, the Toshiba Portégé R500-S5002 costs hundreds more than the Air and features a slower, ultra-low-voltage (ULV) CPU, 1GB of RAM, and a smaller screen—though you do get a built-in optical drive and a 120GB 5,400rpm hard drive. And like all Macs, the Air comes with a strong software bundle, the star being Apple's iLife '08 suite, which includes the iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, and iDVD apps, among others.
We wish Apple offered more hardware configuration options for the Air, however, especially in the hard drive department: The only alternative to the smallish 80GB drive is a 64GB solid-state drive (SSD), which costs an outrageous $999. Granted, with non-moving parts, lower power consumption, and increased reliability, SSDs are definitely a top option for on-the-go laptop users who can afford them. But while prices remain high, we would rather Apple included some larger-capacity, 5,400rpm hard drives as upgrade options as well. The only other component you can change is the CPU: You can bump up the clock speed to 1.8GHz for $300.
As for performance, the Air delivers more than enough power for basic tasks like Web surfing, multimedia playback, and productivity chores; in our anecdotal tests, we were able to do several of these activities at once without experiencing any slowdowns. Even with its full-fledged Core 2 Duo CPU and 2GB of RAM, however, the Air showed only marginal performance gains over the ULV-based ultraportable competition. The system needed 6 minutes and 45 seconds to complete our iTunes conversion test (the Portégé R500 took 7 minutes and 36 seconds), and scored a relatively low 405 and 2,728 on our Cinebench 9.5 and Cinebench 10 tests respectively, proving that graphics-intensive tasks won't do well here. Likewise, ultraportables with speedier CPUs outperformed the Air—Asus' 3.6-pound Asus U6S, with a 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo processor, needed just 5 minutes to complete our iTunes test.
Using the USB-powered DVD drive, the Air lasted 2 hours and 49 minutes in our harsh DVD rundown test, which is good, but not spectacular for an ultraportable. We also eked out just over 4 hours while typing a text document, Web browsing, and playing videos with the battery set to Normal, which is just short of Apple's 5-hour rated battery life. It's also worth noting that the Air's battery is not user-replaceable; should your built-in pack go kaput, you'll have to send your entire system into Apple to install a $129 replacement battery.
Overall, the Apple MacBook Air is fairly priced and decently powerful, with a killer design that will turn heads in any airport, coffee house, or library. There's no doubt that it's one great-looking piece of gear, but depending on your computing needs and priorities on the road, this notebook's missing features and meager port selection could be deal-breakers. If you're after more power—and you don't mind strapping on a few extra pounds—Apple's original MacBook, with its Penryn processors, bigger hard drives, and more-palatable price tags, could be a better option.
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