| Apple
Laptop Reviews
Apple MacBook Air
It fits in a manila folder, you can slide it
under a door, and if you threw it hard enough you could probably
chop someone in half with the thing. It's the thinnest, and if
we may say so, sexiest laptop around today: the MacBook Air. But
looks aren't everything to everyone, and despite all the rhetoric
about being a no-compromises ultraportable, Apple did leave plenty
on the cutting-room floor in its quest to make an absurdly thin
ultraportable that doesn't skimp on a full size keyboard or roomier
13-inch display. But, as many potential buyers have been asking
themselves since last week, is the Air right to be your next machine?
Read on, we'll tell you what we think.
Hardware
It's hard to take lightly (har) the purposeful design that went
into the Air, it's simply and without a doubt the most beautiful
laptop we've seen in a while. Sure, there have been thinner, lighter
laptops that take up fewer cubic centimeters -- but that's not
really on trial. The goal of the Air was clear: create a Mac that
frequent fliers wouldn't be ashamed of, or in physical pain to
lug around. But therein lies the rub. The Air simply doesn't have
the power to be many users' primary machine, while also lacking
many of the features considered necessity by business travelers.
More on that in a minute, though.
There are a lot of things that the Air gets
right, and a decent amount of horsepower is one of 'em. Apple
didn't take the easy route and go with an etiolated Ultra Low
Voltage (read: ultra low performance) chip, they actually pushed
Intel to repackage a slower version of its full-on Core 2 Duo
processor. We were a little disappointed when Steve announced
this wasn't the new power-efficient, lower-heat 45nm Penryn chip
design, but in the time we've played with the Air, it's still
rarely managed to output enough heat to raise an eyebrow. This
is actually a laptop that belongs on your lap -- without any fear
of sterility. Of course, as our Mac-on-Mac benchmarks showed,
the 1.6GHz chip is still a little on the slow side, but the Air
is by no means unusable. It's not really one of Steve's "screamers"
-- but ultraportables aren't really intended to be.
The 13-inch LED backlit screen not only sips
power where larger CCFL backlit displays guzzle, it also looks
amazing: crisp, bright, and vibrant. Where other small laptops
use 8-11-inch screens that are nigh-unreadable by many a squinty
Engadget editor, for a laptop of this size the Air gives plenty
of screen real estate to get things done. Unfortunately, Apple
only offers this display with a glossy finish, so if you're fond
of the matte or work outside or near a window, be forewarned.
The bezel around the display is a little thick for our tastes,
and the lid might not tilt back as far as we'd like due to the
physical constraints of the joint design, but these are relatively
minor complaints.
Also rare for an ultraportable is the Air's
full-size keyboard, which adds some (worthy) width to the body.
Those fond of the ridgeless, separated key design as found in
MacBook and iMac / Mac pro keyboards will feel right at home.
We're not too into this design, but unlike almost every ultraportable
we've owned, the Air's keyboard feels thoroughly solid and sturdy.
The keys are tactile, not at all mushy, and backlit to boot. Typing
on the Air is a pleasure, not a chore. The keyboard also happens
to be where the MacBook Air emits audio -- beneath right home
row keys (k, l, ;, ') is the Air's tinny mono speaker, which seems
and sounds more like an afterthought.
The Air's integrated 802.11n worked well with
our stock D-Link 802.11n router, and transferred data at about
3-4MBps -- we were certainly satisfied with its wireless performance.
The Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR as a standard option is also nice, but
it's immediately clear the Air needed some integrated 3G, especially
considering its lack of an ExpressCard slot.
Where a lot of other machines might have ports
and protrusions along their edges, the Air has none -- it swoops
inward from the edge to the base with only two spots for plugs,
a new, 90-degree angled MagSafe power connector on the left underside,
and a clicky, extremely sturdy-feeling foldable door that is impossible
to open while resting on the table, and basically requires picking
the entire machine up. This exposes the Air's only three ports:
one USB 2.0, one micro-DVI, and one headphone. But here we begin
with the design sacrifices, and at the top of the list is the
lack of a user replaceable battery.
For some this might be an issue, but for others
-- especially those on the road for long periods of time without
access to a power outlet -- a deal-breaker. The Air uses a 37
Watt/hour lithium polymer (compared to the MacBook Pro's 60WH
lithium-ion), and using our normal tests -- full screen brightness,
WiFi and Bluetooth on, no attached peripherals -- under medium
usage (light browsing and watching a 1:20 h.264 movie) we got
a mere 2 hours and 25 minutes. Under lighter usage (browsing,
some audio playback, no movies) we got closer to 3 hours and 35
minutes. Not bad, but still nowhere near the 5 hours Apple promises
(under ideal conditions, surely).
Thankfully, the Air's power adapter is as impressively
proportioned as the laptop, so taking it with you won't be much
of an issue. But users of current generation adapters be warned:
the Air's MagSafe implementation won't always work with your current
MagSafe adapters simply because the angle and location make it
physically impossible to accommodate when used on a table. Hardly
a huge issue, we know. But things get worse on the connectivity
side. The USB port is recessed enough that, while we're sure it
meets USB Implementers Forum's design spec, it realistically won't
accommodate most 3G modems without a USB extension cable, and
some flash drives, as we learned yesterday. Even the headphone
port had a difficult time accommodating our Shure E4C phones.
We got stereo audio, but a high pitched hissing from not being
fully plugged in and grounded. (This went away when we used a
better-fitting audio extension cable.)
The micro-DVI port is also not physically compatible
with the mini-DVI port on your MacBook and previous Apple laptops,
so it requires some new connection accessories for VGA and DVI
out, which are thankfully included in the box. Since the Air doesn't
have a powerful (but space and power-consuming) discrete graphics
adapter, you'll only be able to drive a 24-inch display, although
for many that should probably be sufficient. (Games and movie
watching also suffer because of the integrated graphics, since
some of that visual load is taken on by the CPU.) Also integrated
is the Air's 2GB of RAM, built directly into its insanely small
motherboard; processors rarely need to be swapped in laptops,
but are you willing to bank on a couple of years' use without
having to upgrade your RAM? Perhaps a lot of people are, but we're
not.
The Air also uses a slower 80GB 1.8-inch drive,
the same kind that powers many portable media players. While probably
sturdy enough to withstand normal use, it's nowhere near as fast
as your average 2.5-inch laptop drive, and will always be behind
in storage should you chose to upgrade later. If you can afford
to spring for the 64GB SSD option, we highly suggest it -- your
machine's reliability, performance, and battery life will all
get a boost (at the expense of 16GB of space and a ton of cash,
naturally). Oddly overlooked for inclusion is the Apple Remote;
the Air certainly has the necessary sliver of an IR sensor for
making use of one, but the remote isn't included, despite being
found in the box of just about every other Apple machine. Oh,
and for those wondering, the Air's built-in iSight is the VGA
variety.
Despite its shortcomings on the hardware and
specs side, though, it's hard to say enough about how well made
the Air feels -- a particularly important point when you're taking
your machine everywhere. Whereas most smaller laptops try to cut
weight with inner metal frames and flimsy plastic bodies, the
Air bulks up a bit with an all-metal enclosure that looks and
feels like it was carved out of a single piece of aluminum. Only
time will tell if metal in the Air's wrist rest area will pit
out and blacken like MacBook Pros and PowerBooks of years past,
but the machine definitely gets extremely high marks for its the
physical engineering. And no, we're not at liberty to drop test
Apple's review unit, sorry!
Software
Just like every other Apple machine, the Air
runs Leopard -- albeit a slightly different build (9B2324). The
only changes made have to do with taking advantage of the machine's
oversized touchpad, which now supports multi-finger gestures in
system prefs. Apple thoughtfully actually includes in-line instructional
videos for learning how the gestures work (and how to make them),
like the three-finger sweep for backward and forward in Safari,
or using two fingers to rotate an image in iPhoto. This is just
the beginning of touchpad-based multi-touch, and while it's not
always the most practical way to do things (cmd+R or L seems to
us an easier way to rotate a photo), it's intuitive and well-integrated.
Apple also hasn't released any information for
third party developers on how to integrated touch gestures into
their apps, so until they do, only Apple apps will be able to
take advantage of the new input methods. It's obvious that, with
time, Apple will be rolling out multi-touch on their other machines,
but for now they claim that current hardware cannot support this
input, so don't expect to see any (official) software updates
to enable multi-touch.
Another feature rolled out is Remote Disc, Apple's
new system for sharing the optical drives of networked Macs and
PCs with the drive-less Air. As we quickly learned, you should
be prepared to have as much bandwidth as possible between the
Air and your host machine, -- and don't be disappointed when you
can't do everything with Remote Disc that you can do with a regular
drive. There's no commercial media playback, no HD support, no
ripping, no burning -- it's really only meant for installing apps,
downloading data, or reinstalling the OS (more on that in a second).
On the upshot, it did work seamlessly when we tried it.
Still, we think the Air's external USB SuperDrive
(which only works with the Air, mind you) is a necessity. There
simply isn't any way to transparently replace all the functionality
of an optical drive yet, so we're kind of bummed Apple didn't
just include the thing in box. [Also, disclosure: we had a pool
running and I bet against a non-bundled optical drive and lost
ten bucks. Thanks, Apple!] There's no question that a laptop really
doesn't need an optical drive at all times, and we've always been
happy to omit them. But having to shell out $99 to buy the drive
separately just doesn't sit well with us.
Wrap-up
The Air is a tough call. On the one hand it proposes to be a no-compromises
ultraportable, but on the other hand it compromises many (but
not all) the things road warriors want. We're all about removing
unnecessary frills and drives (we rejoiced the day the original
iMac bucked the floppy), but laptops are increasingly becoming
many users' primary -- often only -- machines, which is why the
Air's price doesn't do it any favors, either. It's hard to justify
almost two grand for a second laptop (or a third machine) just
for travel needs -- and even then, that's only easily done if
all your data lives in the cloud. Given those sacrifices and that
higher-end sticker, it's more than likely not going to replace
most peoples' current workhorse laptop.
This all might look a bit different if the Air
was a little closer to MacBook price range, though. We're thinking
$1500 could be a sweet spot, especially if bundled with the wired
Ethernet dongle and SuperDrive. But we're not going to kid ourselves,
either; the Air isn't supposed to be everything for everyone.
For those in need of a machine that masters basics in a super
thin, light form-factor, and who have the coin to pay for that
ultraportability, the Air absolutely nails it like few others.
Given its stripped down, one-piece design, some are calling
the Air the iPod of laptops. The point is debatable as to whether this machine
could have the same appeal to computer users, but if there is one clear upshot
to the Air, it's that Apple's learned to take the next step in miniaturizing
their portable computers. While not all Mac users are going to stand in line
to get this latest machine, Apple is doubtless welcomed back into the ultraportable
laptop market by the technology world. Perhaps the largest side-effect of the
Air won't be ditching optical drives, though; for the rest of Apple's consumer
base it's now just a matter of time before other Mac laptop lines benefit from
the technical and engineering advances that made this thing so thin and light.
Give us the lovechild of the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro, and it's all over.
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