Apple MacBook Air MC968LL/A Price Review

The new MacBook Air is up to 2.5x faster than before. It features the new Intel Core i5 dual core processor, high speed Thunderbolt I/O, a backlit keyboard, and OS X Lion, the next big release of the world’s most advanced desktop operating system. MacBook Air also comes standard with flash storage, so it boots up in seconds, launches apps quickly, and wakes from sleep in an instant. And a long lasting battery powers MacBook Air for up to five hours and offers up to 30 days of standby time. All in a lasting unibody design that is thin, light, and prepared for anything. The MacBook Air with 11.6 inch screen light, thin, and strong enough to take with you wherever you go (view larger).

247 of 252 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of five stars Fast and movable / 2GB RAM and 64 GB may Be Too Low, July 25, 2011
By Glenn R. Howes (Nashua, NH) See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER) (VINE VOICE) (REAL NAME) This review is from: Apple MacBook Air MC968LL/A 11.6 Inch Laptop (NEWEST VERSION) (Personal Computers) I have been waiting for a new computer for my wife, something that she can use both as her desktop computer attached to a monitor, mouse and keyboard and still take along on business trips around the globe. Ideally, something she could throw in her big purse and go. The last edition of the MacBook Air was close, but too compromised by processor speed. The Air is perfect for her.

At this writing, is selling two variants of the 11.6 inch MacBook Air, an i5 model with 2GB of RAM and 64 GB of SSD storage, and an i5 model with 4GB of RAM and 128 GB of SSD storage. You may be able to order elsewhere a 3rd model with an i7 processor, 4GB of RAM and 256 GB of SSD storage the i7 is the low voltage two core variant. This review aims at helping the buyer choose if a MacBook Air is the computer for them, and if which one. Short answer is the i5/4GB/128GB model is most likely the sweet spot of the lineup, but many people can get with the 64GB model as a second computer, while others will need the final and costly model.

The strengths:
This computer is fast. The mix of a hard State Drive (SSD) hard drive and an i5 (or optionally an i7 processor make this the fastest computer I have ever used, and I have a 2011 13″ MacBook Pro as my personal computer. The SSD gives it a qualitative responsiveness application launching, task switching which any spinning disk laptop will be unable to go with. Quantitatively, it more than keeps up with its bigger siblings in CPU intensive tasks. As an example, my big laptop can compile a big, commercial application I maintain using Xcode four in nine minutes 38 seconds, this tiny sub notebook can do the same in nine minutes five seconds.

This computer is movable. I went to the local Apple Store and compared the 11.6 to the 13 inch MacBook Air, and while the 13 is very movable it isn’t a good fit for a woman’s purse. This 11.6 can almost get lost in a purse, I can imagine my wife hunting around for some seconds trying to find it. It is ridiculously small. The 11.6 is half a pound lighter than the 13 and a pound heavier than an iPad 2.

Battery life when not under heavy load is good. I can web browse, and as long as I avoid Flash websites, can do it for some number of hours. But, under load the five hours Apple promises for wireless web browsing becomes sub two hours. If the fan is on, the battery won’t last, so it becomes time to figure out which page is running Flash, or which application is hogging all the CPU cycles. As an example, I can drain the battery in about two hours 20 minutes watching full screen Netflix which uses the Microsoft Silverlight plugin over WiFi. I believe Apple not pre installs Flash to pump up their claimed web browsing battery life claims. The bigger Air has more room for a battery and has a longer battery life. The battery life of my MacBook Pro is surely at least an hour or two longer under the same estimated load.

The screen is beautiful and crisp. Color balance and contrast seem superior to that of my MacBook Pro’s (which is not bad either). Looking at angles are good but not the spectacular IPS angles of an iPad. I had been cautious of dropping down to the eleven inch screen from the 13 inch of my MacBook Pro, but I think I could work all day at this size particularly if all I doed was web browsing or video watching. I would not want to edit videos or do lasting software development at this size, but of course there’s a Thunderbolt port and with the proper MiniDisplay adaptor I could attach it to any monitor. This will use up most of its life attached to a 21 inch LCD.

The keyboard is thankfully backlit. Typing is reasonably comfy, though I’d favor another milimeter or two of key travel. Again, this will use up most of its life attached to an external keyboard so it does not matter much but I much favor the touch feel of my MacBook Pro.

The trackpad is big and Lion prepared for all your taps, pinches, swipes (one, two, three and more fingers). Apple is renowned for its trackpads and this is no exemptions. Perfect finger feel, no stutters, correct tracking.

Build quality. This isn’t many shoddy plastic netbook. The unibody construction is surprisingly rigid and may be used to bludgeon an attacker in a pinch (and still keep on downloading).

The weaknesses:
Storage size is cramped, particularly at the lower price points. I think the 64GB model targets users wanting to keep all of their papers, pictures, videos, music in “the cloud” and while I am sure people will live in the cloud at some point, most of us live on Earth with our restricted speed Internet connections. The bigger capacities are good for many people, as well as my wife, but not for me, I have too many videos, photos, and music files filling up my MacBook Pro to compress myself down to the 256GB model.

There aren’t many ports on the box. Two USB ports, a headset port and a Thunderbolt port are restricted. Apple sells the Thunderbolt variant of its regarded but costly theater display which relieves most port complaints and replaces them with “I have to pay a thousand dollars for a monitor with a Firewire port?” complaints. I own this display and it’s superb, but it’s certainly not for the budget minded or at least those missing in creative rationalizations. Also, desk bound USB hubs are cheap, and Belkin has declared a Thunderbolt hub, though I have still to see it for sale.

By the way, I bought the Apple USB to Ethernet adaptor and I don’t recommend doing so unless your WiFi is awful or nonexistent. Turns out WiFi is at least as fast as this adaptor and a whole lot less trouble when dealing with a virtual machine. If anything, be sure you have upgraded to an 802.11N router like a newer Airport Express.

Fan sound under load is a bit deafening. Amazingly, this computer which is dead silent till the fan kicks in may be observably deafening caused by the small space available for the fan vent. At the ask of a commenter, I calculated the decibel level by laying a decibel meter on the trackpad, and under load it calculated 46 dB which is pretty calm as these things go, my MacBook Pro under the same conditions gave 51 dB. Take this with a grain of salt as I’m not a sound engineer and measuring from the trackpad isn’t where your ears could be.

The FaceTime camera is weak in comparison to the cameras in the Air’s bigger cousins or in the Thunderbolt display. It is OK, but not the spectacular clear HD of the camera in my laptop.

This isn’t a gaming laptop. The one performance agreement is the lack of a correct discreet GPU. The integrated Intel HD 3000 is OK, most likely as fast as the last generation NVidia 320M used in the last Air, but not something you will want to throw the most calling for game at. It’ll be good for watching video on, and just about anything else but high end gaming.

The maximum memory capacity of the Air, in spite of being a 64 bit computer, is 4GB and is non upgradeable. If you get a 2GB machine it’ll stay a 2GB machine. This is a shame as RAM is cheap these days; I have 8GB on my MacBook Pro. The SSD is upgradeable though online prices for the strange SSD on a board used in the Air are amazing; maybe in a couple years it’ll make financial sense to upgrade. The lowest model has only 2GB of RAM and that can be too low for many mixes of applications, or when running a virtual machine.

The lack of an optical drive. I had a USB DVD drive already but many won’t. Apple will sell you a pretty one, but usually any cheap USB drive will do. The only time my wife used her optical drive on her old computer was once a year to install TurboTax, so this won’t be a big problem for her. I did have a problem installing Windows seven using the Parallels Desktop virtual machine in that the virtual machine could not see my cheap optical drive to install Windows. I ended up using Disk Utility to make an ISO disk image of the Windows installer disk and use that as image for installation. The only other time I required to use an optical drive in the last year is to get a Digital Download from the Captain America Blu ray combo pack; iTunes insisted on seeing the registration disk, so I broke out the USB drive. My advice here is to not purchase an optical drive but wait to see if you really need one, and if you do need one, 1st attempt to use the included software to use another computer’s optical drive.

The lack of an SD slot reader. I use the reader in my bigger notebook usually, though less frequently as I take more pictures with smartphones. The bigger Air has a reader, and while USB SD card readers are cheap, they’re also uncomfortable, frequently slower and easily lost.

The expense. On a per pound base, this is the second most costly object I have ever bought. My wife will primarily be using it to run Windows software, and I guess I may have gotten a netbook for traveling at a 3rd (or less) the price. I felt it vital to get a high performance computer that she could replace her desktop with too, one with a nice screen and a decent keyboard. The last Air was not there still, this is.

Tidbits:
This laptop comes with Apple’s new operating system OS X 10.7 (Lion), which means new users will be to get used to the more gestural iOS like elements of OS X, also as the notorious upside down scrolling. Thankfully, Lion is a hard release. As a developer, I have had many fewer problems with it than the last 10.6 release which was a string of ache. Users should know. Read more ›

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79 of 80 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of five stars Beautiful, Mobile, and Fast, July 26, 2011
By E. Kim See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE) (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME) This review is from: Apple MacBook Air MC968LL/A 11.6 Inch Laptop (NEWEST VERSION) (Personal Computers) INTRODUCTION
I had considered purchasing the last generation MacBook Air (pre July 2011) but just could not quite force myself to use up the money on machine that still used Intel’s Core two Duo CPUs (despite the fact that the older Airs were still really quite speedy). Apple used the then newer generation Core i5/i7 CPUs on their other computers.

So when Apple updated their Airs with Intel’s considerably faster Sandy Bridge i5/i7 CPUs, I became interested again. But, which size could be best for me?

11″ VERSUS 13″
I’ve been struggling over this choice on which size 2011 MBA could be better. It is the common dilemma with the 13″ boasting pretty much better specifications and battery life than the 11″. Then I thought, well, the 13″ is ONLY 2″ bigger diagonally, and ONLY weighs a “little” more (and ONLY costs a “little” more).

But the reality (for me) is that for a really mobile device, like an iPad, only the MBA 11″ has a shot at being mobile. The MBA 13″ is great and surely more mobile than a regular MacBook Pro 13″, but the MBA 13″ is still IMHO more of a movable, than a mobile laptop.

The MBA 11″ is really mobile.

Once I realized this, there really was not a comparison to be made. They’re two different devices. One being mobile and the other movable. I have a 2011 MBP 17″ which is my final movable, and now my 2011 MBA 11″ is my mobile computer.

PROS
1. Very fast CPU The MBA 11″ comes with a Sandy Bridge 1.6 gHz dual core Core i5 CPU (or a 1.8 gHz dual core i7 directly from Apple). In spite of rumors to the opposite, the Turbo increase and hyper threading potential weren’t turned off in the Core i5 CPUs. Geekbench benchmarks show surprising speed increases. The last generation MBA 11″ 1.4 gHz Core two Duo made 2024 on Geekbench, while the 2011 MBA 11″ now made 5040 for a 149 increase. This speed competitors the 2010 MacBook Pro 17″ which scored 5423! The 2011 MacBook Air 13″ uses a somewhat faster 1.7 gHz dual core i5 which scored 5860.)

2. Extraordinarily small! The MBA 11″ measures 11.8 x 7.56 x 0.68 inches, while the MBA 13″ is 12.8 x 8.94 x 0.68 inches. That means that the 11″ is “only” one inch shorter and “only” 1.3 inches less deep, but in reality, when you hold up both machines, the MBA 11″ feels like a totally different machine. My wife uses a 2011 MacBook Pro 13″ which has a alike footprint to the MBA 13″. The MacBook Air 13″ still felt too much like a laptop, although an extraordinarily thin and light one.

3. Extraordinarily light! The MBA 11″ weighs 2.38 pounds (while the MBA 13″ weighs 2.96 pounds and an iPad two weighs 1.35 pounds I really on occasion hold the MBA like an iPad while reading in bed because it is so light. If you’re seeking just a light, movable laptop, then the weight of the MBA 11″ or 13″ could be great, but if you (like me) are seeking a really mobile device, then fractions of a pound matter. The MBA 11″ weighs less and is consequently the better choice, but as surprisingly light as it’s, lighter could be better. Its doubtful that a mobile device will ever exist that could be considered too light.

4. High speed Thunderbolt (i.E. Lightpeak) port offering bidirectional ten gigabits/s throughput Thunderbolt technology is far more revolutionary than USB 3.0 or eSATA. Thunderbolt isn’t restricted to the use of a storage device. An external LCD may be attached. Though I use the MBA 11″ as my mobile device, it can be satisfactory as a main computer if one attaches an external LCD display and a high speed Thunderbolt drive. Supposedly an external Thunderbolt hard drive could be almost as fast as an interior hard drive.

5. Everything is hard state! This MBA feels more like a true “mobile” device since it’s completely hard state with its hard state drive. I’m far less worried about damaging this versus other laptops I have owned in the past.

6. Very fast cold starts and shutdowns thanks to the hard state drive and OS X.
7. Great, full size keyboard AND keyboard backlighting is back again! While this may seem like a minor point, the last generation Core two Duo Airs didn’t have the backlighting.

8. The battery life between the 11″ and the 13″ was only found to be 36 minutes shorter for the 11″ (and NOT the two hours claimed by Apple) for light handling by Anandtech .. The battery life is Apple (conservatively) rated at five hours (compared to seven hours for the MBA 13″ and also seven hours for my MBP 17″). Apple’s battery life ratings became more stringent in the past not many years are much closer to real world handling. I’m indeed able to use my 11″ for about six hours with light handling, which is much better than Apple’s claimed five hours.

9. Tremendous, common Apple build quality. The MBA feels like a part of hard precision crafted machinery.
10. Same great glass trackpad with more gestures in OS X Lion to be used.
11. Comes with the new Mac OS X Lion (which I will not discuss, but it’ll let for apps to use a full screen mode which is of advantage to MBA 11″ owners)
12. Surprising aesthetics I can not express adequately in words how beautiful this machine looks.

CONS
1. Though I have a Samsung LCD, the vertical and horizontal looking at angles aren’t almost as good as on my 2011 MBP 17″. It is still more than satisfactory, but it is something that MacBook Pro holders will most likely notice.
2. Many MBAs come with a Toshiba solid state drive which isn’t essentially a con, but this may annoy many users. In real world handling, I have read that one can not detect any speed differences, but if you like to run benchmarks, then the Toshiba drives in the 128 GB size seem to be slower than the Samsung 128 GB drives in some benchmarks.
3. MBAs come with either a Samsung or LG LCD panel. It is not clear what the differences are between them. There’s pure speculation and usually fear that one panel is superior to the other, but I have seen comparison photos of both types of displays, and the only difference I can notice is an very somewhat warmer look to the LG panel. BUT this was on computers that didn’t have the screens color calibrated. In any way, I can state obviously that my 2011 MacBook Pro 17″ display is very superior in color and looking at angles, but they’re totally different machines.
4. There’s no SecureDigital memory card slot on the 11″ MBA, though there’s one in the bigger 13″ size. I can not believe I got another Mac laptop WITHOUT a SD slot! My 17″ MBP does not have one either while the smaller MBPs do! And now, the smaller MBA does not have one while the bigger one does! I wonder if I will ever get a Mac with an SD card slot!)

TIPS
1. Believe it or not (do a Google search) but if you use Adobe’s Flash, your laptop battery life will most probably be considerably shorter. Many reports demonstrate that having Adobe flash turned off lets for two hours of extra battery life.
2. I bought the MBA 11″ with standard 1.6 gHz Core i5 and am happy with this. If you get the built to order ones from Apple, you may be able to upgrade your 11″ to include the same 1.8 gHz Core i7 that is also available as an upgrade on the MBA 13″. Anandtech has found that the 1.8 gHz Core i7 upgrade produces considerably faster benchmarks >20 speed difference without a shorter battery life. The i7 upgrade did produce considerably more heat, but.
3. If you don’t need a really mobile laptop, then the MBA 13″ is most likely better for most people’s needs as a regular regular laptop (albeit light, thin, and also beautiful).
4. If you totally must have USB 3.0, and you may be able to wait, then you may want to know that Intel’s next future CPU/chipset for Ivy Bridge will let for native USB 3.0 support.

CONCLUSION
There is no such thing as the perfect computer for everybody just as there’s no single tool for each task for each person. I needed a really mobile laptop to fit with my lifestyle and work needs, which for me included a smartphone, tablet, mobile laptop, and a big laptop/desktop substitute. For the right person, this MBA 11″ is really in a class of own.

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45 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of five stars lion’s air, July 26, 2011
By Y. Zhou See all my reviews
(REAL NAME) This review is from: Apple MacBook Air MC968LL/A 11.6 Inch Laptop (NEWEST VERSION) (Personal Computers) hi there

I am not going to go into a deep review, as there are already many of reviews out there covering the same things. But I’ll talk about special things that other reviews may not covered. I personally owned the 2010 11″ and 13″ airs, and I now own the 2011 macbook pro 15″ and 2011 11″ air. The 15″ is about 2x the processing power as the air (according to geekbench), but it lacks an SSD for faster daily tasks.


On Engadget, they newly covered that the 11″ air has a faster SSD than the 13″ ones. Not a difference you will notice but still a nice excuse to buy a smaller one (it somethed like 240mbps vs 180mbps estimated)

The battery life on the 11″ is really down from the last generation by about 30 minutes on battery saving settings. Last gen can get about seven hours, this one is just over six (about 25 light, web browsing only). As well, air’s battery life plummets if it does average to heavy processing (flash, photo/movie editing, gaming), the pro’s battery life goes down, but by less.

Online benchmarks demonstrate that the 2011 11″ air is about 2.5x faster in processor speed than the 2010 model. But, if you never used an i5 or i7 processor before, know that you’ll also be able to multitask many better than the old core2duos. As an example, you may be able to edit in iMovies and photoshop simultaneously (something that will lag the crap out of the old generation).

Don’t WORRY ABOUT THE SCREEN SIZE. With Lion, applications can take benefit of its fullscreen function. As an example, for many native applications like Safari, Mail, Calendar, etc, you may be able to fullscreen them and they will take up the complete screen, but, they dont really take up the major desktop screen, but a whole new screen on own. If you have many fullscreen apps, you may be able to use four fingers to flick between them, fast and economical. I owned the last gen air 11″ with 10.6 SL, and it was a bit frustrating having many windows open, i typically have to minimize most of them. Now, you may be able to browse in full 11″ screen, and use four fingers to flick to check your mail.

Keyboard and trackpad have more of an “umfph” feeling to them. A bit more resistance than the older models. The 2010 air was my 1st mac, and i has been disappointed a bit by the light and cheap feeling keyboard, but the 2011 made it right.

FYI, if you never owned a macbook, the “instant on” feature is really in all the unibody MacBooks and Pros, but they’re just a bit slower than the air’s. So do not think of it as a feature only the air has, it is just a bit faster.

You can not change anything in the air once bought, unlike the pro.

Screen quality is really worse than the Pro line. Yes the air has more pixel density, but the vertical looking at angle is pretty bad. It isn’t made of the same screen as the Pro and iPad (IPS), but, it’s a matte screen so a much better screen in the sun. I owned both the 11″ and 13″, the looking at angle problem was more obvious on the 13″ just because the screen is bigger. I generally found myself adjusting the 13″ screen every time i move a bit.

2gb ram is enough to run lion just good.

Sound looks to be somewhat louder on the 13″ vs 11″. 11″ sound is TINY. I generally turn it to max whenever I am watching videos. Headphones are a must.

If you’re deciding between a pro vs air, overall, i could say go with the pro if you do professional work with photo/movie editing, hardcore gaming (at least 15in), or if you plan on purchasing or already have a tablet. Go with the air if you’re a light user, want a tablet substitute. Owning an air and a tablet is a big waste of money.

I could personally recommend the 1.6ghz, 4gb, 128ssd 11″ macbook air. I believe that’s the most useful and “bang for the buck” you may be able to get vs the rest of the lineup. But everyone’s preferences are different.

All in all, my only complaint about this air is the price. The $1200 macbook pro 13″ vs the $1200 11″ macbook air, the air has a better hard drive, but thats it. It is using less material to make, a slower processor, smaller battery, small and worse screen, less ports, i could think Apple can price it less than the macbook pro. Just, less everything, but paying the same price because it has a good design. Thats my two cents at least. $899 for the entry model could shut me up


Hope this will assist you choose.

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