Apple MacBook Air
Apple’s much anticipated and much talked about ultra-portable notebook computer has arrived and it’s definitely a looker. This incredibly razor-thin computer is quite possibly the sexiest little laptop to come around. Ever. With a height of just 0.76 inches at its thickest (0.16” at the tip), the MacBook Air is the thinnest notebook on the market. And with looks that Paris Hilton will certainly love, the MBA is going to attract attention wherever you tote this 3 lb. aluminum beauty around…even inside a manila folder!
+ Pros
Incredibly thin and light
Incredibly sexy
Multi-touch trackpad
Multi-finger scrolling for web browsing
Illuminated keyboard
Gorgeous widescreen screen
Impeccable build quality
- Cons
Incredibly expensive
External optical drive is an optional purchase
Only 1 USB port - doesn't fit all devices
No additional ports nor expandiblility
So-so battery life
So-so performance - slower than MacBook
No stereo sound (mono speaker)
Large for a ultra-portable class laptop
Did I mention it's incredibly expensive?
Performance
wise, the MacBook Air is decent at best. It works wonderfully like any Mac would, with the excellent and swift Leopard OS X, but it lags behind the considerably cheaper MacBooks and upmarket MacBook Pros. 3D performance is a non-starter of course, with integrated graphics. Worse, the fixed battery only manages a disappointing 3-4 hours of juice under normal usage. Specs MacBook Air iMac PowerBook 12"
Specs
Core 2 Duo 1.6GHz, 2GB RAM, 1.8" 4200rpm HDD, GMA X3100 graphics, OSX 10.5.2
Core Duo 2.0GHz, 2GB RAM, 3.5" 7200rpm HDD, ATi Radeon X1600 128MB, OSX 10.5.2
PowerPC 1.33GHz, 512MB RAM, 2.5" 5400rpm HDD, NVIDIA GeForce FX Go 5200 64MB, OSX 10.4.10
CPU Test
85.14
85.97
54.39
Memory Test
139.41
134.26
33.80
Quartz Graphics Test
97.63
137.66
65.97
OpenGL Graphics Test
17.15
145.39
67.33
Disk Test
26.29
78.73
20.28
As you can see from the table above, the Intel processor platform has a significant processing advantage over the old PowerPC days. Even more interesting is the fact that despite being higher clocked, the Core Duo is about as fast as the lower clocked Core 2 Duo.
