Review : MacBook Air
Overview
In his Macworld Expo 2008 keynote
address, Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the latest Apple laptop:
MacBook Air. Stunningly thin and lighter than any Apple laptop ever
made, yet missing ports and expandability expected of laptops, the
MacBook Air has been a topic of intense discussion in the Mac community.
Soon
after he returned to Apple, a decade ago, Jobs simplified the Mac
product offerings to just four product lines, defined by a two-by-two
matrix of Professional vs Consumer, Desktop vs Laptop. The "pro" models
have been more powerful, expandable and upgradeable than the "consumer"
models, and carry a hefty price premium. Design has also been a
differentiator — consumer Macs have been more informal and even
whimsical, while pro Macs have ranged from stolid to striking but
always sleek and refined.
The MacBook Air is not a
traditional Apple pro model, lacking the requisite raw power and
expandability. Yet, at $700 more than the basic MacBook (which is much
faster), it's clearly not positioned as a consumer laptop, either.
In
the general PC market, the MacBook Air falls into the "ultralight"
category (and can run Windows, like its non-Mac competitors). The Air
weighs just three pounds, which is a pound lighter than the Newton
eMate 300 and 1.2 pounds lighter than Apple's original lightweight, the
PowerBook Duo 210.
Apple says they designed the MacBook
Air's "form factor" — its shape and size — and then figured out how to
fit a computer into it. Though this seems backwards vs. most computer
development, it's typical for Apple, and strikingly similar to the
design process for the groundbreaking Sony VAIO 505 ultra-small laptop,
introduced in 1997.
MacBook Air takes a different
approach from most ultralight laptops, though. Instead of shrinking all
dimensions, Apple's designers focused on just one: thickness. The
MacBook Air's footprint is fully as large as the MacBook, but it's just
three-quarters of an inch thick at it's thickest point. In profile,
MacBook Air is a wedge, just 0.18 inches thick at its narrowest.
The
large footprint provides the space for a 13.3", 1200x800-pixel display,
a full-size keyboard, and an oversized trackpad. Unlike the retired 12"
PowerBook, which was barely as wide as its keyboard, MacBook Air offers
a larger palm rest area, and we've already discovered this makes for a
remarkably comfortable work surface when holding MacBook Air in the lap.
MacBook Air fits nicely into a standard business folio
Trading
power for size, the MacBook Air is the slowest of Apple's current
laptops, however. It uses an ultra-compact 1.6-GHz CPU, developed by
Intel especially for Apple. The Air also omits the MacBook Pro's
dedicated graphics processor and video memory in favor of Intel's
slower, but smaller integrated graphics controller, which steals 144 MB
of system memory. And Apple uses a tiny hard drive, similar to an
iPod's, instead of a standard 2.5-inch laptop drive.
All of
this compact but low-speed hardware means the MacBook Air won't be
winning any Photoshop or Final Cut Studio contests any time soon. So if
it's so slow, one has to ask, will it sell?
Almost
certainly. The PC industry has been turning out ultra-light notebook
computers that are significantly slower than their bigger cousins for
years. Most are niche products, commanding high price tags and fat
profit margins, with loyal customers. Enduring examples include IBM's
ThinkPad 200 and ThinkPad X Series and the Sony VAIO 505 series.
First Impressions
Opening the MacBook
Air's box is a treat. Unlike the utilitarian Styrofoam packing of other
MacBooks, it literally presents the Air to you on a tray.
The
packaging is clearly inspired by iPhone's, in both look and function.
Instead of corrugated cardboard and a hinged lid, the Air's box is made
of stiff single-ply cardboard, and the top lifts off entirely. Inside,
instead of a stiff Styrofoam shell, MacBook Air is presented on a
simple, lightweight plastic tray. The inside of the lid is covered in
light foam padding. Underneath the tray are neat compartments for the
45-watt power brick and extension cord, video adapters, documentation
and software restore discs.
Like the original iPod's
unfolding cube box used in 2001, and like the iPhone box today, the
MacBook Air's packaging is an experience that says you're about to
touch something special.
Sleek
elegance is the first impression of the MacBook Air, and touching it is
pure pleasure. It's the most visually and tactilely compelling Mac
laptop since the black PowerBook G3 series.
And
everything about the MacBook Air exudes precision. The screen opens
more smoothly than any Apple laptop's in recent memory. Interior edges
are crisp and defined, but without the painfully sharp edges that
plague the polycarbonate MacBooks. Curved bevel edges are reminiscent
of the recently updated iPod Classic's face, and the up-curved bottom
makes picking it up off a table shockingly easy.
The
MacBook Air is remarkably sturdy, too. Closed, it doesn't twist at all;
it's much more resistant to torsion than a 15" PowerBook G4 or MacBook
Pro. Opened, the screen can be slightly twisted, but the base is rock
solid. The Air seems to have a monocoque design, stiffened by the
bottom curves and lacking the interior frame found in other Mac laptops.
Those
same curves make the Air supremely comfortable to use when sitting
tailor-style, and heat build-up doesn't seem to be a problem. The left
rear gets warm but not uncomfortable, even when the processor is busy
enough to turn on the cooling fan.
Keyboard feel is as
expected — indistinguishable from the MacBook keyboard — but the
backlit keys are black instead of white. A light sensor near the iSight
camera adjusts both display and keyboard brightness to match the
environment.
The MacBook Air's display is extremely bright.
Like the LED-backlit MacBook Pro we reviewed last year, the Air's
screen is distinct and colorful even in direct sunlight. At the same
size as the MacBook's 13.3" display, we expected the MacBook Air's
display to be identical, but it is far superior — brighter and clearer
with a wider viewing angle. Like many laptop displays, it looks a bit
yellow when viewed far off-center, but the effect is much less
pronounced than on the MacBook.
The oversize trackpad is
nice, but the button is shallower versus previous MacBooks and MacBook
Pros. Click-feel is nice and solid in the center but slightly soft at
the far left and right sides.
The trackpad's Multitouch
feature, adapted from Apple's iPhone, is fascinating. Watching an image
rotate in Preview, with the twist of two fingers, is startling. Pinch
and open gestures zoom images smoothly, though it requires a bit slower
motion than the iPhone. A three-fingered swipe backs up (or forward) a
step in a web browser or in the Finder, or among photos or PDF pages in
Preview.
But the "navigation" gesture confused our iPhone-trained fingers; instead of moving the object of the manipulation in the direction of the swipe, it moves the viewport.
This is consistent with traditional Mac/Windows behavior, but exactly
opposite the iPhone and iPod Touch. Anyone who uses both the MacBook
Air and the iPhone should soon develop separate reflexes for each
device, though; after a few days, we switched back and forth without
conscious effort.
Features
"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
Antoine de Saint Exupéry, 1939, Terre des Hommes
Apple
appears to have taken the poet and aviator Antoine de Saint Exupéry to
heart... the Air dispenses with many of the ports and features of the
MacBook Pro and even of the less expensive MacBook. There is no CD/DVD
drive, no FireWire or Ethernet port, no microphone jack, no S-Video.
MacBook Air has just three ports, hidden in a drop-down hatch on the
right side: a headphone jack, a single USB port, and a micro-DVI port
are its sole concessions to the wired world.
Two other
limitations are also important. The MacBook Air's memory is
non-expandable; its 2 GB worth of memory chips are soldered onto the
logic board and there is no provision for more. And its battery, unlike
every other Apple laptop ever made, cannot be replaced with a spare
when it runs out of power.
On the wireless side, MacBook
Air does include both 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless networking,
and Apple promotes a "Remote Disc" feature that enables you to use
another Mac or PC as a wireless CD/DVD drive. More on that below....
Hardware
The standard MacBook Air has a 1.6-GHz Core 2
Duo processor and an 80GB hard drive. The tiny 1.8", 4200-RPM drive is
the same size as that used in Apple's iPod Classic. And like the
iPod's, it's dead silent — we can't hear it unless we literally press
our ear to the Air's metal shell.
A slightly faster,
1.8-GHz processor is available as a $300 option, and a flash-memory
based 64GB SSD (solid-state drive) is an additional $999 option. And
that's as customizable as it gets.
Both models have 2 GB of
RAM, a high-quality 13.3" display, Intel GMA X3100 integrated graphics
(the same as used in the MacBook), and Apple's "Sudden Motion Sensor"
that parks the hard drive if it detects the Mac is falling.
Remote Disc
Although MacBook Air lacks a CD/DVD drive,
Apple acknowledges you might need one — say, to install software such
as Apple's own iWork, or Microsoft Office. Or to restore the system
software from the DVD's included with MacBook Air.
Apple's
solution to this is "Remote Disc". Included on the MacBook Air
installer disc is custom CD/DVD sharing software you can install on
other Mac and Windows systems. On the MacBook Air itself, the Finder
has a new "Remote Disc" icon in the sidebar "Devices" list. When you
click this icon, MacBook Air scans the local network (using Bonjour)
for host Macs or PCs with this special software installed and shows you
every computer with the Remote Disc service enabled. Selecting one of
these computers shows any available discs; click that disc to mount it
on the MacBook Air's desktop. (By default, the host computer will ask
its user to approve the Remote Disc connection request. This can be
disabled.)
Office 2008 CD mounted via Remote Disc
The
MacBook Air also can start itself remotely from its installer disc
served elsewhere on the network, which makes it possible to conduct
system software upgrades or file system repairs without an optical
drive. Starting in this way isn't anywhere as quick as starting from a
local drive, but it is at least possible.
When you install the Remote Disc
sharing software on another Mac or PC, it installs a new program in
your Utilities folder, "Remote Install Mac OS X." This software
leverages the NetBoot system from Mac OS X Server. When started, it
guides you through the steps to start the MacBook Air from its software
DVD. It works over both AirPort and Ethernet.
On the
MacBook Air end, startup is easy: hold the option key as it starts up,
and it searches the network for Remote Install hosts. It even scans
available AirPort networks, or lets you enter specific network name to
join a hidden wireless network.Of course, it works with Apple's
USB-Ethernet adapter too.
Once started over the network,
the system software setup works like any other Mac OS X Leopard startup
disc. You can access Disk Utility and Terminal, reset the Mac's
password, set a firmware password, run System Profiler or Network
Utility, and even restore from a Time Machine backup.
We
haven't yet tried the Remote Install software with custom-built DVDs,
but we expect we ought to be able to make custom startup discs for
utilities such as Alsoft DiskWarrior.
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Remote Disc doesn't enable you to play
DVDs, though (Apple would be happy to rent you movies from iTunes
instead), and some copy-protected games may not work. For those, you'll
need local hardware.
MacBook Air SuperDrive
And for those cases where only a
real CD/DVD drive will do, Apple sells a $99 MacBook Air SuperDrive.
Connecting to the MacBook Air's sole USB port, this super-slim,
lightweight drive does everything you would expect. It reads and writes
CDs and DVDs in all the popular formats, and does it pretty quickly too.
The
drive needs more power than the USB specification provides, though, so
Apple provided extra, non-standard power to the USB port. This means
the MacBook Air's USB SuperDrive doesn't work with any other Mac, nor
does it work with USB hubs.
We tried the MacBook Air
SuperDrive directly attached to an iMac Core Duo and also connected to
a powered USB 2.0 hub. While the SuperDrive did show up on the System
Profiler's USB device tree in both cases, the SuperDrive didn't
actually function. We had hoped it might work in a reduced-performance
mode, but it wasn't even able to suck in a CD (despite making a
whirring sound in the attempt).
(Had Apple used FireWire,
power and compatibility would not have been an issue. FireWire provides
45 watts, compared to USB's standard 2.5 watts.)
MacBook Air with external SuperDrive
Adapters and Dongles
In its minimization quest, MacBook
Air also uses a custom (non-standard) micro-DVI video port — it's even
smaller than the mini-DVI port used in the MacBook. Included in the
Air's box are VGA and DVI adapters. We tested both adapters at
resolutions up to 1600x1200 and experienced no problems. (Display
rotation worked fine, too.) It's a little hard to tell which side of
the adapter is up, though; expect some fumbling as you learn.
Though
MacBook Air lacks an Ethernet port, Apple does sell a rather elegant
little USB-Ethernet adapter for $29, which operates at 10/100
Mbit/sec., not gigabit speeds (not surprising since USB 2.0 is limited
to 480 Mbit/sec.). We discovered that the adapter gets a slightly warm
after a period of sustained network activity. And, it, too, is
incompatible with other Macs.
Accessibility
When it comes to getting inside, Apple's
recent laptops run the gamut — the 12" PowerBook is especially
challenging, but the MacBook's hard drive is easily replaced. MacBook
Air falls somewhere in the middle of Apple's modern designs.
Ten
tiny Phillips-head screws secure the bottom panel; once unscrewed, it
just lifts off, revealing the battery, hard drive, and logic board
inside. The battery looks huge but it's thin, rated at 37 watt-hours.
(For comparison, the MacBook Pro has a 60 watt-hour battery.) The hard
drive is cushioned with a bit of foam, but there's not even enough
space to install the slightly-thicker, 160GB drive used for an iPod
Classic.
A relatively large fan flows air across the
processor's heat sink; both intake and exhaust ports are on the rear of
the laptop. The heat sink touches the lower case, turning the entire
bottom into an extended heat sink. (Unlike the MacBook and MacBook Pro,
the case never gets uncomfortably hot, though.) The single speaker is
underneath the right side of the keyboard, near the hatch for video,
audio, and USB ports.
Most buyers will never have cause to
open up MacBook Air for service, as Apple performs battery
replacements, but at least it looks fairly straightforward if required.
[See iFixit disassembly, linked below, for more details.]
Performance
With a 1.6-GHz, Core 2 Duo
processor and a 4200-RPM hard drive, nobody expects the MacBook Air to
be a speed demon. So we were pleasantly surprised by its general
responsiveness. While disk-intensive operations, such as starting up
applications, were noticeably slower than on a MacBook Pro, routine web
browsing, email, and word processing tasks were quick. PowerPoint 2008
ran transitions and builds in its dual-screen Presenter Tools mode with
no slow-downs at all.
Geekbench scores, which test pure
processor performance, show the 1.6-GHz MacBook Air to be about 80% the
speed of a 2.0-GHz "Late 2006" Macbook.
When we moved a
VMware virtual machine from an iMac Core Duo to the MacBook Air,
Windows XP fired up and ran fine. It took a bit longer to start up than
usual but otherwise was quite usable.
Hard Drive
The MacBook Air's hard drive is its Achilles
heel. This Samsung HS082HB is a 1.8", 4200-RPM, parallel ATA drive,
similar to that used in the iPod Classic, and it just isn't built for
speed.
Samsung's rated average seek time of 13 ms isn't bad
for a laptop drive (most run 11-12 ms), so it can get back and forth
across the platter in reasonable time. But the average rotational
latency of 8.3 ms (vs the 5.5–6 ms for a typical 5400-RPM, 2.5" drive)
means it takes a while for the disk to spin around and present data to
the read/write head — and this seems to be a real limiting factor.
(We
speculate that the lack of SATA's NCQ, or native command queuing, may
also limit the PATA drive's random access performance, but there is no
good way to test this.)
Our AJA Kona File Sweep tests
showed decent but unspectacular throughput, with a sustained read speed
of 26.8 MB/sec, and writes at 30.5 MB/sec. This doesn't lag far behind
our three-year-old PowerBook G4's 80GB Toshiba drive (33 and 31
MB/sec.), but the LED MacBook Pro's 120GB Fujitsu, which we tested last
year puts them both to shame, at 36 and 38 MB/sec.
In terms
of the user experience, you'll be waiting longer than you would be on a
MacBook or MacBook Pro anytime you're using the disk. For example,
simply switching from Photo Booth's video effects pane to the new
motion video composite effects had a long freeze every single time we
did it. And starting a PowerPC application that requires Rosetta takes
noticeably longer than it takes to start the same application on a
two-year old MacBook Core Duo with a relatively slow 160GB Western
Digital Scorpio drive.
At the time of this review, MacBook
Airs with the 64 GB solid-state drives are a bit thin on the ground,
and we haven't had the opportunity to test one. (MacInTouch readers who
ordered SSD models on the day of announcement are still waiting for
them.) Since an SSD doesn't have to move a read/write arm across the
disk, or wait for a platter to spin to the needed sector, we expect the
SSD model ought to perform better than the standard MacBook Air drive,
although it's still a parallel ATA device.
In terms of
capacity, the 80GB hard drive won't be suitable for everyone. A
10,000-photo iPhoto library we use for testing is 23 GB — not much of a
strain. But over the years our iTunes library has grown to over 60 GB.
Combined, they exceed the capacity of the MacBook Air's 80 GB drive —
even ignoring the space required by applications and Mac OS X itself!
Our
test unit arrived with nothing more than Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and
iLife '08 installed, making the most of limited disk space. Unlike
other Macs we've received, there were no trial versions of iWork '08,
Microsoft Office or Aperture pre-installed. After installing Microsoft
Office 2008 and iWork '08, and bringing over a 9GB VMware Fusion
virtual machine, we were already down to 43 GB of free space.
Battery Life
Apple claims a 5-hour battery life for the
MacBook Air, but that's optimistic at best. We never achieved it and
haven't found anyone else who has either.
We think the
process of writing this review might be representative of typical
workday usage: Lots of typing in Microsoft Word (which saves an
Autorecovery checkpoint file every 10 minutes), interspersed with web
browsing (several windows, each with several tabs), jumping back and
forth into Excel, accessing files on other Macs over the wireless
network (and a bit of screen sharing), and email checks automatically
every 5 minutes. The hard drive isn't working constantly, but neither
does it sit idle for long. Activity Monitor reports about 300 MB of
free system memory out of the MacBook Air's 2 GB, so it's not really
dipping into virtual memory.
Under these conditions, the
MacBook Air ran unplugged for about 3.75 hours, until it warned "You
are now running on reserve battery power". That's pretty reasonable,
but still more than an hour from Apple's claim. And we saw the battery
drain even faster when playing full-screen videos.
Historically,
Apple's battery life claims have been pretty realistic, so perhaps the
expensive SSD drive is the key to getting the claimed five hours. Or,
perhaps there is a reason that Apple has removed the text "5 full
hours" from the MacBook Air's technical specifications web page since
it was introduced.
Issues
Battery
The MacBook Air's battery isn't accessible, so
frequent fliers won't be able to swap in a spare when they need more
juice. MacBook Air seems to assume that you'll have short flights or
access to power outlets — neither of which is true for most of us who
don't have private jets. Most US domestic carriers don't have power
outlets at every seat, even in business class, and those who fly often
inevitably become too familiar with phrases such as "holding pattern"
and "waiting for landing clearance."
Apple dropped the ball here. This isn't
an iPod; it's a productivity tool. Running out of power doesn't just
mean the music stops — work stops. Two years after introducing the
proprietary MagSafe connector, Apple still hasn't licensed it to
companies such as Kensington that make external battery packs, so when
your battery is out, you're out of luck. However, there are a few
options, though they aren't sanctioned by Apple.
Entrepreneur
Mike Lee sells Kensington and iGo battery packs with custom-made
MagSafe cables, harvested from Apple power supplies. And, MacInTouch
reader Gershom Martin has informed us of a vendor named Battery Geek
that sells external battery packs with MagSafe-compatible cables. Mr
Martin reports the BG 15-21-130 powered MacBook Air in a 9-hour plane
flight with power to spare.
We then contacted Battery Geek
CEO Sean Murray, who said that their connector does not infringe upon
Apple's patent, as it only provides external power, not battery
charging, and omits Apple's status LED. This looks like a viable option
for travelers.
And finally, we have spotted MagSafe
knock-offs on eBay, shipping from Hong Kong, that purport to work with
Kensington battery packs.
(Links are provided at end of review.)
CD/DVD
Though it's an extra cost, we suggest buying the
separate MacBook Air SuperDrive just to avoid hassles. Remote Disc is
quick enough for installing applications, but booting from Remote Disc
offers lessons in patience. And Remote Disc can't be used to install
Windows with Boot Camp.
The Superdrive takes over the Air's
one available USB port and doesn't work with any USB hubs, yet it
doesn't provide any downstream USB ports. This is a startling oversight
and seriously impairs the Air's potential as a hybrid portable/desktop
system. (Apple's Bluetooth keyboard may help here, as another
extra-cost option, but we didn't test it.)
Migration Assistant
We have several reports of problems
with the MacBook Air's Migration Assistant program. MacInTouch readers
reported that they were unable to get the Migration Assistant to
complete migration over the wireless network and only resolved the
problem by purchasing the USB-Ethernet adapter and going wired. (We
haven't yet tested this.)
Minor issues
Unlike some other Apple laptops, there is
no "prevent accidental input" option in the Trackpad system
preferences, and we occasionally clicked with a palm by accident while
typing, resulting in text appearing in unexpected places.
The
ambient light sensor is a bit too sensitive: the screen sometimes
dimmed or brightened when a shadow passed over it as we were working.
And,
while the Air's custom MagSafe power connector is elegant, it is
possible to loop the cord backwards on itself, such that the cord spins
the laptop around in place, with the potential to yank it off a table,
in a way the MacBook and MacBook Pro wouldn't do.
The Air's
headphone jack is slightly recessed. We had no trouble with any
headphones we had on hand, but we've received some reader reports of
plugs that don't work. The workaround is to buy one of those those
obnoxious, overpriced extenders sold for the iPhone's recessed jack.
Hopefully you won't need one.
As we noted earlier, MacBook Air's memory isn't expandable, and it has no Ethernet or FireWire port.
Lastly,
the Air's footprint is relatively large, but we think this is a fair
trade-off, and we discovered that it still fits neatly into a leather
business folio.
Conclusions
MacBook Air is a pleasure both
to behold and use. It's quick enough for web, email, office
applications, watching movies, and wasting time on YouTube. It slows
down if you push memory usage past its 2 GB of built-in RAM, when slow
virtual memory on disk comes into play, and launching applications
takes longer than on a MacBook or MacBook Pro with its slow disk. The
Air will run Aperture, but without a full-strength graphics controller
or a faster drive, MacBook Air lacks the horsepower needed for
applications such as Final Cut Studio.
MacBook Air is
neither a speedy, expandable "pro" laptop, nor an inexpensive, rugged
"consumer" laptop. In light of the traditional Jobs product matrix,
it's not entirely clear who the target buyer is, but we expect the Air
to appeal to two groups of customers.
Business users who
travel frequently will find the MacBook Air's three-pound weight and
slim profile highly appealing. Its video port easily drives a
projector; its spacious keyboard makes note-taking a breeze; and its
bright, clear screen is highly usable. Saving two and a half pounds of
weight over a 15" MacBook Pro may not sound like much, but if you carry
a laptop everywhere, it's a noticeable difference. We think the MacBook
Air will find a home as an "accessory" Mac in the business market, with
an iMac on the desk and the MacBook Air in the bag. But MacBook Air's
non-swappable battery is a gross oversight that may limit its appeal to
frequent fliers.
We also expect the MacBook Air to appeal
to well-heeled consumers who don't need stellar performance but who do
value style (not to mention Air's superior display). Just $300
separates the black MacBook from the sleek MacBook Air.
Those
who bought the 12" PowerBook a few years ago might consider the MacBook
Air, if their storage and performance requirements are limited.
Although
the MacBook Air has much to criticize — battery and hard drive foremost
— its benefits are compelling. A bright, clear, full-size display and
backlit keys make it usable without the squinting and crunched fingers
that characterize most ultralights. It's so thin, and so light, that it
slides into a bag and makes hardly a bulge; even with its power brick
and video and USB-Ethernet adapters, it seems hardly to add any weight
to the load.
And MacBook Air's industrial design is a
stunning union of form and function. The curved bevels make it look
even slimmer than it is, yet create a super-stiff chassis, which
doesn't flex or bend, and make it easy to pick the computer up off a
table one-handed. Its wedge profile makes typing easy, and it settles
into the lap comfortably.
And the Air is lighter than any
Mac laptop ever made before, including the legendary PowerBook Duo. Not
since the black PowerBook G3 series have we used such a tactile
machine; not since the PowerBook 500 series has an Apple laptop so
enthralled us.
At the end of the day, the MacBook Air isn't
about speed, features, or bang-for-the-buck. Its value is simply this:
it's both beautiful and a pleasure to use.
Review By : Macintouch
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