TUAW Reviews the MacBook Air

As you probably know, I'm one of the people who, upon first opportunity after the Macworld Keynote ended a few weeks ago, exited the hall into the lobby of Moscone West and immediately ordered a MacBook Air -- the 1.6 Ghz version with the 80GB hard drive, to be exact. I've already spelled out my reasons for ordering one and you've all had a chance to comment and otherwise make your views known, good or bad, regarding my decision.

Now, after waiting for Apple to ship my MacBook Air to me, its finally here and in my hands. In fact, I'm writing this very review on it. So, now that it's here and I can examine it more closely, use it and otherwise put it through its paces, does it live up to my expectations? Will I really miss not having Firewire or more than one USB port? Will the MBA become my notebook of choice or now that I can actually use it, do I regret ordering? For those answers, and more, read on.


Size and Weight

First, let's talk about what many people (particularly Apple) are talking about: how thin and light the MacBook Air is. At 3 pounds and .76" thick, the MBA is the lightest and thinnest notebook I've ever used and for me, the weight in particular was a major deciding factor in getting the MacBook Air. Now that I have had a chance to carry it around in my bag for a day or so, I can say the lack of weight makes an even bigger difference than I originally thought.

To be sure, nobody has ever called me small or weak in the past so its not that I can't carry a couple extra pounds around in the form of a notebook and associated peripherals. Its just that if I don't have to, why should I? The MBA being this small and light and still feeling solid and very usable makes for a winning combination. And let's not forget that the MBA's power brick is very small and light as well.

The power brick for the MBA is even smaller and weighs less than the one used by the MacBook, so that makes a difference too, especially as I'm used to carrying the giant brick for the MacBook Pro. If you still can't imagine how little 3 pounds is or how really small the power brick is, head to your local Apple store and heft one for yourself. Then, go pick up a MacBook Pro. The difference is pretty amazing...



Performance and Battery Life

As a few other sites who get Apple products given to them in advance have already run a slew of benchmarks, all which tell a similar story regarding the MBA's performance, I didn't run any myself. Also, for me the use of the MBA is less about numbers on a graph and more about how it feels and how it works for me when I do what I do with a notebook -- which these days consists primarily of writing, surfing, occasional photo work and other similar tasks.

Coming from a 15" 2.3 Ghz Core Duo 2 MacBook Pro with 3GB of RAM, at times the performance of the MBA seems a bit sluggish in comparison. The spinning beach ball makes more frequent appearances, especially when several programs are open at the same time and I'm doing something which requires a lot of hard drive access -- encoding video or running more intensive apps like Photoshop. The MBA also has less RAM at 2GB and shared video memory, instead of a dedicated graphics card like the MBP, which surely contributes as well.

However, it performs pretty much identically to the MacBook I used before the MBP as they have almost exactly the same specs in terms of processor and RAM. The main difference between them being the kind of hard drive -- the MacBook sporting a SATA 5400 RPM drive while the MBA has the smaller Parallel ATA drive running at 4200 RPM .

I tend to think most performance bottlenecks on the MBA (especially in comparison to the MBP) are more because of the hard drive rather than any other component like processor or memory. It would be nice to test this while using the SSD version of the MBA and see if disk access is as much of an issue. Unfortunately, we don't have one here at TUAW to test but when we do, I'll let you know how it turns out.

While we're taking hardware, let's talk a bit about expandability and the MBA. The short answer is you can't expand it. What you see is what you get. There is no place to even add RAM as the 2GB it ships with is soldered on the motherboard. Nor can you replace the battery if you need to -- at least not without a screwdriver and some extra time. For me, these two issues are not a deal-breaker but it would have been nice to have the ability to increase the amount of RAM (as I always do with every Mac I buy) and be able to swap out a battery quickly and easily if necessary.

Speaking of batteries, how about the battery life? I went through several cycles of charge and discharge and under normal use (surfing, writing, Twitter, iPhoto) I was getting close to three hours per charge. Not bad but not near the five hours Apple claims. Still, I can't remember the last time I was away from a power outlet for more than three hours (maybe on a plane) so this won't be a huge problem for me in everyday use.

Although, even if the battery life (or lack of) won't be a huge issue for me, it would still be nice to have a laptop with much longer life -- or even the five hours Apple claims. I'm sure I would find a way to use five or more hours of battery if I had it. Maybe someday? Until then, close to three hours with the MBA will have to do. That's still better than the 1.5 hours or so I used to get with the MacBook Pro.

Usability

As a person who does a lot of typing, I was very concerned that the MBA's keyboard would be similar to that offered on the MacBook. Previously, I had tried using a MacBook but found the keyboard to be something I just couldn't get used to, primarily due to the spacing of the keys and their somewhat shallow depression. Fortunately, though the MBA's keyboard is similar in appearance (the "chiclets" are still in effect) Apple has made some changes which makes it far more usable, at least for me.

I'm not an Apple engineer so I can't tell you exactly what those changes are except that the MBA's keyboard feels like the keys are a bit shorter than those on the MacBook. They also seem slightly closer together and when pressed, seem to go in a bit deeper -- all of which makes it more comfortable for me to type on with fewer mistakes.

In addition to its comfortable, full-size keyboard, the screen is also one of the MBA's best features. The 13.3" mercury-free LED back-lit display is very bright and provides even illumination across the face. I thought it would feel small after the 15" MacBook Pro, but with the screen's 1280 x 800 resolution I'm able to fit in all the windows I need at comfortable sizes and I can also read text on the screen with no difficulty, even at relatively small font sizes.

Sure, the MBA's screen is smaller than the MacBook Pro's and would probably be less useful to someone doing video editing or another task where maximizing screen real estate is super-important, but for me the size of the screen works -- especially in combination with the MBA's size and weight. To have this much screen and still have such a small footprint is a truly amazing feat of engineering. If you're looking for something a bit bigger, perhaps Apple will come to the table with a 14" version of the MBA someday?

Shortcomings

Even with a notebook as advanced and feature-rich as the MBA, there had to be compromises. We've already talked about the lack of RAM expandability and that you can't swap out a depleted battery for a fresh one. One thing I didn't mention was how difficult or simple it is to start using the MBA once you've opened the box and turned it on. This is, unfortunately, one of the areas where the MBA falls pretty short of expectations.

Apple's plan for new MBA users who are migrating from an older Mac is to use Migration Assistant to bring over their files, apps and other necessities from the older Mac to the MBA. That's a great plan except for one major flaw -- the MBA doesn't have a Firewire port and you can't use Migration Assistant via USB. Given those limitations, what does Apple recommend?

Apple wants you to use Migration Assistant either via Ethernet or using the Air's remote disk feature. Like several other MBA reviewers, I gave Migration Assistant over remote disk a try first, just to see how it works. As many others have found, it works very poorly. In fact, for me, it didn't work at all after several attempts. The farthest I got was the Migration Assistant actually seemed to be copying files from my MacBook Pro to the MBA. Sadly, that progress bar never moved in the four hours I left it. So, I gave up on that.

Next, I attempted to use the USB Ethernet adapter to perform the data migration. This time I met with more success and the entire operation was able to complete -- only taking about two and a half hours. Not bad but something that used to take far less time using Firewire. Yes, this is one of those times when I miss having a Firewire port. I don't know if there will be more in the future but right now that was it.

Another apparent shortcoming of the MBA seems to be related to its wireless capability, particularly when copying files from other machines or downloading from the Internet. Side by side on the same wireless network, using the same web browser and downloading the same file, the MBA took an average of one and a half times longer to download the file as the MacBook Pro did. Also, during a file copy via wireless, the MBA also took almost twice as long to copy a 100 MB file as the MacBook Pro did.

As of yet, I did not test it using other wireless access points, only my own. However, as both computers were on the same network and purportedly use the same wireless hardware internally, this seemed like a reasonable test to determine wireless performance. This is by no means conclusive, of course, but it is a bit troubling.

For a computer that relies so heavily on wireless connectivity, the MBA seems to have some type of issue with wireless throughput, at least after these few preliminary tests. Hopefully this is something that can be fixed via a future software update or can easily be remedied by other troubleshooting. Until then, I will continue to test and see what results I get. Perhaps I will also discuss this issue with Apple.

Bottom Line

Like many products that come from Apple, the MacBook Air represents a radical step in the evolution of the notebook and the way we use them. Its slim size, weight, full-size keyboard, lack of an internal optical drive and other factors make it much different from almost all other notebooks currently on the market.

It may not be the right notebook for you. You may lament its apparent shortcoming and wish Apple had done something different or more in line with your expectations. But in the end, using the MBA comes down to personal choice. It may not be the notebook for you, but it is for me -- even with its few issues.

The bottom line for me was I wanted the smallest, lightest, most powerful notebook I could get and I wanted it to come from Apple. The MacBook Air is that notebook. Now that I have it I intend to use it daily as my notebook of choice. That is, until Apple comes out with something even better.
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