The MacBook Air: Does It Live Up To Hype?
Wednesday, February 20th, 2008 |
If you have not heard about the MacBook Air by now, you probably have been living under a rock for the past month. The incredibly hyped notebook, dubbed as the thinnest notebook in the world, has been available for about a month with a starting price tag of $1,799.
This ultralight (if it can even be placed under the ultralight category) laptop comes standard with Mac OS X Leopard, a full-size keyboard, a 13.3 in. backlit LCD, and if you so please, a cutting edge solid-state drive. The only real nagging problem with this notebook is the fact that it only has one USB port and one FireWire port. I mean, we cant really ask for more can we? This thing looks like the product of a Sumo Wrestler sitting on a MacBook Pro for crying out loud, they had to cut some features out. Simply put, if you need a lot of ports to connect your toys to, look elsewhere as the MacBook Air is probably not for you.
On the other hand, if you enjoy traveling light and in style, this notebook will be sure to turn heads wherever you go. After all, what other notebook can you fit inside an interoffice mailing envelope? Besides that, the MacBook Air weights a mere 3 pounds! You really need to go to an Apple store and pick up the MacBook Air yourself as it is impossible to put into words how light and compact it feels.
Ok, I get it. It’s small and sexy but how does it perform?
You would think that it would not perform anywhere near the level of the MacBook Pro, after all, on paper the entry-level MacBook Air sports a 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo chip, an 80GB hard drive, and 2 Gigs of Ram (Which by the way, you can’t upgrade, it is soldered to the logic board), which is not really mind boggling. With these specs I thought it could not possibly measure up to my MacBook Pro running a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo chip and rocking 4GB of Ram. To my surprise, the MacBook Air faired very well. E-Mails could be composed and sent out with a few clicks, Internet browsing was lightning fast, and text editing was quick and painless. In other words, common every day tasks where no problem for the MacBook Air. When faced with more resource demanding applications such as Photoshop or loading games, the differences became more apparent. While your system will not crash and burn on you while opening resource intensive applications or games, there is a significant trade off in load time. On average, the MacBook Pro opened said applications about 12 to 15 seconds faster than the MacBook Air.
The previous example was brought forth for comparison purposes only. Comparing the MacBook Pro to the MacBook Air is unfair. The fact is that the MacBook Air was designed with a different consumer in mind. It is an ideal computer for those who enjoy having the latest technology and like to travel light. Is a trade off necessary? Yeah, of course it is. But let it be known to all that the MacBook Air performs very admirably regardless of what you throw at it. It is one of the most beautiful pieces of technology ever made and if you do not mind trading a few USB ports and a bit of performance for an extremely portable and gorgeous looking notebook, then do not hesitate to make your purchase.
Bottom line: The MacBook Air handles day to day computer operations admirably and would fit the life of an on the go executive just fine while turning heads in the process, just don’t expect it to replace your desktop, or your MacBook Pro for that matter.
