Apple MacBook Air

Full Review

When it comes to a premium product like the Apple MacBook Air, you have to let your jaw drop without worrying too much about your wallet. Apple has bumped up the specs on its latest iteration of the Air, but all that is secondary to its slim design and rock solid build.

Design
The MacBook Air is built out of a single block of aluminum and measures just three-quarters-of-an-inch at its thickest point. If not the best, it is surely right up there with some of the best laptops in terms of overall build and slim design (along with the Dell Adamo XPS premium ultraportable laptop). Apart from its glossy 13-inch screen and isolated, chiclet-styled keyboard, the entire unit is encased in aluminum. This helps give the Air a characteristic premium feel. Another thing that bowls you over is its slim, super-light chassis -- where netbooks compromise on overall usability, the Air packs in a 13-inch widescreen and a full-sized, backlit keyboard, and weighs similar to a mainstream netbook at 1.35-kg. Truly a noteworthy achievement, as far as product design goes. It isn't slimmer than the Dell Adamo XPS or Sony VAIO X, the MacBook Air, but it's definitely slimmer than the Sony VAIO Z - our top ultraportable laptop.

If not the best, the MacBook Air is surely right up there with some of the best ultraportable laptops in terms of overall build and slim design.

Features
High-end ultraportables have a notorious reputation to pack in ultra-low voltage processors that compromise performance, but not the MacBook Air. At the Air's heart runs an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.13-GHz processor, ably aided by 2GB of DDR2 RAM and a 128GB solid-state drive. Not only that but a dedicated graphics card -- Nvidia GeForce 9400M -- is also thrown in to drive away any inhibitions casual gamers and multimedia enthusiasts might have. No compromises on wireless connectivity either, with integrated Bluetooth and Wi-Fi Draft-N support.

But it isn't all good news for the Air. In its quest to be as slim as it is, Apple has had to make some glaring omissions. On its right edge, in the form of a drop-down panel, the Air only offers one USB port, an audio jack, and a mini DisplayPort. Nothing else, no multicard reader, no FireWire, and no Ethernet port either. It comes with an 8x dual-layered DVD writer called SuperDrive, and a USB-to-Ethernet connector. But at any given time, unless you deploy a USB hub, the MacBook Air can accomodate only one USB connected device -- which sucks.

Performance
We were pleased by the Air's performance. It was better than some of the high-end ultraportables we've reviewed in the past, for e.g. the Samsung X360 and Dell Latitude E4200, but not as good as the Asus U6V Bamboo laptop. You can multitask with ease, no problem at all. People looking forward to watching high-definition content should take heart: the Air can handle high-definition media (both 720p and 1080p) without any trouble. Its isolated, chiclet-styled keyboard is a treat to type on. Moreover it's backlit and comes with an ambient light sensor--helps automatically adjust keyboard illumination and screen brightness. The screen is bright and evenly lit, the touchpad is nice and wide and so is the palmrest. But the all-aluminum chassis gets quite warm after extended usage. Also it's battery life of 4 hours 20 minutes (surfing the Web on Wi-Fi), which is quite good by itself, isn't the best we've seen in an ultraportable.

Bottom Line

It's the same old story. If you want a feature-packed MacBook with top notch performance, look elsewhere. However, if you want a fully functional laptop that is small, slim, lightweight, and a design statement unlike any other, the Air you must have.