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"Who Needs a MacBook Pro Now?" on by Josh-Hall
Pros: 1) Boot times are lightning fast
2) It is very easy and comfortable to use
3) Very good keyboard , very easy and fast to type on it
4) Screen quality is excellent
5) Design is absolutely gorgeous and rock-solid
6) Light weight; 2.9 lbs (1.3 kg)Cons: 1) Hard disk is only 256 GB in size
2) Battery life seems less than the late 2010 model, 7 rather than 8 or 9 hoursSummary: I reviewed the latest 13" MacBook Pro shortly after it came out in February 2011 and pronounced it the best 13" notebook computer money could buy. Well, its reign at the top was short-lived and the time has come to hand over its crown to its younger brother, the latest 13" MacBook Air.
Using Intel's advanced Core i5 and i7 Sandy Bridge processors the new Air is incredibly powerful. These chips give it more than enough horsepower to comfortably outclass anything other than the early 2011 MacBook Pros. With Solid State Drives, the perceived speed of the new Air is faster than the MacBook Pro. Boot times are lightning fast. The Air only lacks power when asked to perform resource hungry work like digital editing. For all routine tasks, the latest Air demolishes my previous 2010 13" MacBook Pro. It's fair to say that it is all the computer that 99.9% of users will ever need.
Despite all this power, it doesn't get too hot. All in all, it is very easy and comfortable to use. Hard core gamers may bemoan the lack of a discrete graphics processor, but the inbuilt Intel GPU is perfectly adequate and it is certainly no worse than the previous generation of MacBook Pro which was a respectable gaming platform. Call of Duty 4 and Civilization V can both be played without enduring intolerably slow polygonal rendering. Screen quality is excellent.
The 13" Air runs MS Office flawlessly. It's great for surfing the web, watching movies, managing pictures in iPhoto and video chatting. The way in which you can perch it on your lap while sitting on a sofa makes it ideal for writing, reviewing email and doing countless other stuff in a relaxed way. It really makes you wonder why all computers aren't built this way. Since the form factor hasn't changed since 2010, suffice it to say that the Air's ergonomics are peerless.
There are two downsides. One is that the hard disk is only 256 GB in size. I think the minimum acceptable size is now 500 GB and ideally 1 TB or 2 TB. If you own a lot of media, this machine may run out of memory quite quickly. I am very surprised that Apple hasn't made a 500 GB SSD available as BTO upgrade for the Air as it has for the 13" MacBook Pro. I guess this is due to cost.
The other problem is that battery life seems less than the late 2010 model, I got 7 rather than 8 or 9 hours. This is a disappointment, but isn't a deal-breaker. You expect a certain loss in battery life when you get a much more capable chip.
In short, this is a truly great personal computer. It marks the fact that we've now reached a point in time where processor power is no longer dependent on chip size. The latest processors are capable of being squeezed into the thinnest enclosures, allowing small and light machines to perform tasks that only a few short years ago would have required a slab of plastic and metal weighing almost 10 lb. This is progress.
The OSX 10.7 Lion operating system is a work of genius. Launch Control, which enables you to review and launch all Apps via a single click, is a very clever refinement. So too is Mission Control, which replaces Expose and allows you to wade through a mass of open windows and applications to find the one you need. Lion also comes with a new Apple email programme which works well. In Safari, I like the way you can now slide pages with your fingers just as if you were turning pages in a book. Nice touch. Hundreds of other interface tweaks make this a no-brainer upgrade.
I'd go as far as to say that the latest 13" Air is so good, it makes the 13" MacBook Pro redundant. It is definitely the benchmark for future systems to beat. When you get as much power in a machine this slim, the incremental power you get in a 13" MacBook Pro doesn't seem worth it toting around in a machine that weighs so much more.
If you need a new machine now, this is undoubtedly the one to buy.
PS: If you're will buy this Macbook Air, I suggest you have to compare prices before you decide at: Compare2prices.info/MacBookAir-MC966LLA
Hope my review helpful. -
"Bliss, delight and peace (notebook nirvana)" on by Elliott Minor
Pros: Boots almost instantly, great back-lit keyboard, ample storage with 256 GB solid state drive, OS X Lion, the most clarity I've ever seen on a laptop screen. The one laptop you'd like to take into the hereafter. Do yourself a favor, take a bite of this App
Cons: This is such a perfectly designed laptop, I feel guilty every time I pull off the little plastic protector on the magnetic power connector. I'm afraid I'll loose it, but I always seem to find it.
On a more serious note, the Safari browser seemed to crashSummary: My granddaughter likes her new 13-inch MacBook Pro and one of my national guard buddies has been raving about Macs for years. I'm comfortable with Windows and Linux, but wondered if I was ambitious enough at 69-years-old to tackle OS X.
Some of my sentences were cut off in the original.
I'm glad I did. It's a very user friendly operating system. Early on, it was easy to find answers online - the type of file system, how to reformat an external hard drive to the Mac HFS+ file system, the availability of Tuxera NTFS software that allows me to access movies and TV shows stored on drives with the Windows NTFS file system, how to use Time Machine for backups.
My biggest question is, "Why didn't I do it sooner." Everything about my Air - and I'm sure this also applies to the Macbook Pro - tells me I've moved to a higher realm of computing - paradise..
Updated on Aug 14, 2011
I've switched from Safari to Firefox and had no more crashes.
The sentence "Do yourself a favor, take a bite of this App." App should be Apple.
Updated on Aug 16, 2011Just realized that it's totally free of what I consider crapware. Most of the PCs I've owned required an hour or two to get rid of software I didn't want. Even then, I was always left with the feeling that maybe I didn't get it all. I put crapware in the same category as spam, excessive television breaks for commercials and junk mail. Annoying. -
"Light weight and lightning fast" on by tlackner
Pros: Weighs little, does everything, very fast, good display, great battery life
Cons: Only 2 USB ports, keyboard not illuminated
Summary: I've been using "portable" computers since the original Compaq luggable PC. The MacBook Air finally seems to be the answer. First, it's light. That, of course, is achieved at the cost of things like a built-in DVD drive, so you wind up carrying some peripherals: for me, that's a superdrive, a 2-button bluetooth mouse, a couple of video adaptors, an ethernet adaptor ... But I put my bag on the scale the other day and even with power supply, pens, pad, etc., it comes in at less than 5 lbs. That's a long way from the 9 lbs my old MacBook Pro weighs. And that is a big deal when you're standing in endless airport security lines.
The battery life is phenomenal. It handles transatlantic flights effortlessly, although if you're working on graphic files or watching a couple of movies you'll want to add the magpower adaptor (assuming your seat has power).
The full size keyboard is a nice feature. The PC netbooks are hard for people like me (short, pudgy fingers) to use. And, speaking of PC netbooks and laptops, the MacBook Air has other strong advantages over them. One is that this is a computer, not a computer wannabe. It handles all my needs and runs all the software effortlessly, without resorting to stripped-down versions of MS Office and similar software. And, it does these things quickly. It is faster than my MacBook Pro or my PC tower, and far faster than my 15 month old PC netbook or my 3 year old PC laptop.
PC laptops and netbooks all come with another disadvantage: the jumping cursor. You're typing away and suddenly notice that the cursor isn't where it's supposed to be. Instead, it has gone back several paragraphs - or pages. This seems to be a problem endemic to PCs, because every PC laptop and netbook I've used has suffered from it. Not so with the MacBook (Air or Pro). Cursors go where you tell them, and stay there. Think about the difference between a puppy (PC) and a well-trained dog (MacBook).
The display is stunning. No other word for it. It's as good as a free-standing monitor, although you'll want a larger separate monitor if you plan to use the MacBook Air as an office machine.
Disadvantages: relatively small storage space (hence the superdrive) and only 2 USB ports for all those peripherals you're carrying plus the flash drive someone at the meeting wants to plug in. Four-port USB hubs are small and lightweight, and I carry one of them right beside my mini-powerstrip. You don't have a travel powerstrip? Maybe the best single investment I ever made. Now I don't have to move the furniture in half the hotel rooms I stay in. But these weigh little, and certainly weigh less than building them into the computer.
In short, it's only taken 25 years for me to find what I wanted: a full-featured, truly portable computer. At last, I'm the one who's envied in the coffee shops and security lines. And, from the boss's perspective, my productivity on the road is the same as in the office. Although maybe that isn't such a good thing. -
"The Best Apple Option, the best mobile Option" on by mxidis88
Pros: Thin and Light. Excellent Battery Life. Love the backlit keyboard and bright screen. Large trackpad is the best ever made especially when using OS X Lion.
Cons: I'll let you know when I find one...
Summary: I have spent the last month and a few thousand dollars(I got a big scholarship this year and had money to throw around) testing out some of apple's top computers. I've used everything from the 11" 2010 Air to the newest 13" Macbook Pro and I've finally settled on the 13" 2011 Air. This is the perfect combination of size and power for someone who is tired of carrying around a 7 lbs. beast.
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"Fast, light, sleek." on by n2dablue
Pros: Blazing speed (I opted for the 13" 1.8GHz i7), backlit keyboard, touchpad and gestures have no rival, nice long battery life, relatively loud speakers. It's been on my bare legs since unboxing and there is very little heat.
Cons: Ole Steve got a little more of my money than I'd liked. It's pricey.
Summary: If you're looking for a great laptop for travel, this is it. Don't let the lack of a CD/DVD drive stop you. I bought the external SuperDrive for that.
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