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In-Depth Review of the MacBook Air With Photos

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the long-road-ahead dept.

Engadget has the first really in-depth review of the MacBook Air that I have seen with plenty of great photos and specifics. They do a great job of highlighting the highs and the lows with plenty of concrete examples to back their claims up. It seems that while the MacBook Air is a great step towards ultra-portable computing, overall the pricepoint is just too high. Which is not surprising from a new Apple gadget I guess.

4 of 244 comments (clear)

  1. Re:NOT Bad placement by yabos · · Score: 5, Informative

    Didn't you see the mag safe adaptor that comes with it? It's a 90 degree adaptor that fits while the MBA is on any flat surface. The one they showed on the edge of the table is the MB adaptor and they only show it so you can see how you have to use the MBA adaptor.

  2. Re:NOT Bad placement by yabos · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yes it comes with it's own power adaptor that is the small one shown next to the larger MB/MBP one in one of the pictures. I don't know why they complain about the other power adaptor besides just adding words to their article.

  3. nice try by oever · · Score: 4, Informative

    The new MacBook Air will hopefully point laptop makers in the right direction: small and silent laptops. From what I can tell from the specs and the review, though, the MacBook Air is not as nice as the laptop on which I'm typing this: the Dell Latitude X1. Although the X1 is now out of production, it is still, in my opinion, the perfect laptop. Someone else has already taken the trouble of comparing the two machines. Here's the summary:

    Dell Latitude X1 is smaller (albeit slightly thicker), has a gigabit ethernet port, comes with a external DVD burner, has two USB ports and and SD and a CF slot. The battery is easily removed and replaced or upgraded.

    The MacBook Air has a dualcore 1.6 GHz processor where the X1 has a single core that clocks 1.1 GHz. Also the Air can take 2GB versus the 1.25 GB of the X1.

    The X1 comes with an obligatory copy of Windows XP, but I upgraded it to Kubuntu Feisty. The MacBook comes with an obligatory copy of Mac OS X.

    I have been developing KDE4 on my X1 just fine. The extra speed would be nice, but for a portable machine battery life is more important.

    If the X1 were still in production, it would clearly be the better laptop.

    --
    DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
    1. Re:nice try by tgd · · Score: 5, Informative

      The X1 is a great laptop -- I love mine, but I'm sorry its not even close to the Airbook. Its extremely slow (less than half the speed of a 1.6ghz C2D), its got a small keyboard and a low-resolution display.

      Its *great* for use on an airplane because the seat in front of you can be back and you can still fit it on the tray. Its great for tossing in a bag.

      There is no way on Earth you could use it as a full-time laptop unless you had midget hands and only used Office.