PCWorld: Windows Laptop Makers Can’t Catch Up to the MacBook Air
Building a better Air - or even just a cheaper one - is proving to be difficult. Those unibody aluminum chassis on MacBooks make them really rigid despite the thin design… Challengers like the Samsung Series 9 have metal bodies, but without the satisfying stiff feel and seamless edges of one carved from a single chuck of alloy.
Looks like PCWorld has discovered Apple's unibody advantage.
Playing catchup is tough when you're this far behind.
Some Windows PC notebook builders are calling for steep discounts from Intel as they don't think the promise of a $300 million ultrabook fund is enough… Having been quoted over $700 in parts to make an 11-inch model to square off against the MacBook Air, they didn't think the $999 target price would be achievable without help.
If the rest of the industry started a response to Apple's new designs immediately—instead of just mocking them the first two years—they'd be in a better position to compete when they realize Apple was right all along.
The Brooks Review's Lucky 13: A MacBook Air Review
Let’s get one thing out of the way right now, this is not about what the machine doesn’t have, but rather about what it does with what it does have.
You've got to love a review with the above philosophy. The whole point is to look at whatever you're reviewing in terms of its capabilities and how they fit in with what people will want to do. Rattling off what's "missing" with little or no context is pointless.
The review is long, but excellent. Maybe the best on this machine I've read. The author really gets it. I especially love this:
The biggest pluses of the MacBook Air is that you get the best portability, while maintaing great speed and screen resolution. On top of that you get more bang for your buck. By that I mean that the maxed out 13” Air I bought was $1799 before taxes. To get a 15” MacBook Pro 12 I would have to spend $1799 to start, I would want to add an SSD and more RAM in order to justify the MacBook Pro over the Air, otherwise why would you need the Pro?
This is the same reasoning I used in this piece.
The author isn't a drooling fanboy, he points out the compromises and weaknesses where they exist. But, just as in my above piece, he realizes that all machines have compromises now. It's no longer some kind of "no-brainer" that a MacBook Pro makes sense over a MacBook Air. Indeed, for most people it appears that it would not.
Great review, highly recommended, go read it.
Yet Another Reviewer Understands The MacBook Air
All things considered, what the new MacBook Air is, is an advancement of the laptop in ways that no other manufacturer has come close to touching. It’s not the least expensive option out there, though we wouldn’t necessarily call the most expensive option either. What the MacBook Air has done, is slowly start to transform the laptop industry much like the iPad and iOS have started to transform the mobile industry.
As people get a hold of this thing and see what it can do, it's becoming clear to some of them what this machine is really all about. It's nice to see another one on board.
It Dawns On Another One: MacBook Air Can Be Your Only PC
The 11-inch Air might be the first computer you can seriously take with you everywhere and almost never regret leaving your beefier machine at home.
While others are tripping over themselves still believing the MacBook Air must be a secondary machine, there are those seeing it's capable of being your only machine in it's own right. Even these people have a hard time coming right out and saying it, but they come oh so close.
If the 11" MacBook Air is something you can "take seriously" and have no issue with leaving "your beefier machine" behind, then it's pretty clear the beefier machine isn't even necessary for a lot of consumers in the first place. Not everyone's a geek who'll take the thing out of the box and open 40 tabs in Safari and 20 tabs in Chrome.
And that's just the 11" model, for the 13" the case is even stronger. That the 13" MacBook Air can be one's sole PC is a no-brainer to me. A threshold with UMPCs has been crossed, and the people having issues with it are the same ones who took too long realizing a laptop computer could be your sole PC (over a desktop) 5-10 years ago.
The standard 15" MacBook Pro has some explaining to do.
The maxed-out 13-inch MacBook Air remains about 10% slower than the standard 15" MacBook Pro with its significantly more powerful Core i5 processor
I know we're used to gauging the MacBook Air by the compromises one's willing to make, but I think the tide is turning on just what those compromises are. It seems to me more traditional notebooks are beginning to show compromises for which they must atone.
The "maxed-out" 13" Air and the standard 15" Pro are the same price ($1,799). With the Air you lose only 10% in speed and 70GB in drive space. However, you gain a much smaller package that's nearly half the weight. You keep the same resolution screen (1440x900) and similar battery life as well.
Out of the box it's almost a no-brainer for the Air except for two things:
- Firewire. If you require FW connectivity, the Pro is it.
- Expandability. The Pro can have it's hard drive replaced and RAM expanded to 8GB.
Realistically, users who require FW (instead of USB 2.0) are few and far between, as are those who actually expand their computers. Yes, if you're one of them the Air is not for you, but that's a relatively small percentage.
Some might want to add Ethernet to the list, but Ethernet is available for the Air. It's not Gigabit, but that just makes it similar to the FW question. There may be those who require Gigabit, but it's not typical. Same is true of an optical drive. You can get one for the Air, but do you need one?
For everyone else the Air's "compromises" are no such thing. It's no longer a question of performance, battery life, or even screen display. Nor does one take a hit in the keyboard, build quality or reliability. Instead, the compromises have moved higher up the chain. I could argue the standard 15" Pro contains more compromise now. Do I really want to haul around a much bigger, heavier machine all the time on the off chance I might expand it or use FW someday?
This could all change, of course. A higher screen resolution is an option on the 15" that Apple could make standard in the next update. Probably use a faster processor and bigger drive, too, so those gaps would widen. But that's the future, for now I think the standard 15" Pro requires as much justification for its compromises as the Air.
Then and Now: The MacBook Air
While the original's CPU and bus were good for something so small, the machine was handicapped by Intel integrated graphics and a dog-slow hard drive. The drive was the same as used in iPods, not a typical laptop drive, and was especially an issue because maximum RAM was 2GB, so disk swapping was more prevalent.
The new model gained a lot in CPU (today's Core 2 Duo is more efficient to begin with), but the more significant improvements are in graphics and storage. The Nividia 320M provides graphics more than respectable in terms of speed while offering higher resolution. Meanwhile, one could say Apple bypassed a step in storage, eschewing a typical laptop hard drive—that would itself be faster than the iPod drive—and going straight to flash memory which is faster still. Allowing 4GB of RAM is a big help, too.
I think a reasonable case was made two years ago that the MacBook Air was not likely to serve as most people's only computer, but I'd disagree with that statement today. If you'd be fine with either a 13" MacBook or MacBook Pro, then there's a chance the MacBook Air could work for you as well. Which one you choose is now more a matter of your priorities and personal needs, not one of major sacrifices in power, battery life or performance.
Finally, I chose the $1,799 models only as a point of reference. The true beauty of the MacBook Air is that one can spend much less and still get all the primary performance enhancements discussed here (320M high res graphics, flash storage, 4GB RAM).
I believe the overall performance improvement of the new MacBook Air is why Steve Jobs called it the future of MacBooks. Unlike the original, the current model represents a design philosophy Apple can rollout over their entire laptop line as the components become more affordable.
The small MacBook Air is NOT a netbook
Holy Mackerel this thing is fast! 46 tabs in Safari and 21 in Chrome; 18 open applications, including hogs like Safari, Mail and iTunes. No spinning beachballs!
Netbooks are slow and cramped, the 11" MacBook Air is not. The above was running on a stock model with 2GB memory.
In addition to the above, Ars Technica has an article answering questions about the 11" MacBook Air and their comments on performance are positive.
Official performance reviews will provide something more definitive, but it's already clear the 1.4GHz (minimum) Core 2 Duo is ahead of the same-speed processor from years ago (i.e., we should know not to get caught up in clock speeds by now). Further, with flash-based storage and Nvidia 320M graphics, it shouldn't surprise people the MacBook Air is not a performance dud.
Meanwhile, with cheap graphics, slow hard drives and under-powered Intel Atom processors, it shouldn't surprise people that netbooks define "performance dud".
