Anandtech review of MBA 11" & 13"- MUST READ!

[nylon]

Anandtech has posted an excellent and most thorough review of both new machines. Beats Engadget's review and any other review out there at the moment. It's a must read for any prospective purchasers and new owners.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3991/apples-2010-macbook-air-11-13inch-reviewed

 

[sparkie7]

Best review yet

 

[efirmage]

Best review yet

This.

 

[Dammit Cubs]

Best review yet

+1

 

[ender21]

+1

Loved the review. Pointed out strengths and weaknesses evenly, it seems. I'm pleasantly surprised by the SSD's tested perfomance as well.

The big question is, will Anand rerun all the tests on a 2.13GHz MBA?

 

[efirmage]

The big question is, will Anand rerun all the tests on a 2.13GHz MBA?

These results would make up my mind for sure. Anything below 2 feels cringeworthy, even if it's fine for most tasks. Plus I play a lot of SC2, and while I don't need ultra, medium in native res would make me very happy.

 

[miata]

This is real professionalism. Most of the other reviews have been a joke. What is the world coming to?

 

[Skaterbasist]

This is a fantastic review. This is why I love computer tech websites like Anandtech and Tom's Hardware (etc, etc).

THIS is how reviews should be made. Very objective, less subjective.

 

[chugg]

Was thinking of getting the 11.6" but this review really changed my mind.

 

[mattcube64]

Absolutely fantastic review. Thanks for the link, OP. Almost want to make a small donation for the great, thorough, objective, and timely writing.

***

Does the battery life of the 13" completely impress anyone else? 11+ hours when doing light browsing/listening to music/and typing? And that's at half brightness. I usually use the lowest brightness setting on my 15" MBP to conserve battery. And if I'm just taking notes in class or writing a report, I can hit about six hours. I imagine at the lowest brightness setting on the Air, I could get around 13 hours!

Sure, it's a little less impressive than the 13" MBP when doing intensive work; but it's a lot MORE impressive when doing light work. And, the Air stays neck and neck with the 15" MBP when doing intensive work - which is what I'd probably get instead, because I need the 1440x900 display.

Wow, just wow. I would be in love if I could really get 13 hours of battery life. Trust me, as a journalism student at Mizzou, that would be a real life saver.

Gah! No nibbles on my MBP on the Marketplace!

 

[jamespa66]

This review reinforced my decision to go with the 13" over the 11".
I am very curious to see if the 2.13 proc would change the results in any of the benchmarks noticeably.

 

[miata]

I was on the fence between a maxed out 13" MBA, 13" MBP/SSD and a 15" MBP i5/SSD. These results make it pretty clear that the 15" MBP i5/SSD is the champion for any kind of serious work -- both in terms of performance and battery life.

This is just what I''ve been waiting for. Thanks Anandtech.

 

[Fanboyofnothing]

What's wrong with the Endgadget review? I read it and thought it was pretty darned accurate and matched up very well to my opinion of my own new 13 inch MBA.

 

[EggrollShop]

Holy crap so much good info lol already have one though but it further justified why I got one hahaha

 

[Leo Fischel]

Thanks!

 

[Fanboyofnothing]

As someone that's been using an iPad the past 6 or so months for his couch, plane, travel computing what I have to keep stopping myself from doing is automatically assuming that my computing experience on the Air is gimped. With the iPad I just got used to not being able to go to many of the sites I enjoy, or being able to use Open Office etc. This afternoon I was using the Air and wishing I could just grab a document out of my email and open it in Open Office and then it hit me- I CAN! Downloaded it really fast, installed fast, it opens FAST. Extremely portable Mac computing without the gimpiness. I'm loving it.

 

[miata]

What's wrong with the Endgadget review? I read it and thought it was pretty darned accurate and matched up very well to my opinion of my own new 13 inch MBA.

The Engaget review might be the second best so far, but not very comprehensive. At least they include MPBs with SSDs.

 

[Jaro65]

Enjoyable review indeed!

 

[aberrero]

By far the best, anandtechs always are. Not just for laptops, for everything. I usually try to get info from as many sources as possible, but the fact is that there is nothing that compares to anand.

Ars would be the only real competition. I'm looking forward to reading that, but then again I should be unboxing my 13" within the next 12 hours so there isn't much point in reading reviews now .

That said, I am very disappointed in the color gamut of the MBA displays. They are very bad, the same as any regular PC display. The high res, viewing angles and strong backlight make them better than what Asus and others use, but for photo work or even just general use they are pretty crappy(at least according to the anand numbers). You might think I am exaggerating, but switching from a crappy TN panel to a nice IPS with full color gamut really made a huge difference. I'm not talking about viewing angles, but about the way pictures look and about how colors are represented. If I was planning on using the MBA for anything other than typing I would probably send it back to Apple and get either a MBP15 or an Envy 13 if it is even possible to find one anymore.

 

[aberrero]

This review reinforced my decision to go with the 13" over the 11".
I am very curious to see if the 2.13 proc would change the results in any of the benchmarks noticeably.

It wont. It is just a little over 15% faster than the 1.86, and it will do nothing for games or application launch times. It will run encoding and rendering tasks 15% faster, but I don't think anybody is planning on doing any of that anyway. The MBP15 is still going to be literally twice as fast for this sort of thing, and with only a minor difference in price. It just doesn't make sense to try and make the Air into something its not.

 

[ImperialX]

The Techcrunch one is lol.

 

[MacChicken]

I'm confused now.

They write that the 13" isn't as silent as the 11".

Can anyone confirm this?

It's very important to me that while browsing / iTunes / Word there's no fan noise audible. I owned a 13" MBP with an SSD and it was completly silent unless doing CPU or GPU heavy stuff.

 

[Adidas Addict]

I'm confused now.

They write that the 13" isn't as silent as the 11".

Can anyone confirm this?

It's very important to me that while browsing / iTunes / Word there's no fan noise audible. I owned a 13" MBP with an SSD and it was completly silent unless doing CPU or GPU heavy stuff.

The 13" Will be silent when browsing/iTunes/Word. The reviews say when working the laptop hard the 13" is louder than the 11".

 

[nylon]

These guys are so professional. It's nice to see more than just anecdotal comments.

 

[maflynn]

I always enjoy reading stuff from anandtech, they have great articles and this review is the same.

Of course I love this quote from the review

Apple won’t call it a netbook, but that’s exactly what the 11.6 inch MacBook Air is: a netbook with much better hardware. You get a full sized keyboard, an old but faster-than-Atom processor and a great screen. If you’re a writer, the 11-inch MacBook Air is the perfect tool just at an imperfect price.

I'm castigated on the various apple forums when I state the 11" MBA is a netbook, but yet I'm not alone in that thinking.