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MacBook Air 2011 Reviews

Hellhammer said:
I write for AnandTech and as far as I know, we have never received anything from Apple before they were released. That is why I'm wondering.
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It seems that occasionally the larger review sites/tech blogs get early access to Apple products. There have been a few times in the past that I've seen Engadget have full reviews of new Apple products the moment said product was officially announced by Apple. The last one like that I saw (may have been the refresh of the iMac one or two cycles ago) I think they mentioned they had been testing it for a week prior to official release.
 
i'm hoping that it's just the case of a fresh new unconditioned battery, and that over time.. 5+ hours can be achieved

bp1000 said:
Some more reviews

http://techland.time.com/2011/07/20/new-macbook-air-review-thin-light-and-utterly-mainstream/

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20081101-1/hands-on-with-new-11-inch-and-13-inch-macbook-air/

http://electricpig.co.uk/2011/07/20...re-amazing-outperforms-all-2010-macbook-pros/

Although the last week i think is just re-packaging other rumoured benchmarks i think.
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thanks. i saw those before too, but they seem incomplete and more a summary.
 
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any reviews confirm the IRS sensor still omitted in this one too and you can't use the Apple Remote?
 
Although I do not intend to upgrade my 2010 MBA this time around, I am duly impressed by the 2011 models. The new 13 inch Ultimate MBA not only has a modern i7 processor, it is $100 cheaper than its predecessor. That's pretty impressive. The only downside I see is what we all had seen coming: Intel's uninspiring HD Graphics 3000 GPU that is integrated with the i5 and i7 chips. Given that all laptops are a series of compromises, anyway, the new MBAs' inferior graphics is an acceptable one, it seems to me.
 
gwsat said:
Although I do not intend to upgrade my 2010 MBA this time around, I am duly impressed by the 2011 models. The new 13 inch Ultimate MBA not only has a modern i7 processor, it is $100 cheaper than its predecessor. That's pretty impressive. The only downside I see is what we all had seen coming: Intel's uninspiring HD Graphics 3000 GPU that is integrated with the i5 and i7 chips. Given that all laptops are a series of compromises, anyway, the new MBAs' inferior graphics is an acceptable one, it seems to me.
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Which only matters if you game on the machine...or am I wrong??
 
Scottsdale said:
These "reviews" are the problem with believing what we read on the Internet. This reads exactly like Apple's own marketing. I have the impression that everyone that gets an Apple product early is so thankful that they just go along with what Apple wants of them - a great review.

I like the real world reviews on websites like MacRumors.com. I know there are many fans that get butthurt when someone says anything negative but the honesty is what I am looking for. It is difficult to get an objective opinion from anyone in the media or creating a website who wants to draw in traffic for their advertisements.

I hope a bunch of you will share your objective opinions about this MBA. I have shared my positive results with the MBA and the serious frustrations too. The good and bad are the truth. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. That is how I feel about everything I have read so far.

The complete omission of graphics performance on apple.com was to be expected but that is why we need some real world results from prior generation MBA users to know the truth.
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Well, it seems I will be getting mine on Friday. So I can run whatever test is wanted then :).
 
theSeb said:
Was the test done on the same operating system? Yes? No? I didn't think so.
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Doesn't matter I'll only be using SL, after finishing testing of Lion for my company I'd getting the POS off my system as fast as I can.
 
1/2 hour less battery... Apple must you give and take away every time :)

Assuming the 11 and 13 have similar fan noise the 13 might be the one,
last years 11 had too short battery life...
 
Ridley said:
lol there is no way you are being serious! Its more than twice the performance, backlite keys, thunderbolt, and the upgrades are cheaper ($200 upgrade for 128 gigs AND 4gigs RAM) which would negate any savings you might get with the old loaded 11 inch.

And why are you getting the old loaded 11 inch... because you care about the performance and speed? When that is more money at half the speed of the baseline new model...does...not...compute..

If the battery life is so important maybe consider getting the baseline 2010 to maximize your savings?

The review also mentioned the screen brightness... has it increased? And also the backlite keys. Not sure when testing battery life if they turned off the keys and turned brightness down to match the 2010 model. It wasn't clear ... like is 40% brightness on the 2010 MBA = 40% brightness on 2011 MBA. I reckon the screen is the biggest battery drain for web surfing
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I care about 3 things:
1. CUDA - new air has no nvidia
2. battery - new air tests at less battery, unless new test say different no reason to discount this test
3. Price loaded is $1059, I'm $59 more for the, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD, GPU I want, and battery battery.
 
There's a price reduction? How much were the 2010 airs? I thought the new prices were the same across the board.
 
JasonR said:
Which only matters if you game on the machine...or am I wrong??
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Not wrong at all. And I'd further say that it only matters if you do 3D gaming on the machine. Many other games (Plants vs. Zombies, etc...) will work fine.
 
altecXP said:
Doesn't matter I'll only be using SL, after finishing testing of Lion for my company I'd getting the POS off my system as fast as I can.
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On a 2011 MBA? Snow Leopard will probably be missing drivers for the new MBA so you'll have to do some hacking.
 
altecXP said:
I care about 3 things:
1. CUDA - new air has no nvidia
2. battery - new air tests at less battery, unless new test say different no reason to discount this test
3. Price loaded is $1059, I'm $59 more for the, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD, GPU I want, and battery battery.
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Simple

Get the old MBA from the clearance store - fits all your needs

Shames is nearly 50% slower.
 
Seeing the benchmarks for the new mba, the refurbs don't seem like that good of a deal anymore
 
altecXP said:
Doesn't matter I'll only be using SL, after finishing testing of Lion for my company I'd getting the POS off my system as fast as I can.
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I downloaded and installed Lion on my 2010 13 inch MBA earlier this afternoon and have been experimenting with it for several hours. So far, it seems all right. The only bug I saw involved my inability to delete the Numbers and Pages apps from the old iWork 2008 folder from within Launchpad. It may have had something to do with my failure to ever activate those apps; in any event I was able to finally get rid of them from within Finder.

It seems to me that most 2011 MBA buyers will likely be pleased with Lion. What don't you like about it?
 
The start of a new review from slashgear going up now

http://www.slashgear.com/macbook-air-13-core-i5-hands-on-mid-2011-20166389/

The guy did a youtube video and he can't speak, got all his words mixed up and got the CPU spec wrong. Not a good start BUT he did a benchmark and took photographic evidence of it PLUS he did it along side is 2010 air model.

His benchmark score was 5705 which isn't a million miles off the score laptopmag.com achieved which many people are questioning it's validity because of the early review.

So in my eyes its giving a more clearer picture of have these i5's perform. Not really that far off the mbp's now. And clearly twice as fast as the old model. What a phenomenal achievement apple. This is a beast of a laptop. Can't wait now.
 
radiohead14 said:
thought we should have a thread for a collection of reviews, so it'd be easy to find for everyone. i'll start with these:


MacBook Air 11"

-Laptop Mag: http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/apple-macbook-air-11-inch-2011.aspx


MacBook Air 13"

-Laptop Mag: http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptop/apple-macbook-air-13-2011.aspx

-TechCrunch: http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/20/updated-macbook-air/

-Computer Shopper: http://computershopper.com/laptops/reviews/apple-macbook-air-13.3-inch-2011-version

i'll update as more comes in :)
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Is there any inside H/W review?
I 'm waiting for disassemble review.
 
Just a suggestion, put a date next to the reviews. I can see this getting a bit flooded in the coming week or two, so it will be helpful to see what i have read before.
 
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