Up in the clouds...

Around a year and a half ago Steve Jobs introduced the MacBook Air. Even if it was partly refuted, it was advertised as the "thinnest notebook in the world". What was fascinating about it: at the time there was still no mention of the current ultra-slim trend. After the netbook boom there is now a trend towards especially thin notebooks, the Air now seems more in fashion than ever. Apple furthermore recognises the signs of the times, and overhauls the hardware equipment of the laptop.

A point for which you can refer to the existing review once again. When it comes to looks and touch we couldn't notice any changes.

A speciality of the subnotebook is the full-size keyboard with 1.5 cm x 1.5 cm keys. The keyboard looks very similar to the MacBook keyboard and is flawless to use. The typing comfort is subjectively in our opinion even better than its bigger brother - the MacBook Pro. Only the arrow keys are slightly rubbery and small (0.7 cm height). The lettering is oriented towards the new Apple concept with "cmd" instead of the "Apple" key and excellent special functions on the function keys (the MacBook Air offers no special keys). As usual a point of criticism is the fact that the braces and brackets are not lettered (Alt + 5/6 or respectively 7/8). For Windows users with programming ambitions, this is unfortunately annoying.

The large touchpad can be effortlessly and precisely used. The new multi-touch features for example "zooming", "browsing" and "turning" work intuitively like on the iPhone and fit well into the overall handling concept. The single touchpad key unfortunately offers no "right click" as always and needs some getting used to at the beginning due to its height.

Overall an excellent impression of the input devices, not only for subnotebooks, remains, which also allows you to work on them for a long time without problems.

Source: Input devices, Review MacBook Air 2008

Once again the maximum possible contrast turns out excellently. The subjectively full black is confirmed by the measurement of just 0.49 cd/m2. Hence finally the maximum possible contrast ratio results: 694:1. These measurements support the positive image impression for multimedia content.

According to our measurement, in the new MacBook Air there's a panel with good colour production, indeed no "Wide Gamut" display as assumed in many places. In direct comparison with a conventional display (FSC U9200) the panel turns out clearly better. If you compare the produced colour space with that of the current MacBook Pro 13“, the Air indeed performs worse. Both of the colour spaces RGB and sRGB therefore lay outside of the grasp of the display in the MBA.

In terms of viewing angle stability the display turns out to be quite acceptable as well. In the vertical field indeed it leads to image distortions from a strong truncation of the viewing angle, on the whole the viewing angle tolerance proves to be arguable.

Now on to the core point of the new MacBook Air version, the performance. In the 2008 version of the MBA there was an Intel Merom CPU and an integrated Intel GMA X3100 graphics solution, so Apple fairly took the next step with the updated version.

Our review unit is the currently most powerful and thus most expensive MacBook Air variant. As a CPU there's installed a Core 2 Duo SL9600 from Intel, a current Penryn dual-core processor with a full 6MB L2 cache and a maximum clock speed of 2.13 GHz. The label SL thus stands for a particularly energy-efficient CPU, whose TDP value (thermal design power) is just 17W. The currently very widespread Pxxx chips from Intel are placed clearly higher with a TDP of 25W.
Indeed, efficiency also has a price. Intel names a price of 316 US dollars with the purchase of 1000 pieces. At the same price you can also get a T9600 chip at 2.8 GHz, which certainly requires a lot more power with a TDP of 35W and presents an immensely higher cooling load for the system.

Admittedly it also gets exciting when it comes to the new graphics solution. The GMA X3100 was more of a rather pre-historic integrated graphics chip, yet the GeForce 9400M graphics can rejoice in a current improvement not least because of ION.
In terms of performance the 9400M solution is clearly ahead of that of other ultra-slim notebooks, the Intel GMA 4500M HD graphics solution. Chips in the form of the G 102M, ATI HD 3470 or the GeForce 9300M G rank on a comparable performance level. Another advantage of the integrated 9400M is the possible usage of the rendering cores using OpenCL or CUDA.

Concerning hardware equipment and form factor the MacBook Pro 13 really might count among the nearest competitor in the Apple house. The comparison of the Cinebench R10 benchmarks shows that ultimately large gaps exist regarding performance. Whilst the new MBA can clearly surpass the 2008 configuration, in particular the OpenGL graphic performance turns out to be impressive, the device actually clearly remains behind the MacBook Pro 13-inch.

The MBA staying behind the MBP 13 is easily readable based on the offered performance and also based on the results in the Xbench 1.3 benchmark test. What follows are the average results of three runs, because on Xbench there can be inconsistencies in results, out of experience.

Even if they are in the shadows of the CPU and GPU, the memory and hard disk are important components, which also directly have an effect on the performance in day-to-day use. In both regards Apple draws up promising hardware. Thus in the current version of the MacBook Air there's a total of two gigabytes of fast DDR3 memory, which is indeed soldered directly onto the motherboard. Eventual upgrades therefore will fall flat.

Performance is also promised by the 128 GB SSD in our test device. Alternatively the current MBA is also offered with a 120GB / 4200 rpm hard disk (1.8“). The performance of this disk should, however, remain clearly behind that of an SSD. More on that in our extensive SSD test report. The price difference of both versions is certainly enormous. You have to take into account up to 300 Euro alone for the upgrade of the mass storage medium. You will indeed be rewarded by a noticeable improvement in office performance with extremely short load times.

The 1.8“ SSD from Samsung can indeed score points in comparison with hard disks, in particular the slow 4200 rpm disks, yet in comparison to current, fast SSDs (e.g. from Intel) the SSD from Samsung is rather weak. The maximum read rates of just short of 100 MB/sec are still thoroughly competitive, however the write rate, at over 55 MB/sec remains clearly behind strong SSDs at over 100 MB/s. The important 4K read- and write-speed is 16.7 MB/sec for reading, which is thoroughly considerable, for writing just short of 6 MB/sec is, however, rather weak. As you only have the choice between a very slow 4200 rpm HDD and this Samsung SSD in the Air, the choice should clearly be the SSD for power users, as it clearly speeds up daily work.

In Windows Vista (using Bootcamp) we took a look at the performance of the components more closely. Theoretically the 2.13 GHz Core 2 Duo L9600 should show a very good performance thanks to 6 MB L2 cache. In the benchmarks, however, extremely fluctuating results stood out to us. According to different tools the CPU mostly only runs at 1.6 GHz and is thus clearly slower than the data sheet values promise. Apparently the cooling capability of the thin case isn't enough for the relatively fast CPU. With an external notebook cooler, tested in cold condition directly after turning on, we reached clearly better results than in warm condition. Thereby the performance ranks between that of a 1.2 GHz SU9300 up to a 2.0 GHz T7200 Core 2 Duo. From permanent load you can, however, only expect performance from the lower end of the scale.

Interestingly a stress test on Mac OS lasting for several hours with a subsequent Cinebench run provided no diminished results compared to a cold test device. Certainly the performance drop turned out to be blatant on Mac OS when using the device on a soft surface (couch). Here the MBA merely reached a fraction of the results measured previously. On the whole it also stands out that the results of the Cinbench benchmark test in cold condition turn out somewhat higher on Windows than on Mac OS.

DPC Latencies

Unfortunately as usual for Apple computers, the DPC latencies on Bootcamp (3.0 of Snow Leopard) were very high and sound and audio streaming over USB are not advisable. Only by terminating Bootcamp.exe (relevant e.g. for the special functions of the keyboard) in the taskmanager the DPC latencies did fall into the yellow and green region (see diagram).

Much has remained unchanged, some things are clearly upgraded. Also the camps of Apple friends and 'enemies' persist presumably unchanged. As a testing editor I, of course, have to offer praise as well as criticism concerning the current MacBook Air. Yes, the MBA is as always unmatched when it comes to workmanship quality and material impression. Possible competitors like the Dell Adamo, the Thinkpad X300 / X301 or also the MSI X340 have no chance in this regard. Again yes, I already had all mentioned laptops in extensive use.

Nevertheless there are points that you have to critically cross out. For example there's the connectivity, which can be described as more of an outrage. Only one USB port really is not ok. Mouse, UMTS modem, USB stick, ext. hard disk etc., all these are real problems for the use of the MBA, or better said, as long as two options overlap each other. Then there's the position of the USB port. All jacks differing from the slim USB standard lead to problems with the Air.
We can also criticise the lack of a LAN port, the alternative being LAN via USB which, considering the above problem, doesn't seem particularly attractive. Furthermore the ignorance of Apple towards new communications technologies is a shame. UMTS/HSDPA in integrated form would be highly desirable in Europe, even in view of the otherwise excellent mobility of the laptop.

The problem of the glare type display isn't optimally solved but all the while it is solved as much as possible. The excellent brightness as well as the anti-reflective display surface allow outdoor use of the laptop. The high contrast is however a plus point of the smooth display surface. Be that as it may, a matte surface would nevertheless be preferable. Also the poor illumination of the display surface is rather negative.

The performance of the components is surely adequate for day-to-day use. In particular the 9400M graphics can flex their muscles in videos and games compared to other integrated graphics cards. The 2.1 GHz Core 2 Duo CPU unfortunately doesn't quite provide the expected performance, at least on Windows. Apparently the processor mostly clocks in at 1.6 Ghz and downwards, perhaps a tribute to the flat design. Thus you can save yourself the strong variant of the CPU at 2.1 GHz and just get the 1.86 GHz version.

On the whole, the verdict turns out to be so divided, probably also how notebook users' predominantly broad opinion of the MacBooks presents itself. Hardware to and fro, the crux of the matter is still the operating system. Windows Vista/7 or Mac OS is the question, and it is ultimately more meaningful than many a hardware measurement. With bootcamp, Windows indeed presents an alternative, however here Apple offers a clearly worse overall performance.