Okay Geek Farm
The Unibody Macbook Air is beautiful - Not so powerful
Brandon Davenport
Today at the live event in Cupertino, Apple announced a few big things, OS X Lion was one of them, bringing an App Store to the Mac — but the most resonating announcement of the day was the new MacBook Air. The 11.6” 64GB model will sport a dual-core 1.4GHz processor, 1366 x 768 resolution, and a $999 starting price (which is a pretty good steal, considering the build quality), and an extra $200 ($1,199) for a 128GB SSD. The 13.3” 128GB model will have a 1.8 GHz dual-core processor and an option for a 256GB SSD which will start at $1,299 and jump up to $1,599 for a 256GB SSD drive…
They will both sport a beautiful unibody enclosure (like you’d find on your Macbook), 2GB of RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics and a standby time of 30 days. The 11.6” will have a battery life of 5 hours (while using WiFi and other apps, non-stop) and the 13.3” model will provide a beefier 7 hours of battery life, under the same conditions.
The Good, the bad and the thin
The new Macbook Air is no-doubt an absolutely stunning piece of hardware — this thing is going to be gobbled up by everyone, everywhere — but there are a few things that worry us, namely Apple’s vision of where Laptops are headed and the fact that this thing is going to run hotter than Steve’s head when he found out about the iPhone 4 leak.
The Good — Again, this thing is eye-candy and has the structure to back it up. It uses a unibody enclosure, and is backed by Apple’s recyclable materials. It is really thin (which is an advantage for people on the go) and they managed to keep the full-size keyboard and trackpad which is a major plus. Battery life is also outstanding.
The Bad — This thing seems slightly underpowered, but we’re wondering if Apple plans to release a version of OS X Lion tailored to the Air and it’s smaller screen, and provide a boost when it comes to system intensive apps. Also, considering how hot our Macbooks get, this thing is going to double as your George Foreman Grill.
The Thin — It is really thin. You could probably serve pie with it.
In summary
We recommend you wait and see what the reviews are like for the Macbook Air before your hot little credit card hand decides to take advantage of you. This is a new design for a Laptop, and there are quite a few things inside the Air that haven’t been done before on a consumer grade laptop. Until you can get some hard evidence that the Macbook Air is a great product, we give it a “pass” for now.
Check it out - Over on the Product Page
Read more - About the Specs
