Apple MacBook Air Second Generation Review

It didn’t take long for the MacBook Air to generate enough buzz to classify it as one of the biggest announcements in notebook history for 2008. And while it took them just eleven months to come up with its successor, people have still been keeping the MacBook Air as the standard for ultra portables without optical drives.

Design

When the MacBook Air was first released, it became the the worlds thinnest notebook measuring only 0.76 inches thin. It didn’t take long for someone to top that though, and in June Voodoo (now owned by HP) released the Envy 133 which measures 0.70 inches. Apple still touts the MacBook Air as the thinnest notebook but that is beside the point.

Like its siblings, the MacBook Air is enclosed in an all aluminum casing. The metal work is very detailed and extremely efficient. This however raises weight concerns causing the notebook to weigh in at 3.0 pounds, not making it the world’s lightest system.

Although the system is running on an Intel Core 2 Duo build, Apple worked with Intel to cut down the size of the processor to about half. The system comes in either 1.6GHz or 1.8GHz flavors. Laptop memory is upgradable to 2GB of DDR3 RAM (which equals close to 4GB of DDR2) and as for storage flavors you can either get a 120GB HDD or a 128 SSD.

The system is also fitted with a 13.3 inch LED display that gets you 1280 x 800 native resolutions. Apple opted for the Led display for better battery life and more vibrant colors. Rounding in all the features is the multitouch track pad which first debuted on the first generation Air models and has made its way to the rest of the MacBook line as well as the new MacBook Air.

Since design was the obvious choice of functionality, Apple opted for only three ports on the MacBook Air. You have your standard USB 2.0 drive as well as an audio out 3.5mm jack and your Mini DisplayPort. It should be noted that like the first generation MacBook Air, the USB port is a little tight and for most flash drives and other equipment will require an extender to make them fit.

Performance

Performance on the MacBook Air was efficient. Completing every day tasks such as web browsing, multimedia (video, photos, music) and such were all a snap. Unlike netbooks which are built for basic computing needs the MacBook can still handle programs such as Photoshop, GarageBand and all your other media intense programs.

It should be noted though that such programs are best run by themselves because although the system can support them with little lag, once other programs are running the systems performance is greatly affected and you will notice lag.

Battery life is comparable and the system gets 4-4.5 hours of battery juice with the wireless switch on. This of course decreases over time and will eventually require that the battery be replaced since (like the first generation Air models) does not carry a removable battery.

Conclusion

So how do we rank the MacBook Air? As we said before, the MacBook Air is mainly about looks and secondly performance. That does not mean that Apple compromised too much in that respect as the Air does give solid performance marks in most areas. The only thing is that we could not justify spending $1799 on a notebook that does not include an optical drive, removable battery or a better assortment of port flavors.