$3,100 MacBook Air no better than $1,000 PC
By this point, the MacBook Air has been reviewed, re-reviewed, taken apart, dissected and benchmarked until the persons doing so are sick of it. It turns out that the premium price paid for the SSD (solid state drive) version of the MacBook Air isn’t worth it. Unless you want average performance at a premium price.
In addition to the SSD, the MacBook Air also features a processor running at 1.8GHz instead of the “standard” 1.6GHz version. The faster processor and supposedly faster SSD didn’t deliver the performance gains one would expect from a $1,300 upgrade usually nets.
Read and write times to the SSD were better than the standard hard drive model but there was no noticeable gain during “average” use. The processor is only 200MHz faster than the standard model and while it did have fewer “spinning balls” it was not a great improvement.
Where ArsTechnica was thoroughly disappointed was in battery life. The SSD MacBook Air lasted between (hours : minutes) 2:10 and 2:52. During the test, it was used for what most people would use a laptop for, browse the web, listen to music and download files. The display was set to the lowest brightness setting.
Apple likes to advertise a 5 hour battery life on the MacBook Air. This is clearly not the case, unless you turn off WiFi, BlueTooth and just twiddle your thumbs while staring at a display that’s set on lowest brightness.
A possible explanation is a bad batch of batteries and given Apple’s history, that’s not out of the question. I’d like to think that Apple just overstepped its predictions with the MacBook Air and the product is just, as we like to say around here, “full of air” meaning not useful to anyone, their mother, grandmother, son, grandson, daughter, granddaughter, father, grandfather, uncle, aunt, cousin, extended family or their pet(s).
Once all is said and done, a PC laptop with better specs (except size and weight) and about the same battery life clocks in at about $1,000. I can easily get two hours of battery life and some change out of my HP DV6770SE and I have a dedicated graphics card. How about them apple’s, Apple? Well, at least the MacBook Air fits inside a manila envelope, just, wow.
February 7th, 2008
Apple should produce a song about all the MBA hatas. Wouldn’t it make more sense to compare the $1099 regular Macbook to a $1,000 PC.
This article notes, “Once all is said and done, a PC laptop with better specs (except size and weight) and about the same battery life clocks in at about $1,000.”
Ummm, the key feature of the MBA is size and weight. Those who are looking for more features (such as those found in a $1000 PC) would just buy a normal MB.
This article is completely pointless.
NOTE: I don’t own a MBA, MB, or any Apple products. I am merely objecting to the infantile logic of the article.
February 7th, 2008
I don’t care how thin a laptop is as long is its generally less than 7lbs and has a dedicated graphics card, it’s good. The MacBook Air is an overpriced… paperweight. That’s the point I’m making. I’m also making the point that it has the same performance AS a $1,000 laptop, proving that its price and its specs are not really worth, unlike what Apple wants you to believe. And they say the communists produce propaganda, maybe Apple is in cahoots with them?
February 7th, 2008
A $1000 PC would be a much better paperweight. 3 lbs. couldn’t hold down nearly as much paper as 7 lbs.
On the serious side though. The facts about the MBA seem clear: average or perhaps even sub-par performance, ridiculously light and thin (and to most, cool). Useful to some, worthless to others.
February 8th, 2008
I agree with Thom: this reviewer is comparing Apples to oranges. The whole point of this computer is that it’s thin and light. It’s better to compare it to the similarly expensive (and arguably less powerful) Sony TZ. In fact, this computer has performance on par with most of its direct competitors. What’s more, I can’t think of a single $1000 laptop with a graphics card worth having. Get integrated and build a desktop with a graphics card worth playing games with.
That said, I don’t like this product. I think Apple should have brought back the 12″ PowerBook…that was one ultraportable that beat the snot out of its PC competitors while satisfying those who had to have dedicated graphics.
February 20th, 2008
Another idiot posting as a computer “authority”. I and many of the heavy travelers out there don’t care that you don’t care that if the laptop only has to weigh under 7lbs to be “good”.
Your posting would make a lot more sense if you compared the MBA to something closer to it’s peers like the lightweight laptops made by Sony which hmm, cost about the same as the MBA for the same performance. So for an even playing ground things are near par.
I do appreciate the comments on battery life though, I hadn’t heard that yet.
February 20th, 2008
A PC laptop with better specs “except size and weight?”
LMAO
What a moron!
How about a Kia with better specs than a Corvette “except engine power?”
Does anybody screen these columns for stupidity?
February 20th, 2008
Mr. McGroin like most at the DSL Reports Mac forum are terrified that anyone would dare point out how naked the Apple emperor is. Using his example, that Kia satisfies a significant market who thinks those Corvette buyers are a bunch of arrogant dopes. This blog entry was pretty clear…the SSD “Air” is not worth the hefty premium. The blabber from the Macolytes is just their typical distraction tactic.
November 21st, 2008
Justin: More like a Volkswagen that’s a third of the price of, and better in every respect than a Corvette, except that it has a higher roofline and isn’t quite as nice-looking?
Here’s a funny thing for you. My laptop that I bought for the equivalent of about $1200 a couple of years ago probably has better overall performance than it, a genuine 5 hour usable battery life (after a new battery recently), has much better port connectivity and a goddamn touch screen……..
…. ALSO FITS IN A MANILA ENVELOPE!
Yes… after seeing that ludicrous MBA claim… I grabbed a goddamn envelope out of the stationery drawer and saw if it would go in. It slid in easily. You gullible, gullible bunch of advertising-led n00bs. And though it’s not as light as an Air, it is light enough that I can cart it about with one arm without it getting tired unless I’m holding it up to type with the other for more than an hour. And your arm would hurt anyway if you had to hold it up continually for an hour even without a load.
Once you get down to a certain level of low-profile and low weight, further improvements aren’t actually useful (and in some cases can be detrimental) and are just for bragging rights. We haven’t had SD-card sized cellphones yet, have we… even though it would actually be possible if you scaled down the level of tech you would have had in a nokia 3310 using modern-day electronics. So long as you don’t mind limited utility, terrible battery life and signal strength, and always losing it in the bottom of your pocket because it’s so damn small you can’t hold it very well and could accidentally swallow it if you open your mouth too wide to shout into it while lying in bed…
November 21st, 2008
incidentally, it’s an HP-manufactured PC of a laptop if it wasn’t too plain… but snarkiness aside this should also be a call to the hardcore Mac faithful – don’t pay the ludicrous premium just to have the shiny. Or if you do, realise that it’s nothing but a style choice and you are, at heart, wasting the cash. A normal Macbook of the same screen size should also be able to do the same trick as my PC. Test it. Get a 12″ (might even be able to get away with it using a 14″, if it’s widescreen) MB-regular, get a standard size Manilla envelope… open flap… sliiiiide it in. Do it in front of a pushy salesman in an Apple store and watch their MBA patter slowly stammer to a halt as their jaw drops and you see their fragile little mind and worldview crack and shatter into little bits behind their eyes. Feel free to cave to them offering you a similarly-priced normal macbook stacked to the hilt with much better specs all round after that though. (So long as you accept that the PC alternative would still be a few hundred dollars less – just not thousands)
July 6th, 2009
$1000 PC vs $3000 Mac lets, see… which has the operating system I want to use… (not fight)?
I’ll just have to save more $ before I buy a featherweight (which is what the Air is all about) but then is the $1000 PC a featherweight? no? then not a fair comparison, is it?
Peace