Apple MacBook Air

Before you’ve even laid eyes on the MacBook Air, the very process of extricating it from its packaging frustrates and excites in a way that few technology purchases can. In typical Apple fashion, every detail has been considered, right down to stage managing the first glimpse of your long-awaited purchase.

Scythe open the faceless brown box and the matt black package inside teases with a shot of the MacBook Air’s slender rear, while on every side little silver Apple logos and the name “MacBook Air” glimmer attractively. Slip off the infuriatingly tight-fitting lid, and the first sight of the silver frame and white Apple logo, combined with the unashamedly luxurious presentation, are almost enough to force a smile from the most fervent of the anti-Mac brigade.

But the MacBook Air is a simply stunning example of fine design, and its vital statistics speak for themselves. Flat on a desk, the Air stands barely 19mm high at its tallest point, and on the scales, it weighs in at a featherweight 1.38kg.
What’s all the more surprising, then, is that it doesn’t feel insubstantial - in fact, it’s quite the opposite. The laptop feels sturdy in a way that eludes any PC ultraportable we’ve ever seen. That base might be wafer thin, but the precision-machined internals mean there’s nary a hint of flex, no matter how enthusiastically you dare to grapple with it.

The same goes for the 13.3in of glossy display - it’s outstandingly slight, but we had to be violently heavy-handed before there was any sign of display distortion.

Ergonomics
But surely it’s an ergonomic disaster, right? Wrong. It’s all too easy to dismiss the miniature scrabble tiles of the keyboard as a prime example of design over practicality, but spend a little time with the MacBook and such assumptions are soon dismissed, at least partially. The rigid chassis lends the keyboard a rock solid base to build upon, and the widely spaced keys each have a light, responsive action.

However, if you’re used to hammering each keypress home, that hard aluminium surround has the tendency to leave your fingertips feeling a touch sore. Adopt a more controlled, delicate typing cadence, however, and the Air’s keyboard begins to feel rather fine - every key falls easily under the finger, and even the half-width Enter key gives little cause for aggravation. Adjustable backlighting of the keys is a nice touch too, and makes it easy to find letters under subdued lighting.

We’ve no doubt the keyboard will polarise opinion for most of those who encounter the MacBook Air - it was in the office for mere minutes before the inevitable bickering began - and the trackpad, too, is similarly divisive. Its generous width and height are due to its much-touted ‘MultiTouch’ capabilities which allow, given the appropriate software, on-screen elements such as images to be zoomed, rotated and manipulated with multi-fingered gestures.

As is to be expected, only Mac-specific software takes full advantage of multi-touch, but to our surprise it functioned in the Windows applications we tried, allowing us to skim through long Word documents or zoom in and out of pictures in Vista’s Photo Gallery. Initial fears that the large trackpad would leave our palms interfering with the cursor every time we tried to type were unfounded - the Air’s trackpad ignores the brush of a palm, and only reacts to the prod of a fingertip.

Less reassuring was its tendency to cause Vista to blue screen when we accidentally confused it by touching with too many fingers - we could repeat the trick time after time. On a couple of occasions, the trackpad even refused to work at all until we put the computer to sleep and woke it back up again.

Under the surface
To reach the ultraportable sub-2kg weight-class, few laptops can afford to employ anything bigger than a 12.1in display. Thanks to its bare essentials approach, the MacBook Air manages to accommodate an LED backlit 13.3in display.
Apple hasn’t capitalised on the extra screen space however, and the Air sticks with the commonplace native resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels. But, barring a little backlight leakage along its top edge, the display gives outstanding image quality. Colours are rich and vibrant and the LED backlighting provides such high brightness that whites look impressively clean and tint-free.

The MacBook Air’s skinny frame requires pretty serious compromises when it comes to components, however. Our review model is the cheapest of Apple’s two basic configurations, sporting a low-voltage Intel P7500 processor running at a modest 1.6GHz, 2GB of RAM and a tiny 1.8in 80GB hard disk.

The processor is still a dual-core model, but its low voltage and incredibly low power demands help the MacBook keep cool under pressure. It’s actually a custom variant of an Intel L7500 processor, shrunk especially to fit the Air’s slim casing, but despite its reasonably nippy clockspeed, performance is modest.
A score of 0.69 in our benchmarks is pretty sluggish, even if it does leave the MacBook Air significantly ahead of other ultraportables with low-voltage processors, such as Toshiba’s Portege R500 and Sony’s VAIO TZ series.

But what was truly surprising is how sluggish OS X felt compared to Vista Ultimate. Apple iMovie stuttered awkwardly into view after a worrying pause, and manipulating pictures with the MultiTouch interface was far removed from the slick, responsive feel of the iPod touch. Even Mozilla Firefox proved snappier running under Microsoft’s OS.

Despite its wide range of talents and fine design, the MacBook Air drags its heels petulantly when it comes to battery life and features. Stamina is a crucial part of any ultraportable’s armoury, and so it was disappointing to see the Air expire after sitting idle for just short of three and a three quarter hours. This is somewhat short of Apple’s claimed five hours. Under intensive use it lasted just 1hr 29mins.

It’s at this point that the MacBook Air’s form begins to seriously impede its function, as that battery is sealed inside the chassis, leaving no recourse to a long-life replacement or even a second standard battery - unless you’re willing to forsake the MacBook Air for five working days while it’s sent back to Apple for a replacment.

There’s little solace to be found in the Air’s incredibly brief feature list. There’s one USB port, one micro-DVI port to which the supplied DVI or VGA dongle can be connected, and one headphone socket. Networking is limited to the Broadcom 802.11n wireless card, and if you want wired Ethernet, that comes as a $39 option which occupies the single USB port. The one consolation is that these ports are hidden under a beautifully engineered flap, contributing once more to the elegant design.

Perhaps the crucial blow is there’s no optical drive. If you want one you’ll have to shell out for the external USB SuperDrive, which is yet another $139 option. Apple might argue that the novel RemoteDisk feature, which allows the Air to read data from the optical drive in a nearby Mac or PC via a wireless network, is all most users will ever need, but it’s still nowhere near as convenient as having a built-in optical drive in the first place.

It comes as little surprise that practicality is simply not one of the MacBook Air’s strong points. The frugal 80GB hard disk is ample if you only intend to use OS X, but install Windows XP or Vista using Apple’s straightforward Boot Camp software, and the two partitions soon begin to look worryingly cramped. Opt for the 64GB solid-state drive and, while emptying your bank account of another $1409 in the process, you can substitute the “worryingly cramped” in the previous sentence for “somewhat inadequate”.

Conclusion
The MacBook Air effortlessly matches the considerable price tags of its rival ultraportables, thanks to even the most basic configuration coming in at a considerable $2499. Add the SuperDrive and the ethernet adapter supplied with our test unit, and that quickly rises to $2677.

It’s not just the financial price you’re paying: battery life, compared to the 9hrs offered by Sony’s ultraportable VAIOs, is poor; the lack of an optical drive could prove extremely aggravating; you’ll almost definitely swear due to the lack of a wired Ethernet connection at some point; and that single USB port is just plain stingy.

Although we don’t want to be too cynical, we can’t help but view Apple’s iconic machine as another a version 1.0 product. There’s plenty of room for improvement just as there was with the first iPods and, we suspect the iPhone (which, by many accounts, will appear in 3G form as soon as the 2G sales grind to a halt). What odds would you place on future MacBook Airs sporting additional ports and features while Apple proudly proclaims it’s listened to the people (who have just shelled out all over again for another MacBook Air)?

As a centrepiece to adorn a coffee table, or simply a fashion accessory, the MacBook Air will attract admiring glances from everyone who claps eyes upon it, and deservedly so. Be under no illusions: this is one of the most gorgeous ultraportables ever designed. But can we recommend it to all and sundry? Absolutely not.