Macbook Air 11 inch – ultraportable from Apple

Macbook Air was once the world’s thinnest laptop and attracted a lot of attention with its luxurious design and many fun innovations. But development is fast, and soon the competitors caught up and passed in terms of weight, dimensions and performance. Now Air has received two sequels with new chassis and hardware under the shell, one with a 13-inch screen and one with an 11-inch screen.

Slim but stable
The Air is slightly larger in dimensions than most other eleven-inchers, with a margin around the keyboard and screen that is also 11.6 inches, slightly larger than those found in most PCs in this size class. Air, on the other hand, is quite thin, at its thickest 17 millimeters. Despite that, it is stable, thanks to the same technology with milled aluminum chassis that Apple uses in, for example, the Macbook Pro.

Unlike before, the sides are flat. It has made it easier to fit in ports, although they are still in short supply – two USBs, a mini display port and a headphone jack.

Apple has chosen a Core 2 Duo ULV as processor. It might not be the most impressive right now even for compact notebooks. A mobile Core i3 should deliver better performance per watt. So we guess there’s a practical explanation, that this particular chipset didn’t fit into the Air ministing’s flimsy chassis.

SSD makes a big difference
Performance in general is still clearly approved for all kinds of surfing, web management and most things in the way of media. Apple has supplemented with decently lively Nvidia graphics and perhaps above all ssd which makes a big difference. Booting, loading programs and starting from sleep mode are very fast.

The computer also manages to keep power consumption down well. Although the eleven-inch Air does not have a particularly large battery, it lasts for around four hours in normal use. If you take it easy, reduce the screen strength and turn off Wi-Fi, it lasts up to six, seven hours.

Extra good screen
The screen and the sound are two positive surprises. 1,366 x 768 pixels on an 11.6-inch screen looks very good, especially for things like photo viewing. The screen could have been a bit brighter but it’s acceptable, and the viewing angle is really good for this type of panel. The built-in speakers may be the best we’ve heard in a laptop. At least in one this small.

For between 9,495 (with 64 GB ssd) and 11,495 kroner (with 128 GB ssd), it is not exactly cheap. But compared to the price of luxury ultraportable PCs of similar quality, it’s actually not that bad.

Apple Macbook Air 11 inch
Contact: www.apple.se
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo U9400, 1.4 GHz
Graphics card: Nvidia Geforce 320M, 256 MB
Memory: 2 GB ddr3
Hard disk: 128 MB ssd
DVD: No
Connections: 2 usb 2, mini display port, headset
Wireless: 802.11abgn, bluetooth
Screen: 11.6 inch led, 1366 x 768 pixels
Card reader: No
Operating system: Mac OS X 10.6.4
Size: 30 x 19.2 x 1.7 cm
Weight: 1.06 kg
Other: No
Approx price: SEK 11,500
Plus: Extremely thin but sturdy, great screen and speakers, ssd.
Minus: High price, somewhat slow in some moments.
Grade: (9 out of 10)

Measurement results
Performance (Geekbench): 1,944 points
Battery life: 3 hours 55 minutes (streamed video in full screen)
Sound level: Not measurable

Apple Macbook Air 11 inch