Apple MacBook Air - 2nd Generation Reviews

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Apple MacBook Air - 2nd Generation
★★★★☆
3.9
85.0% of users recommend this
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Latest Reviews

“Apple Macbook Air - why wait ???”

★★★★★

written by Safedrivern on 30/06/2012

I recently bought a MacBook Air. I'd told the PC World Salesman what I wanted it for: mainly replaying and reviewing movie files shot during a driving lesson straight back to the pupil while still in the car. It has an SD card slot plus two USB slots. Now I wonder why I waited so long to own a Mac! Maybe price was something to do with it. It's quick to start up, intuitive and has useful extras like a good pre-loaded movie editor. It also looks and feel superb - the impression I wanted to convey in my driving tuition. (See my videos at YouTube SafedriverN) It's got a solid state hard drive which increases my confidence re possible rough handling, so not much storage on board. But yesterday I added a Seagate 1 TB drive to store photos etc, and have discovered that my old Seagate 250 Gb portable drive can be reformatted to use as a continuous backup 'time machine' device. Some issues in getting it all to work together initially - but now all OK. Drive manufacturers could still do more to make their products 'plug and play' on Macs. What's not to like? Well, I suppose you have to learn a whole new way of thinking and operating when it comes to using the touch pad. But if I'm having a bad day I can always plug in a mouse again .... Also I had to buy an additional lead to connect a TV/monitor: £25 a throw!

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“So fricking fast”

★★★★★

written by Georgewol on 10/04/2012

I have had my MBA for just over 2 weeks and it is lightning quick. I had a black macbook before which was fast but this leaves it standing. Every job it takes on it copes with without a single lag, name me a pc that does that? I also had a dell pc with windows on and it took 5 - 10 minutes to boot, this take 5 - 10 seconds!! So inclosing, it is worth the money people, get one today.

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“Lovely laptop but rubbish battery life”

★★★★☆

written by AllieDempsey on 21/09/2011

It's probly been said a million times but i LOVE using macs. They are so much better than PCs. But when i upgraded to a macbook air i really wasn't expecting the battery life to be so short. I've done everything i should like leaving it to run out and everything, but it really is quite bad. I went to the apple shop and exchanged the battery but the new one is the same within a month. I want to stick with macs for defs, but they need to sort it i think.

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“Ive had my MacBook Air for a few months now and I...”

★★★★★

written by on 16/08/2010

Ive had my MacBook Air for a few months now and I absolutely love it, my best purchase I have ever made and I recommend it to anyone! Everything is perfect on this well designed masterpiece and the best bit for me is the size.

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“An excellent laptop that fits neatly in the niche...”

★★★★★

written by fractalhorizon on 22/01/2010

An excellent laptop that fits neatly in the niche between a netbook and a notebook. Nice LED backlit screen, adequate battery life, friendly and powerful operating system. A little expensive.

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“I have owned a Revision C Air for a couple of months...”

★★★★☆

written by agaskew on 11/11/2009

I have owned a Revision C Air for a couple of months now. The reason for this review is to update a few points , that make the Air a more attractive prospect...

- Since launch, the Macbook Air has had its specifications upgraded (faster CPU, bigger disks) and has attracted a price drop at the same time. It is still not exactly fabulous value for money, but isn't meant to be bought with an eye on economy.
- Earlier models suffered from overheating issues, due to poorly applied internal thermal compound. This has largely been fixed in latest models.
- There are now a number of tweaks, plugins and free bits of software around that can make your Air run better, cooler, and help things like battery life.

And some points I note after extended use:
The Air feels solid, as it is made from aluminium and not plastic.
Battery life is usually between 3 and 4 hours. It can be helped by lowering the screen brightness.
Backlit keyboard is awesome.
The "features" of automatically varying the screen and keyboard brightness according to the ambient room brightness are really irritating.
Speed-wise, its perfectly capable for regular tasks, but its not a gaming machine.
The form factor, thinness and lightness are just great. It really is super-portable.
It comes with a USB<>Ethernet adapter if you have no WIFI. Because of this, if you want an external mouse then a Bluetooth one is more convenient.

And finally...
Yes, the Air has only one USB port, one headphone sockt and one port for connecting an external display. Plus, it has no optical drive.
This is by design - if you don't like these omissions then don't buy one - simple!

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“I'm reviewing this laptop, not as an owner but as a...”

★★★★☆

written by john on 18/07/2008

I'm reviewing this laptop, not as an owner but as a validation of the Macbook Air as an work of art and a fashion accessory. A friend was rooting through a bag, similar to a laptop bag, but full or books and files, or so I thought, until out slide a Macbook Air that was nestled between a folder and book. My first impressions, wow!! The reason for it's introduction to the evening, was too look at a few video's and photo's, and it looked very classy while he was doing it! Lovely images, very quick and reasonable sound.

The Air, doesn't have an immense spec., it gets the job done, like all mac's do, the difference with this is it's a work of art, a triumph of design, for anyone that buys electronic products, a) because they love design, or b) because they want to "look cool," this is the laptop for them.

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“Battery life is a little poorer than expected for me...”

★★★★★

written by on 07/05/2008

Battery life is a little poorer than expected for me however as far as I am concerned this is the only bad point to mention about the Apple Mac book air.
Stylish and powerful enough to run some rather large programmes, often 2 to 3 open programmes at the same time however well recommend this apple laptop.

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“With Apple you get the best of everything, however in...”

★★★★☆

written by afasystemsdotbiz on 10/04/2008

With Apple you get the best of everything, however in this case I think they have compromised by not having a DVD player which is a bad point in my opinion.

Still a great laptop, Light and powerful. Well recommend Apple MacBook Air.

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Azzers's Response to afasystemsdotbiz's Review

Written on: 21/04/2008

I disagree with this review because... the macbook air isn't powerful, it has a slow processor in my opinion, small hard-drive, low RAM... the list could go on as far as I am concerned.

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“This is an exceptionally expensive fashion statement...”

★☆☆☆☆

written by azzers on 25/03/2008

This is an exceptionally expensive fashion statement but judging from the success of Apple's other over-priced fashion statements (iPhone and iPods) this may be a success.

It has a weak processor (1.6 in the cheaper model 1.8 in the top model) at the heart of it's inferior components. The screen isn't x-black or HD giving inferior picture quality to other laptops that are far cheaper. There is no internal disc drive so you have to carry an external drive with you to read media.

With the better model costing over £2000 and not achieving the level of say an £800 Sony Vaio there should be no reason to buy this notebook but I would almost guarantee people will flock to do so.

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Fractalhorizon's Response to azzers's Review

Written on: 22/01/2010

I found this review not helpful because...
<br/>From the very first sentence this "review" is extremely biased. It does not appear that the reviewer has used the machine at all. Claims are generic and unsubstantiated. The screen isn't x-black? Of course not, x-black is a trade mark of Sony. Not HD? 1280x800 more than enough to fit 720p or 1080i picture, and there are NO 1080p size screens of this size in existence yet. A top of the line model (with 128G SSD drive) costs $1799 USD (or 1100 pounds). Where did a reviewer get the 2000 pound price? A comparable VAIO with 128G SSD costs about 1200 pounds. This so called review is nothing more but a smear job.

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“Apple MacBook Air will be a masterpiece I'm sure,...”

★★★★☆

written by Spaceman831 on 20/02/2008

Apple MacBook Air will be a masterpiece I'm sure, looks great and very stylish.

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“From my experience the Mac Air, for all its hype, is a...”

★★☆☆☆

written by ted3929 on 13/02/2008

From my experience the Mac Air, for all its hype, is a great idea with a flawed execution.

In all fairness, I did borrow a new model from an acquaintance and had it just a half day, but during that short period of time I noticed the following shortcomings:

'The power connection is the usual Apple Mag-Safe attachment, but it goes in at an odd angle making it difficult to sit the computer on a flat surface. I had to fidget with it to stop the rocking. Push it too much one way and the attachment pops off.
'The USB and DVI connections are under a flimsy side mounted door that I expect will stop closing after a few openings. For $1,800 I expect more than one of each, but the size limitations imposed by the design made this an unfortunate necessity. Also, the door hiding the ports really isn ' t necessary but is there to keep the design flow even. Even the audio out plug is crowded in this cramped area. Fat chance you ' ll get to use it while something is plugged in at another port.
'You are pretty much limited to plugging one USB or one DVI appliance in at a time. I had access to an Apple external combo drive and whenever I plugged it in to the USB port, the dongle covered part of the DVI port. One or the other, but not necessarily both.
'I originally thought the O/S was a little pokey but it turns out the hard drive is the culprit. Best as I can tell, it ' s using a sub 5,000 RPM hard drive, probably to save space. This leads to excruciatingly long access times, especially for fat apps like Photoshop.
'I got the unit with a fully charged battery and by the time I gave it up the unit was already close to being dead with no more than 2 hours off the power cord. What happened to the claimed 5 hour usage?
'Included wireless worked like a charm but had a nasty tendency to drop signals for no apparent reason. The signal would show as strong but it would drop it. Even goofier, I was literally sitting on top of my router but yet my neighbor ' s signal from across the street came in stronger. Go figure (but this signal strength discrepancy has also happened on my Windows PCs so it ' s not really an Apple problem).
'The external Super Drive costs extra bucks. For this much money, it should be standard. I had a different combo drive than the one that comes as an option with the Air, but if weight is any indicator, the external drive weighs have as much as the unit itself.
'I tried the graphics and sound card and found both wanting. A simple Space Invaders game clone had way too many hiccups and stoppages and it appeared the graphics card was doing its best to keep up. Likewise, while tuning into an internet radio station was a breeze, keeping it connected wasn ' t. It would often drop the station and then suddenly find it again several minutes later. Part of the radio signal loss has to be blamed on the wireless losing its way occasionally.

On the plus side:

'It is light, very light. It can ' t tip the scales at much more than 4 pounds although the external power pack and combo drive add heft, as with any laptop.
'It has that neat automatic on feature when you open the lid, shades of my old Tandy 1000 HD from the 1980s.
'It has a really nice finish that appears to be aluminum. Feels sturdy and even the hinges, a usual sore spot on laptops, felt sufficiently strong to do the job for years. The only down spot is the USB/DVI access panel that really is unnecessary except from a design point of view.
'Leopard O/S is really sort of neat, in a Linux, geeky, sort of way.
'The included webcam is nice and produced crisp pictures but it didn ' t seem to work with anything but Apple apps. MSN Live Messenger for Apple just couldn ' t get it to work (although it tried).
'Everybody who saw it liked it (until they heard the price).


If I could make any recommendations, they would be as follows:

'Speed up the hard drive, if at all possible.
'At least make the combo drive standard and charge extra for the Super Drive. Some drive is better than none. Apple seems to believe that users won ' t mind downloading apps instead of using a CD or DVD drive, but, I for one, don ' t believe this.
'Put the USB and DVI drives farther apart or on opposite sides of the unit. Add more of each, if possible.
'Redesign the Mag-Safe attachment so it doesn ' t have the odd angle of entry.

Is the Mac Air worth the $1,800 price tag (even higher with the external drive)? At this point, I can ' t say it is. There is insufficient justification for spending close to $800 more than the base Apple laptop that comes with a built in optical drive and more USB ports. So what if you save an inch or two here or there, are you really needing something that compact?

If you really want to get technical, compact laptops from other makers can easily hit this price mark and then some, but they also offer larger and faster hard drives, CD/DVD burners built in, numerous USB (and Firewire) ports, and a host of other options not found or even offered on the Mac Air.

In short, don ' t buy the Mac Air quite yet until the initial bugs are worked out.

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Azzers's Response to ted3929's Review

Written on: 25/03/2008

I agree with this review because... the opinion is backed up by facts in my opinion.

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Fractalhorizon's Response to ted3929's Review

Written on: 22/01/2010

I found this review not helpful because...
<br/>I have owned this machine for over a year. The magsafe power connector goes in at an angle that ensures that the connector itself is always a few mm off whatever the surface the laptop is seating on, so its pretty much impossible to make the computer 'rock' on it. Try as much as I have, I was unable to replicate this reviewers problems.
<br/>I routinely connect to both a DVI monitor and a variety of USB devices, and have never had them interfere. There is a single USB port as is usual on a machine this size, but a small hub allows for more devices to be connected without a problem.
<br/>Any USB optical drive works fine, and in this modern world who uses an optical drive when an average USB flash drive has more space anyway?
<br/>The reviewer could not get a Microsoft piece of software to work (MSN Messenger)? Hardly the machine's fault.
<br/>It appears the reviewer simply had a negative preconception of the machine that got in the way of his 'i spent half a day with it and I didn't like it' review.

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“Right, I conclude, that the Apple MacBook Air is...”

★★★★☆

written by PoloPete on 23/01/2008

Right, I conclude, that the Apple MacBook Air is impressive, very impressive infact, it really is the latest piece of engineering that will create a lot of hype in the market, no doubt!
Second of all, it beats it competitors, which ofcourse means it's the best, right?
When the price drops, in my opinion it will be treated as the best too, I think everyone will want one to impress others as it makes other laptops look ugly, useless and fat.
However, as far as I am concerned, so what? Not long after its release, surely Sony, Dell and Acer... will all be looking at ways to drop the price but keep the new technology, or possibly even better it...
Therefore, I would recommend to not buy one, yet!
Just wait to see what happens, if competors cant keep up with Apple (which would be cool) and MacBook Air is redeemed reliable... Then this laptop will be worth the money, as it argued brilliant, impressive, reliable and most of all in demand!
However, as argued in bad points, this can swing both ways, if the laptop is not reliable, and this information should be released in a couple of months, then Dell, Sony, Acer... will better the MacBook Air with a replaceable battery, the ability to expand ram and most of all make it reliable...
And this is the reason I would recommend to hang tight, and to not think "WOW, the thinnest laptop in the world! How impressive will I be!" is simply due to this arguement. Wait, see how it goes, if it goes well for the Apple MacBook Air, and honestly I'm hoping it will, as this laptop truly is impressive, then sure, get involved with the hype, that I'm sure will happen!
Get one... Impress... Enjoy... but for now, Wait!

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Azzers's Response to PoloPete's Review

Written on: 25/03/2008

I disagree with this review because... "Second of all, it beats it competitors" I can't see how you can argue a laptop more than twice the cost of it's competitors with inferior performance and specifications beats it's competitors.
<br/>

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Welshgirl44's Response to PoloPete's Review

Written on: 01/04/2008

This was really helpful to me so thanks. I was thinking about purchasing a Mac Book Air but had some doubts. The price was a big issue of course, but I've been saving for a while (wanting a good laptop). I don't think I will get one now as we already have a poor battery laptop and I was looking for something a little... longer lasting. Before making any rash decisions and spending 1500 on some laptop I decided to check out the review centre. Glad I did, thanks-the laptop does sound amazing (and looks it too!) But I think ill keep looking. Good luck with the laptop PoloPete!

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