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MacBook Air 2011 Reviews

Thanks for this thread Radiohead. It's really useful.

I just don't understand how the MacBook Airs have slightly less battery life... Didn't the Core 2 Duo + nVidia GPU take more energy than the Sandy Bridge processors + built in GPUs?
 
TSE said:
Thanks for this thread Radiohead. It's really useful.

I just don't understand how the MacBook Airs have slightly less battery life... Didn't the Core 2 Duo + nVidia GPU take more energy than the Sandy Bridge processors + built in GPUs?
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no problem. as for battery life.. i'm hoping that it can be improved with an update to Lion. maybe since it's new.. that power management hasn't been fully tweaked yet. what i'm really interested in, is to see battery life tested on the new MBA 11" but running Snow Leopard.

ps.. added more reviews 🙂
 
The graphics performance seems to be only slightly lower than the 320M, which is good. It's often outperforming 35W chips 3D performance offered by other manufacturers.

http://www.pcmag.com/image_popup/0,1871,iid=305398,00.asp

Most of the reviews are showing only 10-15 minutes reduction in battery life, if that. That's more than a fair tradeoff considering how much faster the CPU is along with other factors.
 
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Man, they only tested two games here (wanna say, hell why?!) and high settings only for 2010 MBA, strange.. Isn't it?! From what i've seen, loss of fps with HD3000 VS 320M depends on the game often, and from benchmark i've seen (on notebookcheck), i could see the HD3000 is REALLY NOT GOOD compared to the 320M, sadly! Hope to see more review about that soon!
 
radiohead14 said:
thanks. already got it though 🙂

I'm surprised Engadget hasn't put one up yet. I'm also looking forward to Mobile Tech Review to put up their full video review for both the 11" and 13" as well. and I'm really anxious for AnandTech's review. let me know once you guys see it up. thanks!
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Also, where's Macworld's review? Jason Snell had a pre-release unit last week, so it should be here by now.
 
KPOM said:
Also, where's Macworld's review? Jason Snell had a pre-release unit last week, so it should be here by now.
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hopefully the rest of these reviewers are just taking their time carefully going over the new hardware and os. I'd like to know how the battery performs after getting conditioned. I'm also hoping to read about how Lion's power management is like, and if there are ways to improve battery life (on the 11" especially) ..like maybe turning off certain features.
 
DavidC1 said:
The graphics performance seems to be only slightly lower than the 320M, which is good. It's often outperforming 35W chips 3D performance offered by other manufacturers.

http://www.pcmag.com/image_popup/0,1871,iid=305398,00.asp

Most of the reviews are showing only 10-15 minutes reduction in battery life, if that. That's more than a fair tradeoff considering how much faster the CPU is along with other factors.
Click to expand...

Good stuff. The 3DMark06 reads ~3700. That's decent. Better than the ~2700 that the Samsung Series 9 is getting. I wonder if that's the due to Apple using the more recent Sandy Bridge chips in the MBAs? Higher Turbo speeds on the graphics in the ones that Apple's using.

ddong said:
Man, they only tested two games here (wanna say, hell why?!) and high settings only for 2010 MBA, strange.. Isn't it?! From what i've seen, loss of fps with HD3000 VS 320M depends on the game often, and from benchmark i've seen (on notebookcheck), i could see the HD3000 is REALLY NOT GOOD compared to the 320M, sadly! Hope to see more review about that soon!
Click to expand...

The HD3000 was never going to beat the 320m in gaming. Ever. It's interesting that it seems to be so-so even. Some were predicting/insisting that it would be a 60%+ drop in gaming performance. Seems that's not the case. But absolutely no-one thought the HD3000 would match or beat the 320m... and it's not. No surprises there.
 
Here is a good review from me: (13" i7 256gb)

It is the best machine I have ever used, now stop wasting your time, and buy it! :apple:

😀
 
KPOM said:
We can trust Anandtech to be thorough, though.
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We sure can. Anand does great reviews,that are neither pcmag (give me a break -there is no viable wintel pc competitor of the new Air in this segment) nor mac fanboy style ( how much appreciation you get from carrying a macbook around 🙄 ).
 
Thanks for the compilation radiohead. That's really helpful.

What I'm curios about is if there is any measurable difference in performance between the 128gb and the 256gb 13" models.
 
Samsumac said:
Still waiting for anandtech's review as well as the Macworld one. They sure take their time....
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KPOM said:
We can trust Anandtech to be thorough, though.
Click to expand...

Samsumac said:
We sure can. Anand does great reviews,that are neither pcmag (give me a break -there is no viable wintel pc competitor of the new Air in this segment) nor mac fanboy style ( how much appreciation you get from carrying a macbook around 🙄 ).
Click to expand...

According to Anand's Twitter, he has already received the MBAs and has ran a bunch of tests on them. I would say we will see the review next week.
 
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