The good: Lightweight and thin; excellent construction; SSD and internal upgrades make the MacBook Air an excellent performer.

The bad: Non-removable battery; limited expandability; mini-DisplayPort; thin grey lines visible on screen in some models; over-sensitive trackpad in Windows.

The bottom line: If you weren't a fan of the previous MacBook Air, nothing will change your mind here. It does, however, present an excellent user experience. We can only hope the next revision is a little more feature-laden.

Read full review of the Apple MacBook Air (SSD) »

By Craig Simms, CNET.com.au
Dec 18, 2008

If you weren't convinced by the last-generation MacBook Air, the late 2008 model will do nothing to change your mind. There's still no optical drive, no Ethernet port, only one USB port, the fixed battery is still present and there's no 3G support.

It still has its positives--the extremely thin profile, the powder-silver finish, the low weight and excellent build quality--but there's now a little more to add to the mix. The Air, like the rest of Apple's MacBook line is now based on an Nvidia chipset and inherits superior graphics as well, giving it significantly more grunt over the older Intel-based Air. Higher power graphics though comes at the price of battery time, something the previous Air was not brilliantly endowed with, not to mention additional heat output. While never reaching an annoying pitch, the Air can put out a decent noise when the GPU is put to task.

Editors' note : This review is based on tests done by our sister site CNET.com.au. As such, please note that there may be slight differences in the testing procedure and ratings system. For more information on the actual tests conducted on the product, please inquire directly at the site where the article was originally published. References made to some of other products in this review may not be available or applicable in Asia. Please check directly with your local distributor for details.

Design And Features

Along with Nvidia graphics comes Apple's next graphics port that everybody else will ignore, and will cost you an exceptional amount of money to buy the adapters for--mini-DisplayPort. This is for all intents and purposes the standard DisplayPort, just smaller, much like Apple's micro-DVI before it. At the time of writing, Apple charges S$44 (US$31.68) for a mini-DisplayPort to DVI or VGA adapter; however, if you want to output to a 2,560 x 1,600 screen you'll need the Dual Link DVI adapter, which will set you back S$158 (US$113.76) and use your only USB port.

Given that the USB port, mini-DisplayPort and headphone jack are all on the right-hand side, and hidden away until you flip down a compartment, we can't see why Apple wouldn't include a second USB port when there appears to be plenty of room. Or an Ethernet port perhaps, given that the USB to Ethernet adapter costs S$48 (US$34.56). The flip down compartment is also limited in height, meaning anything other than a standard USB-sized connector may have issues fitting in, like a number of USB flash drives.

The keyboard features the split keys featured on all MacBooks, and is quite quick to touch type on. The keyboard is backlit, although you'll only be able to set this brightness in the dark--a sensor on the laptop itself prevents the backlight being turned on in decent light situations.

The 1,280 x 800 screen is decent enough, obviously twisted-nematic based, and features a glossy screen, which will immediately turn some off. Sadly the range of motion of the screen is limited to around 135 degrees, which depending on your seating situation can force annoying off-axis viewing, and hence discoloration. Situated above the screen is an Apple iSight camera and dual microphones.

Apple's super-wide multitouch trackpad is featured here as well, and is brilliant to use, from using a double finger swipe to scroll, tapping two fingers for a right-click, a four-finger swipe for Expose, and the various image resizing and rotating actions available in iPhoto. While brilliant in OS X, we found the trackpad to be overly sensitive in Windows, resulting in many accidental clicks, with no software tool made available to alter this. Thankfully, Apple does include drivers that allow right-clicking in Windows (among other hardware drivers), although the execution is slightly different--with two fingers on the trackpad, you then need to click the physical mouse button.

The mono speaker, trapped under the right-hand side of Apple's keyboard is another letdown for the Air. There are clearly concessions to be made when things are this thin--double the height and you get Lenovo's still quite trim X300, which features stereo speakers, optical drive, three USB ports, Ethernet port, DisplayPort and VGA port. When you take in mind that the screen takes up a lot of the extra height in the Lenovo for extra rigidity, it proves just what can be done with today's engineering. We know which laptop businesses would prefer.

Tags: Apple MacBook, USB Port, Adapter, Keyboard, Lenovo Group Ltd.

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