UPDATE: We’ve added a ton more hands-on photos, now we’re back at our desk, with decent light and a nice clean desk to work at. Go on, have a good gawp!
The new MacBook Air is in our trembling hands, but before we seclude ourselves to examine it in detail, here are our first impressions of Apple’s new waif-like laptop, along with a bunch of hands-on photos. Want a close-up look at the new MacBook Air? You’ve come to the right place – it’s our new MacBook Air review: first impressions.
The new MacBook Air comes in two flavours. A 13 inch version and a smaller, 11 inch cousin. Both ooze the minimalist style Apple has made its own, but still pack in roomy trackpads and full size keyboards. Scrolling, flicking and pinching is a cinch, even on the 11 inch version.
And it’s that smaller new MacBook Air which we spent the most time with. It’s 11 inch screen is eye-poppingly crisp, and just as Apple promised, it springs into action almost as soon as the lid is flipped open. It’s ready for use as soon as you get it to a reasonable angle at least, due in part to the speedy flash storage which replaces clunky old spinning disks.
Yup, it's that thin
Fold the 11 inch new MacBook Air closed, and it’s little larger than an A4 notepad, and roughly the same thickness. To say it feels like a netbook would do it a disservice, but this itty-bitty laptop really does feel like a go-anywhere Mac.
Check out our Best Mac Top 5 now
Less netbook-like is the performance. The 11 inch and 13 inch are both phenomenally fast. From a standing start, the 13 incher booted up in less than 10 seconds, and iLife apps twanged into life almost as our finger left the trackpad.
There’s a caveat here in that, obviously, this was a brand new MacBook Air, yet to be bogged down by our apps, documents, photos or videos, but with such sprightly performance to begin with, we’re confident there’s plenty of headroom. Even if that boot time doubled, we’d remain relatively chuffed.
With portable performance like this, there's no need for Hackintosh netbooks now
There are few notable hardware differences between the 11 and 13 inch MacBook Airs. Sure, there’s more oomph under the bonnet of the larger model, but from our 20 minute playtime on blank-slate machines, it was difficult to discern what difference it makes. The most notable difference is the addition of an SD card reader to the 13 inch MacBook Air.
It’s absent from the 11 inch version, due to the sheer size of the thing, but remains our only criticism of this, Apple’s travel Mac.
See, we spend a lot of time on the road with our Macs at Electricpig, and the SD card reader has become indespensible. It’s a shame it’s missing from the smaller new MacBook Air, as we’d have gladly replaced our bulky MacBook Pro with one for the majority of extra-office activities. As it is, the 13 inch has earned itself a place in our reviews section instead. Stay tuned, and we’ll give you our full findings in the next few days in a full MacBook Air review.
Out Now | £from 849 | Apple
