Technology

Macbook Air: Lab Tests Round 1

Since it’s unveiling at the Macworld Expo the Macbook Air has been in the tech spotlight. In exchange for it’s super-sleek case and incredibly light-weight design, Apple was forced to compromise power under-neath the hood, so to speak. Macworld’s Lab tests conclude that while the laptop is light-weight and ultra-portable, it is undeniably sluggish.

The tested Macbook Air is powered by a 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo processor and a 4200 rpm, 80GB parallel ATA hard drive. Those specs alone are enough to scare power users away. The Macbook Air is slower out of the box then any of the Macbook models and lags far behind the Macbook Pro Series. Power-users may not like the the idea that for $29 you can connect to a wired Ethernet connection only via the available USB Ethernet adapter; that’s right, MBA has no built-in Airport like it’s Macbook predecessors. The last disappointment to the Macbook Air lies with-in the SuperDrive, or lack thereof. In order to run any disks you will need to purchase Apple’s $99 external SuperDrive, built exclusively for the Macbook Air.

Now I know the idea behind the Macbook Air was to bring portable to a whole new level, but why sacrifice all that power? What in the hell was wrong with the Macbook Pro? For the price of the “high-end” MBA you can build a power-house MacBook Pro and still be mobile. While I must admit the new “manilla folder” case Apple offers for it’s new fashion statement of a laptop is quite kick-ass, it doesn’t even begin to make-up for the losses. Now while the tests done at Macworld were carried out on the “cheaper” version of the laptop, surely the “high-end” 1.8GHz, 64GB solid-state drive won’t wow us with it’s speed.

Advice to designers everywhere, save your money and stick with what works, your MBP.

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