Upgrades to both 128GB and 256GB drives are available for the 11-inch, and adding a 256GB drive brings the price to $1,499. With a big music or video collection, or lots of high-end games, that can start to feel crowded pretty quickly. Of that 64GB, only about 48GB is available to use after accounting for the operating system and preinstalled apps. On the smaller 11-inch model, you only get 2GB of RAM and a 64GB SSD for that much-hyped $999 entry price.
On the larger 13-inch MacBook Air, the default 4GB of RAM and 128GB SSD feels like enough for everyday use. The pad is again hinged at the top, allowing the entire pad to click down, and we suggest going into the Preferences menu and turning on all of the tapping options for further ease of use. Other laptop makers have also moved to larger clickpad-style touch pads, but we have yet to find a touch pad that comes close to this for multitouch gestures.
Our standard enthusiasm for the unmatched Apple trackpad and excellent keyboard remains, and applies to both sizes. There are several other new gesture tricks, and fortunately the System Preferences menu shows animated examples of each one. To get back to a clean desktop, you now pinch out from your thumb and three fingers. The four-finger flick to return to the desktop has been reassigned to a feature called Mission Control, which shows all your active apps, alternative desktop screens, etc. Instead, just use three fingers while hovering over the title bar. For example, you no longer double-tap-and-drag to move a window.
The gestural language is now even further divorced from the Windows standard. While the keyboard and trackpad are the same (backlighting aside) as on the previous 11- and 13-inch models, using the new OS X Lion gestures can take some getting used to. Similarly, the newly added application resume feature, which restores all open windows and documents since last used, feels perfectly suited for a quick-on, quick-off computer like the MacBook Air. Maximizing and utilizing the small-screen landscape properly has always been a beef for us on Windows 11-inchers and Netbooks with Lion and the 11-inch Air, it makes the most of limited screen real estate. Some might not care that Lion now can show all its apps in an iPad-like grid, or that many applications can now be seamlessly expanded to full-screen modes with minimal side bars or menus, but such changes make the biggest difference on laptops with smaller screens-namely, the 11-inch Air. Lion is still new to us, so we haven't fully appreciated all the ins and outs yet, but one of its most visible features is a shift in user interface to a more multitouch, gesture-based, nearly iOS-like experience. With the look and feel staying the same, and a CPU bump that you may not notice outside of gaming, video editing, and other high-end tasks, the next most obvious change to the MacBook Air line is the preinstalled OSX Lion software. Using it for large port-studded monitors like Apple's forthcoming Thunderbolt Display could be hugely appealing for back-to-schoolers looking for a dockable laptop/desktop combo. For most users, it'll be an Easter egg to discover as the year goes on. Thunderbolt's been added to the both Airs as well, replacing the Mini DisplayPort.
Can the MacBook Air replace the White MacBook?Īpple's new Air models hold last year's prices, but dramatically upgrade the processing power: the new second-generation Core i5 processor in the base 11-inch and 13-inch Air looks to be on par with what we've seen in so far in 2011 from ultrathin laptops such as the Samsung Series 9. Unveils first Thunderbolt display for $999 OS X Lion review: A worthy upgrade for the price The lighting's exactly the same as what you'd find on a MacBook Pro. That's welcome news to most, because the Air's always been a laptop with heavy appeal for writers and on-the-go bloggers now, low-level lighting isn't a threat to productivity.