Review: MacBook Air 11in Ultimate MD214

MacBook Air gets 10Gbit/s Thunderbolt connection, plus new second-generation Intel Core i7 processors

Apple's latest MacBook Air now comes with the Mac OS X Lion operating system (OS), faster processors and a 10Gbit/s Thunderbolt connection for the first time.

The MacBook Air is still available in the 13in screen version it originally launched with in January 2008, but in this incarnation both models have faster processors and a 10Gbit/s Thunderbolt connection [see picture].

For connoisseurs of networking technology, Thunderbolt is Apple's implementation of Intel's Light Peak technology, and Thunderbolt makes an appearance on the MacBook Air for the first time [see lightning bolt in picture].

In use
One of the most visible and biggest improvements is the keyboard, which has backlighting to help users work in dim light.

The keyboard has a much more positive action than the 2010 13in model we used last year, even though the keyboard travel looks the same.

The new 11in MacBook Air weighs in at about 1.1kg - 270g less than its bigger 13in brother, with dimensions of 300mm x 192mm x 30mm [17mm at its thinnest point].

We connected the MacBook Air with an Apple Thunderbolt Display via the Thunderbolt connection. This display can be set up to mirror the MacBook Air's display or set up as an extra screen estate.

We used it to display a Windows 7 desktop running as a virtual machine in Mac OS X Lion [see picture].

As a test of how easy it was to set up Thunderbolt-enabled devices, we attached a Promise Technology Pegasus R6 direct-attached storage (DAS) system through the Thunderbolt connection - ideal for users requiring fast local storage [see picture].

This gave our MacBook Air access to a direct-attached RAID system of 6TB, at theoretical data transfer rates of 10Gbit/s. We recorded a maximum transfer rate of 800MB/s using the Pegasus DAS.

The Pegasus R6 DAS was the first peripheral to use Apple's Thunderbolt connection, but unfortunately there are few Thunderbolt-enabled pieces of hardware available.

The problem for Apple is that the number of Thunderbolt-enabled devices being launched appears to be a trickle rather than a flood.

Review: MacBook Air 11in Ultimate MD214

MacBook Air gets 10Gbit/s Thunderbolt connection, plus new second-generation Intel Core i7 processors

Ports
Ports on the 2011 MacBook Air have just one difference from last year's model – and that's the Thunderbolt port, which replaces the Mini DisplayPort as the connection to Apple’s Thunderbolt devices; for example, the Thunderbolt Display.

The 2011 MacBook Air has two USB 2.0 ports, a VGA-capable but not HD-capable front-facing web camera with a 640 x 480 pixel resolution, a standard headphone jack, Apple’s ‘mag’ AC adaptor port, and microphone and stereo speakers [see picture].

Apple's decision not to put USB 3.0 on its systems is mystifying, since data transfer rates using USB 3.0 can be an order of magnitude better than USB 2.0 devices.

Users requiring other connectivity, such as LAN connectivity, optical drive, and monitor and TV connectivity through DVI, HDMI and VGA adaptors, can purchase these separately as Thunderbolt connectable add-ons.

Network connectivity is through a standard Broadcom 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi connection, although this year’s MacBook Air comes with an upgraded version of Bluetooth – v4.0, rather than v2.1.

One of the major advantages with Bluetooth v4.0 is that devices deploying the technology can run off a 'coin'-cell battery and use much less energy.

While that won't help the MacBook Air's battery life, it will future-proof the MacBook by allowing it to communicate with these low-power devices in the future.

Boot-up times from cold were about 20 seconds, while resuming from sleep was almost instantaneous, except for the time spent typing in the password. Shut-down times were about 10 seconds, and putting the MacBook Air to sleep again was almost instantaneous.

Software
Our MacBook Air test system was initially running Mac OS X Lion (v10.7.1), but we upgraded this to v10.7.2, which allowed us access to Apple’s recently released iCloud public cloud storage system.

Apart from the native applications that come with Lion, we also installed the latest version of Mac for Office (the 2011 version) and Parallels latest Desktop 7 for Mac windows virtualisation system.

The 4GB of onboard memory allows users to run virtual operating systems using Apple’s Boot Camp virtualisation system, although currently Boot Camp only supports the current Microsoft OS – Windows 7.

Review: MacBook Air 11in Ultimate MD214

MacBook Air gets 10Gbit/s Thunderbolt connection, plus new second-generation Intel Core i7 processors

Performance and battery life
Intel's second-generation 1.8GHz Core i7-2677M processor has an approximate three-fold performance boost over the earlier 1.86GHz Core 2 Duo used in the 2010 vintage MacBook Airs, as measured by benchmark vendor PassMark's CPU test.

Add in an extra 2GB of system memory, an increase in system bus speed of 25 per cent, and it's no wonder we saw a large increase in performance when using the new MacBook Air.

Battery life is still decent, with the 13-incher’s smaller brother using a 6.9Ah (35Wh) lithium polymer battery, which gave about three-and-a-half hours when used continuously for a mix of workloads [see picture].

However, setting up screen and disk timeouts may stretch this by an extra 30-60 minutes.

Recharging the system to 99 per cent took about 1 hour 50 minutes [see above picture].

Hardware specification
The MacBook Air’s hardware specification has been boosted with a Thunderbolt connection, and the latest (second-generation) Intel Core i-series processors.

The system we tested [designated: MacBook Air 11in (Mid 2011) Ultimate MD214] had a 1.8GHz Core i7-2677M dual-core processor with hyperthreading and 4GB (2 x 2GB DIMMs) of 1333MHz double data rate (DDR3) system memory.

The cost of the new MacBook Air is £1,349 + VAT – the same price as the 13in version, which we tested in late 2010. It had an Intel 1.86GHz Core 2 Duo processor and 2GB of 1066MHz DDR3 system memory.

Add in the Thunderbolt connection and that would suggest that, Mac-wise, Moore's law is being upheld, even though the storage capacity of the solid state device (SSD) was 256GB on both the old and new model.

SSDs give much faster data reads and writes than conventional hard drives, lower power consumption and are more resistant to damage if the MacBook Air is dropped since there are no moving parts in the devices, unlike hard drives.

For the new 11in MacBook Air, Apple has used Intel’s onboard HD Graphics 3000 system instead of the nVidia GeForce 320 graphics card used on last year's 13in model.

The display is an LED-backlit one with a native resolution of 1,366 x 768 pixel display in 32-bit colour, with Intel’s graphics chip taking 384MB of system memory for its own use.

Conclusions
The upgraded 11in MacBook Air is a very good system, thanks to the increased performance of the new Intel processors, provision of the new Thunderbolt connection and the impressive build quality of the system.

As always with Apple systems, price can be an inhibitor to uptake, and the system we reviewed is £1,349 + VAT.