Customer Rating: 
Summary: Great until you need to restore from Time Machine
Comment: I have been the informal tech guy for two Airs. One for 8 months, one for 6 months. I have also traveled with them. They are generally wonderful, especially if the weight is a big factor. All other laptops seem heavy and inelegant. But ...
(1) If you ever want to use an ethernet connection to the internet (as opposed to wireless), then you have to bring the dongle that converts the one USB port to ethernet. For example, to check your office email at a Kinko's. Definitely buy it. You will want to travel with this and an ethernet cable, in case your hotel room has an ethernet connection and no (or poor) wireless reception.
(2) To do a quick full restore from Time Machine, you need BOTH an OSX disc (either Disc 1 that comes with the Air or an off-the-shelf OSX disc) and the back-up hard drive. But you only have one USB port and no firewire ports. The SuperDrive will not share that port on a USB hub (nor will it work on any computer but an Air). It is easy to back up with Time Machine to a small external drive. (We used a Western Digital Passport.) But consider using a Time Capsule or an external hard drive that has its own power supply. The powered external drive is not elegant, but if you ever need to do a full restore (and you might because your Air will lead a hard life, especially if it is a student's life), it will save you a couple of hours if you use a powered external hard drive. The SuperDrive that you can buy for the Air (and you should buy it, it is small and light) does not work from a USB hub. A powered DVD drive from another manufacturer (ours is from Toshiba) works on a powered USB hub. The WD Passport would not connect to the Air via a powered USB hub (at least through the hub I used, and that hub has had problems). But a powered WD MyBook external hard drive did connect to the Air via the powered hub. So use a powered external hard drive for your Time Machine backups, and if you need to do a full restore, get a powered USB hub and a powered external DVD drive with a USB output. The Apple Genius Bar might not have these. Note: See (11) and (12) below for alternate methods for a full restore, in one of which the WD Passport worked fine.
(3) The Genius Bar geniuses know a lot more about the MacBook than the Air because the Air is still relatively new.
(4) If you ever do a full "restore and erase" from the two discs that come with the Air, you need to know this: At the end of first disc, about 1.5 hours into the process, it flashes "Get ready to insert Disc 2." Then it reboots and eventually says "Installing. Calculating time remaining" and ejects the disc. It does NOT say "Insert Disc 2". If maybe you were not watching it for the entire first 1.5 hours, you would not have seen the message at the end of Disc 1 before the reboot. What it wants when it ejects Disc 1 is for you to insert Disc 2. Not very brilliant programming. Every two-disc Windows program and game says "Insert Disc 2 and press Enter." Not these install discs. I found out when I went to the Genius bar and the Genius restarted the install process. He went to lunch and I watched the computer for two hours (this is what I want you to avoid), so I happened to see the message at the end of disc one. It was a special moment in my life.
(5) Be careful where you put the Air and the SuperDrive. I heard of someone throwing out their Air with the Sunday paper. Might be an urban legend, but we lost a SuperDrive, possibly the same way.
(6) Backups to Time Machine are more likely to happen if you use a Time Capsule as a wireless router + external hard drive. You can also print through Time Capsule, instead of plugging the printer into the Air when you need to print. Be sure to have the printer plugged into the Time Capsule and turned on before you install the Time Capsule. Otherwise, you will probably need to call Apple Care to walk you through the re-install with the printer. Don't get off the phone until the printer works and Time Machine works, not just the wireless internet. For a student whose life is on the Air, I would definitely consider the Time Capsule an essential accessory to the Air. For someone who uses the Air as an occasional computer for travel and has her life on an iMac with an ethernet connection to the internet, the Time Capsule is nice but not necessary.
(7) Get a neoprene sleeve for the Air. Then when it is thrown into a backpack or briefcase, it will be safer. Also, in its sleeve on a desk it is less of an object of desire for thieves (in my humble opinion). After all these months, the Air is still eye candy (as you well know if you got this far in this review). Consider a color other than black, which is harder to see and find.
(8) I understand that the wireless antenna is in the hinge that attaches the screen to the body of the Air. So it is somewhat directional. Try sliding it around to get better reception. You can check the packet flow in the Activity Monitor in Utilities to see what works best.
(9) Wireless reception does not seem to be a strength of the two Airs that I use. The 4 MacBooks that preceded the two Airs in our lives seemed to get more consistently good wireless reception. This is a shame, because the Air depends more on its wireless than the MacBooks, which have real ports. In future generations of the Air I hope that Apple finds a way to get the best possible wireless reception for the Air.
(10) The 80 GB hard drive in the Air is not big enough for a student's life if the student likes to store music and videos on it. An outboard hard drive is a distant second-best solution. (I liked the WD Passport for this, since it does not need external power and it is small, reliable and travels well. Consider wrapping it in bubble wrap in your backpack or briefcase. USB power is enough for this drive since you will not be doing a full Time Machine restore from this drive. To backup the stuff on this drive, you will need another solution, which might be Time Machine on the Time Capsule. Update: I attach the WD Passport and the printer to the USB port on the Time Capsule with a USB mini hub (not a powered hub), store videos on the Passport and back up the Air and Passport with Time Machine to the Time Capsule's hard drive. I wish the backup was not in the same room as the backed-up drives, but it is a lot better than no backup.)
(11) It is easy to connect the Air to another computer to use the other computer's CD or DVD drive. You need a good wireless connection for both computers. The Air asks the other computer for permission each time, and the other computer has to give permission each time. I connected to another Air and could use the SuperDrive on the second Air. I have heard of people using this as a way to access the OSX DVD when they do a quick full restore from Time Machine to the Air. I tried, could connect, but could not do a quick restore this way. The problem was that the both the OSX disc and the original Disc 1 that comes with the Air cause a reboot. After the reboot, the Air could not see the DVD drive in the other computer. End of quick restore process.
(12) Update: To do a full restore from Time Machine to the Air: Do an Erase and Restore with the start up disc or an OSX disc. Two hours later, when this is DONE and you have a fresh computer, it asks if you want to restore from a hard drive using Time Machine. THEN you start the restore. (At that point the restore process is finished with the DVD and you can unplug the SuperDrive and plug in your external hard drive, whether powered or not. The WD Passport worked fine to restore at this point in the process.) The whole process (including the restore from Time Machine) takes many hours, but it works great and you do NOT need a powered external DVD drive; the SuperDrive works fine for this. This waste of two hours (for the erase and restore) is the cost of a small, light computer, I guess. Now you know, too. I hope this saves you from the frustration that
I experienced.
Given all that, every Air owner I know would buy another one if they lost theirs. None would go back to a MacBook. (I do know people for whom the weight is not a big issue and who want more horsepower and ports and sometimes screen size, especially for games. They are happy with their MacBooks as their main computers.) Except for the wireless reception, the problems of the Air are problems for the tech person, not so much for the day-to-day user. Which is a good design choice.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent machine with interesting compromises
Comment: After being used to traveling with a MacBook Pro I wondered if the MacBook Air would have enough performance and capacity to satisfy my needs.
This is a beautiful machine. Extremely thin but very sturdy feeling. Wonderfully light even with required accessories. A terrific screen and keyboard that are a pleasure during all day use. Good battery life (about 4 hours in my case). Good processor and graphics power for mainstream business applications. Adequate disk space but limited disk performance. Barest minumum of ports requires dongles and a usb hub.
While its slower than my Macbook pro, the only times I really notice a difference are:
- Booting the machine takes longer (but I usually only do that a couple times a week)
- Starting some applications takes longer (but once started I can still run a LOT of apps in 2gb even including Parallels)
- True multitasking is limited to one intensive disk or cpu operation at a time (don't try and use the machine for anything significant while doing a backup, or while ripping a DVD).
So under normal use I was very pleasantly surprised how useable the AIR felt after being used to a PRO. For me the size and weight reduction is definitely worth the performance reduction.
Yes I would like a bigger, faster hard drive, but next year 120gb 5400rpm single platter units should be available. Yes I would like a built in ethernet port, but I'm not willing to pay a big form factor price to avoid the $29 dongle. Yes I would like 2-3 USB ports, but Targus makes some really tiny 4 port hubs for now.
I'm honestly not sure I would make any different design choices, and technology progress will take care of the only thing I've found to be occasionally very limiting (disk size and performance).
Customer Rating:
Summary: Spectacular
Comment: I am using this as a replacement for my iMac which I moved to the office. This computer is the best laptop I have ever owned (the first Mac), and I am in love with the operating system. I dont have to worry about viruses or other nonsense like that like I use to have to deal with all the time with my old Dell laptop. Plus its so light I can take it anywhere!
The only thing I don't like about it is that it doesn't have a firewire port. However, all in all I am very happy and could not have imagined a more perfect computer.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great so far
Comment: i just purchased this computer a week ago so i suppose things could change but at this point the computer has been great. The portability was a huge factor for me as it should be for anybody contemplating the purchase of this laptop. As a student i don't really need this computer for much more than word documents, internet, email, itunes, and the occasional movie/youtube video. Speed has not been an issue - something i wasn't sure about as i almost purchased the SSD option. Fortunately i didn't and this has been fine. I ordered the superdrive just in case though i havn't used it yet. For installing microsoft office i used the remote disc drive and that worked absolutely fine. So far the fan/overheating problem that other people were talking about hasn't been an issue and the temp does get warm, but not hot enough to get laggy or be uncomfortable. So far my two nitpicks are that the battery isn't great - 4+ hours of internet/itunes if the screen brightness is down all the way... but i like to keep the brightness at at least 50%. The other thing is that the screen hinge design doesn't allow the screen to go very far back. As far as the port limitations go the only thing i use is audio jack, usb, and ethernet at school but there's wifi too. I did order the ethernet dongle just in case. An ethernet cable and maybe one more usb (tho that too isn't too big of a deal for me) would be nice, but still, i'm totally happy with my purchase :)
Customer Rating:
Summary: Another Great Product.
Comment: I bought the Macbook Air for my daughter who is a 'die hard' Mac person. She uses her Mac Pro everyday for her work. She has told me three times how much she loves this new laptop. That makes the purchase a 10.
Summary: Great until you need to restore from Time Machine
Comment: I have been the informal tech guy for two Airs. One for 8 months, one for 6 months. I have also traveled with them. They are generally wonderful, especially if the weight is a big factor. All other laptops seem heavy and inelegant. But ...
(1) If you ever want to use an ethernet connection to the internet (as opposed to wireless), then you have to bring the dongle that converts the one USB port to ethernet. For example, to check your office email at a Kinko's. Definitely buy it. You will want to travel with this and an ethernet cable, in case your hotel room has an ethernet connection and no (or poor) wireless reception.
(2) To do a quick full restore from Time Machine, you need BOTH an OSX disc (either Disc 1 that comes with the Air or an off-the-shelf OSX disc) and the back-up hard drive. But you only have one USB port and no firewire ports. The SuperDrive will not share that port on a USB hub (nor will it work on any computer but an Air). It is easy to back up with Time Machine to a small external drive. (We used a Western Digital Passport.) But consider using a Time Capsule or an external hard drive that has its own power supply. The powered external drive is not elegant, but if you ever need to do a full restore (and you might because your Air will lead a hard life, especially if it is a student's life), it will save you a couple of hours if you use a powered external hard drive. The SuperDrive that you can buy for the Air (and you should buy it, it is small and light) does not work from a USB hub. A powered DVD drive from another manufacturer (ours is from Toshiba) works on a powered USB hub. The WD Passport would not connect to the Air via a powered USB hub (at least through the hub I used, and that hub has had problems). But a powered WD MyBook external hard drive did connect to the Air via the powered hub. So use a powered external hard drive for your Time Machine backups, and if you need to do a full restore, get a powered USB hub and a powered external DVD drive with a USB output. The Apple Genius Bar might not have these. Note: See (11) and (12) below for alternate methods for a full restore, in one of which the WD Passport worked fine.
(3) The Genius Bar geniuses know a lot more about the MacBook than the Air because the Air is still relatively new.
(4) If you ever do a full "restore and erase" from the two discs that come with the Air, you need to know this: At the end of first disc, about 1.5 hours into the process, it flashes "Get ready to insert Disc 2." Then it reboots and eventually says "Installing. Calculating time remaining" and ejects the disc. It does NOT say "Insert Disc 2". If maybe you were not watching it for the entire first 1.5 hours, you would not have seen the message at the end of Disc 1 before the reboot. What it wants when it ejects Disc 1 is for you to insert Disc 2. Not very brilliant programming. Every two-disc Windows program and game says "Insert Disc 2 and press Enter." Not these install discs. I found out when I went to the Genius bar and the Genius restarted the install process. He went to lunch and I watched the computer for two hours (this is what I want you to avoid), so I happened to see the message at the end of disc one. It was a special moment in my life.
(5) Be careful where you put the Air and the SuperDrive. I heard of someone throwing out their Air with the Sunday paper. Might be an urban legend, but we lost a SuperDrive, possibly the same way.
(6) Backups to Time Machine are more likely to happen if you use a Time Capsule as a wireless router + external hard drive. You can also print through Time Capsule, instead of plugging the printer into the Air when you need to print. Be sure to have the printer plugged into the Time Capsule and turned on before you install the Time Capsule. Otherwise, you will probably need to call Apple Care to walk you through the re-install with the printer. Don't get off the phone until the printer works and Time Machine works, not just the wireless internet. For a student whose life is on the Air, I would definitely consider the Time Capsule an essential accessory to the Air. For someone who uses the Air as an occasional computer for travel and has her life on an iMac with an ethernet connection to the internet, the Time Capsule is nice but not necessary.
(7) Get a neoprene sleeve for the Air. Then when it is thrown into a backpack or briefcase, it will be safer. Also, in its sleeve on a desk it is less of an object of desire for thieves (in my humble opinion). After all these months, the Air is still eye candy (as you well know if you got this far in this review). Consider a color other than black, which is harder to see and find.
(8) I understand that the wireless antenna is in the hinge that attaches the screen to the body of the Air. So it is somewhat directional. Try sliding it around to get better reception. You can check the packet flow in the Activity Monitor in Utilities to see what works best.
(9) Wireless reception does not seem to be a strength of the two Airs that I use. The 4 MacBooks that preceded the two Airs in our lives seemed to get more consistently good wireless reception. This is a shame, because the Air depends more on its wireless than the MacBooks, which have real ports. In future generations of the Air I hope that Apple finds a way to get the best possible wireless reception for the Air.
(10) The 80 GB hard drive in the Air is not big enough for a student's life if the student likes to store music and videos on it. An outboard hard drive is a distant second-best solution. (I liked the WD Passport for this, since it does not need external power and it is small, reliable and travels well. Consider wrapping it in bubble wrap in your backpack or briefcase. USB power is enough for this drive since you will not be doing a full Time Machine restore from this drive. To backup the stuff on this drive, you will need another solution, which might be Time Machine on the Time Capsule. Update: I attach the WD Passport and the printer to the USB port on the Time Capsule with a USB mini hub (not a powered hub), store videos on the Passport and back up the Air and Passport with Time Machine to the Time Capsule's hard drive. I wish the backup was not in the same room as the backed-up drives, but it is a lot better than no backup.)
(11) It is easy to connect the Air to another computer to use the other computer's CD or DVD drive. You need a good wireless connection for both computers. The Air asks the other computer for permission each time, and the other computer has to give permission each time. I connected to another Air and could use the SuperDrive on the second Air. I have heard of people using this as a way to access the OSX DVD when they do a quick full restore from Time Machine to the Air. I tried, could connect, but could not do a quick restore this way. The problem was that the both the OSX disc and the original Disc 1 that comes with the Air cause a reboot. After the reboot, the Air could not see the DVD drive in the other computer. End of quick restore process.
(12) Update: To do a full restore from Time Machine to the Air: Do an Erase and Restore with the start up disc or an OSX disc. Two hours later, when this is DONE and you have a fresh computer, it asks if you want to restore from a hard drive using Time Machine. THEN you start the restore. (At that point the restore process is finished with the DVD and you can unplug the SuperDrive and plug in your external hard drive, whether powered or not. The WD Passport worked fine to restore at this point in the process.) The whole process (including the restore from Time Machine) takes many hours, but it works great and you do NOT need a powered external DVD drive; the SuperDrive works fine for this. This waste of two hours (for the erase and restore) is the cost of a small, light computer, I guess. Now you know, too. I hope this saves you from the frustration that
I experienced.
Given all that, every Air owner I know would buy another one if they lost theirs. None would go back to a MacBook. (I do know people for whom the weight is not a big issue and who want more horsepower and ports and sometimes screen size, especially for games. They are happy with their MacBooks as their main computers.) Except for the wireless reception, the problems of the Air are problems for the tech person, not so much for the day-to-day user. Which is a good design choice.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent machine with interesting compromises
Comment: After being used to traveling with a MacBook Pro I wondered if the MacBook Air would have enough performance and capacity to satisfy my needs.
This is a beautiful machine. Extremely thin but very sturdy feeling. Wonderfully light even with required accessories. A terrific screen and keyboard that are a pleasure during all day use. Good battery life (about 4 hours in my case). Good processor and graphics power for mainstream business applications. Adequate disk space but limited disk performance. Barest minumum of ports requires dongles and a usb hub.
While its slower than my Macbook pro, the only times I really notice a difference are:
- Booting the machine takes longer (but I usually only do that a couple times a week)
- Starting some applications takes longer (but once started I can still run a LOT of apps in 2gb even including Parallels)
- True multitasking is limited to one intensive disk or cpu operation at a time (don't try and use the machine for anything significant while doing a backup, or while ripping a DVD).
So under normal use I was very pleasantly surprised how useable the AIR felt after being used to a PRO. For me the size and weight reduction is definitely worth the performance reduction.
Yes I would like a bigger, faster hard drive, but next year 120gb 5400rpm single platter units should be available. Yes I would like a built in ethernet port, but I'm not willing to pay a big form factor price to avoid the $29 dongle. Yes I would like 2-3 USB ports, but Targus makes some really tiny 4 port hubs for now.
I'm honestly not sure I would make any different design choices, and technology progress will take care of the only thing I've found to be occasionally very limiting (disk size and performance).
Customer Rating:
Summary: Spectacular
Comment: I am using this as a replacement for my iMac which I moved to the office. This computer is the best laptop I have ever owned (the first Mac), and I am in love with the operating system. I dont have to worry about viruses or other nonsense like that like I use to have to deal with all the time with my old Dell laptop. Plus its so light I can take it anywhere!
The only thing I don't like about it is that it doesn't have a firewire port. However, all in all I am very happy and could not have imagined a more perfect computer.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great so far
Comment: i just purchased this computer a week ago so i suppose things could change but at this point the computer has been great. The portability was a huge factor for me as it should be for anybody contemplating the purchase of this laptop. As a student i don't really need this computer for much more than word documents, internet, email, itunes, and the occasional movie/youtube video. Speed has not been an issue - something i wasn't sure about as i almost purchased the SSD option. Fortunately i didn't and this has been fine. I ordered the superdrive just in case though i havn't used it yet. For installing microsoft office i used the remote disc drive and that worked absolutely fine. So far the fan/overheating problem that other people were talking about hasn't been an issue and the temp does get warm, but not hot enough to get laggy or be uncomfortable. So far my two nitpicks are that the battery isn't great - 4+ hours of internet/itunes if the screen brightness is down all the way... but i like to keep the brightness at at least 50%. The other thing is that the screen hinge design doesn't allow the screen to go very far back. As far as the port limitations go the only thing i use is audio jack, usb, and ethernet at school but there's wifi too. I did order the ethernet dongle just in case. An ethernet cable and maybe one more usb (tho that too isn't too big of a deal for me) would be nice, but still, i'm totally happy with my purchase :)
Customer Rating:
Summary: Another Great Product.
Comment: I bought the Macbook Air for my daughter who is a 'die hard' Mac person. She uses her Mac Pro everyday for her work. She has told me three times how much she loves this new laptop. That makes the purchase a 10.
Apple MacBook Air MB003LL/A 13.3 Inch Laptop (1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 2 GB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive) Reviews: Page 2 of 7
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