The 11-Inch Apple MacBook Air has debuted last October. This small, thin and ultraportable was the smallest laptop Apple had ever built. Its combination of size and power earned a 4 star review but with few remarks: it has a Core 2 Duo processor generation, lacked a backlit keyboard and omitted an SD card slot. Now, we are glad to find the 2011 newly released, back-to-school-timed MacBook Air update which corrects two of our three complaints, while maintaining a starting price of $999.
Both 11 and 13 inch MacBook Airs are updated with the new, faster second generation processor Core i5. New Air also has finally a backlit keyboard. There are more bonuses too: Mac OS X Lion, Apple's latest operating system update is already installed in advance, added thunderbolt I/O port for high-speed transmission of data and audio/video in high definition.
Unfortunately, there's still no/SD card slot, memory and storage configuration remains fixed and limited. The entry-level $999 configuration has only 2 GB of RAM and 64 GB of Flash storage, which many consider inadequate. We recommend the $1199 configuration that has 4 GB of RAM and 128 GB of memory.
Perhaps the biggest change is how they sell the MacBook Air. Now that the $999 white MacBook no longer exist, Apple made the MacBook Air laptop as an entry-level for everyone. The $999 11 inch MacBook Air is still the most affordable among all Apple laptops.
The 2011 11inch MacBook Air is undeniably a good improvement compared to the previous 2010 version. Is it really a MacBook for everyone, though? Yet, unless you are with the Air life who can live with the relatively limited storage space. For a more full-size notebook with even better battery life, would be much inclined to get the 13-inch MacBook Air or even the more full-featured 13-inch MacBook Pro. But for sheer portability and performance, nothing can beat the 11-inch MacBook Air.
User Rating: 4 out of 5
User Rating: 4 out of 5
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