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| $ 1.299,00 |
Audio
They may be hidden underneath the keyboard, but the
speakers in the Air delivered impressively loud and clear sound. The notebook
filled a room with plenty of bass and treble, lacking any distortion even when
cranked to the max. When we played Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl"
on both the Air and the UX31A at their top volume, the difference couldn't be
more stark. The Air was more than twice as loud as the UX31A, and everything
sounded much richer and fuller.
Performance
Inside the 2012 Air is a 1.8-GHz Intel Core
i5-3427U processor, 4GB of RAM, and 128GB of flash storage. This combination of
components offered fast performance on our tests. On Geekbench, the Air
returned a score of 6,539, which bested the category average of 4,772 and
outpaced last year's Air (5,860). The UX31A scored a higher 6,903, but it has a
more powerful 1.9-GHz Intel Core i7-3517U processor, 4GB of RAM and a 256GB
SSD.
The Air booted into OS X 7 in just 12 seconds,
beating last year's version by 5 seconds, and most other Ultrabooks by half.
The UX31A came closest, at 23 seconds, but it was no contest. The Air also
sprang back to life instantly when we opened the lid.
The flash storage performed exceptionally in
other tests, duplicating a 5GB folder of multimedia files in 32 seconds. That's
a rate of 159 MBps or 30 MBps higher than the 2011 Air (127MBps). This showing
is also leagues better than the UX31A (51.4 MBps), not to mention the category
average of 46 MBps. The XPS 13 came close, notching a rate of 138 MBps.
When it came to some tasks, the Air was no better
than the previous version. It took 6 minutes and 47 seconds to match 20,000
names with the corresponding addresses in OpenOffice, which is about 30 seconds
slower than the 2011 version, but almost two minutes faster than the
ultraportable average.
Graphics
The Intel HD Graphics 4000 GPU in the Air offers
improved performance over the last model. In the graphics portion of the
Cinebench 11.5 test, the Air scored 17.18 fps, compared with 10.39 fps for the
2011 version, a 65 percent increase. The UX31A scored 15.52 on the same test.
We then ran the graphics test portion of the
Novabench suite. The 2012 Air returned a score of 37, compared with 23 for the
2011 Air. That's also an increase of 61 percent.
The new Air can certainly handle mainstream
games. On our "World of Warcraft" benchmark, the Air averaged 60 fps
with the screen resolution at its native 1440 x 900, and 30 fps with the
effects on Ultra. That's double the average (37/18 fps) but only slightly
better than the 2011 Air (59/28 fps). On autodetect settings, the ASUS UX31A,
which has the same GPU, managed 52 fps at 1366 x 768 and 36 fps at 1080p; with
effects maxed, those numbers dropped to 22 and 17 fps, respectively.
Battery Life
We were pleasantly surprised to find that, during
the LAPTOP Battery Test (Web surfing via Wi-Fi), the Air lasted 8 hours and 10
minutes. That's almost 90 minutes longer than the ultraportable category
average, and well above the last 13-inch Air (6:25). The new Air also beats the
Ultrabook competition by a wide margin. The ASUS UX31A, for example, lasted
6:28, and the Toshiba Portege Z835 lasted 6:48.
Software
Currently, the Air ships with OSX Lion, but in
July, it will be updated with Mountain Lion, which offers new features such as
Notification Center, deeper iCloud integration with apps such as Messages and
documents in the cloud, and the ability to share content via Facebook and
Twitter from multiple apps.
The excellent iLife suite (iMovie, iPhoto and GarageBand)
is included, as well as FaceTime, Mail and the Mac App Store. The App Store
stocks a ton of useful apps and games, which download directly to the iOS-like
Launchpad for quick access.
The MacBook Air comes with a limited 1-year
warranty and an optional 3-year Apple Care warranty. Users can choose to have
their computer serviced on the phone or in person at the Apple store Genius
Bar. Apple's warranty was ranked No. 1 in our Best and Worst Brands Report.
Configurations
Our MacBook Air was the base model, which costs
$1,199, and has a 1.8-GHz Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM and 128GB of
flash memory. If you start out with this configuration, the only thing you can
upgrade is the RAM to 8GB, a $100 option.
The $1,499 model has the same processor and RAM,
but twice the amount of storage. With this model, you can select a 2-GHz Intel
Core i7 processor ($100), 8GB of RAM, ($100) or 512MB of flash memory, a $500
option.
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