Apple MacBook Air

Under the surface

To reach the ultraportable sub-2kg weight-class, few laptops can afford to employ anything bigger than a 12.1in display. Thanks to its bare essentials approach, the MacBook Air manages to accommodate an LED backlit 13.3in display.

Apple hasn't capitalised on the extra screen space however, and the Air sticks with the commonplace native resolution of 1,280 x 800 pixels. But, barring a little backlight leakage along its top edge, the display gives outstanding image quality. Colours are rich and vibrant, and the LED backlighting provides such high brightness that whites look impressively clean and tint-free.

The MacBook Air's skinny frame requires pretty serious compromises when it comes to components, however. Our review model is the cheapest of Apple's two basic configurations, sporting a low-voltage Intel P7500 processor running at a modest 1.6GHz, 2GB of RAM and a tiny 1.8in 80GB hard disk.

The processor is still a dual-core model, but its low voltage and incredibly low power demands help the MacBook keep cool under pressure. It's actually a custom variant of an Intel L7500 processor, shrunk especially to fit the Air's slim casing, but despite its reasonably nippy clockspeed, performance is modest.

A score of 0.69 in our benchmarks is pretty sluggish, even if it does leave the MacBook Air significantly ahead of other ultraportables with low-voltage processors, such as Toshiba's Portege R500 and Sony's VAIO TZ series.

But what was truly surprising is how sluggish OS X felt compared to Vista Ultimate. Apple iMovie stuttered awkwardly into view after a worrying pause, and manipulating pictures with the much-touted MultiTouch interface was far removed from the slick, responsive feel of the iPod Touch. Even Mozilla Firefox proved snappier running under Microsoft's OS.

Despite its wide range of talents and fine design, the MacBook Air drags its heels petulantly when it comes to battery life and features. Stamina is a crucial part of any ultraportable's armoury, and so it was disappointing to see the Air expire after sitting idle for just short of three and three quarter hours. This is somewhat short of Apple's claimed five hours.

It's at this point that the MacBook Air's form begins to seriously impede its function, as that battery is sealed inside the chassis, leaving no recourse to a long-life replacement or even a second standard battery - unless you're willing to forsake the MacBook Air for five working days while it's sent back to Apple for a replacment.

There's little solace to be found in the Air's incredibly brief feature list. There's one USB port, one micro-DVI port to which the supplied DVI or VGA dongle can be connected, and one headphone socket. Networking is limited to the Broadcom 802.11n wireless card, and if you want wired ethernet, that comes as a £19 option which occupies the single USB port. The one consolation is that these ports are hidden under a beautifully engineered flap, contributing once more to the elegant design.

Perhaps the crucial blow is there's no optical drive. If you want one you'll have to shell out for the external USB SuperDrive, which is yet another £65 option. Apple might argue that the novel RemoteDisk feature, which allows the Air to read data from the optical drive in a nearby Mac or PC via a wireless network, is all most users will ever need, but it's still nowhere near as convenient as having a built-in optical drive in the first place.