MacBook Air 2012 Lightning Review: Still the Best Laptop for Regular People (Photos)

Like last year's update, the 2012 MacBook Air is entirely in the guts. The 2011 bump into present-day usability was enough to make it your Most Important Gadget of the Year. This year's update is more of the same—which is a actually good thing.

 

What Is It?

A super-thin, super-fast laptop with the guts to handle just about anything you'd need.

 

Why Does It Matter

This is the laptop by which all others are judged. The Air has been so successful that Apple ended the vanilla MacBook line and Air-ified the MacBook Pro. Ultrabooks are improving at a tremendous rate—and many are really wonderful—but the Air is still the standard-bearer.

 

Who Is It For

You, probably. Previous Airs have been capable everyday computing machines. Now, with an Ivy Bridge processor, more people can use an Air as a primary computer. Improved graphics enhance video games, and more RAM aids heavy-duty multitasking.

 

Design

Honed, refined, and trademarked, the MacBook Air's unibody wedge design is as beautiful now as ever.

 

Using It

Using the Air is as pure a laptop computing experience as you're going to get. Its keyboard and trackpad are the best and smoothest out there, and the upgraded RAM capacity (finally) puts an end to any hiccups, slowdown, and unresponsiveness.

 

The Best Part

You can actually play video games now. Yeah, yeah, that was supposed to be a fundamental pillar of last year's model, and it did manage to run some games well enough. But really good performance was limited to years-old legacy releases like Call of Duty 4. On a maxed-out i7 Sandy Bridge Air from 2011, Diablo 3 ran okay at the very lowest settings, but it slowed at a crawl under the stress of multiplayer gameplay. With the new Air's Ivy Bridge, the game runs on medium-high settings flawlessly. That's true for all ultrabook-class machines running with Ivy Bridge chips, but it's still a massive improvement across one generation.

 

Tragic Flaw

The lack of ports. The Air has two USB 3.0 ports, an SD card slot, and a Thunderbolt port. It's fine, but more than two USB ports would be nice. Micro-HDMI and mini-VGA are absent, but they're not really missed. An SD card slot on the 11-inch model really needs to happen at some point.

Test Notes

• Predictably, the Air runs much hotter than similarly specced ultrabooks.
• Gaming peripherals (Razer) had some driver issues, but that is more of an OS X issue.
• Trackpad scrolling and gesture performance are so much better on the MBA compared to other ultrabooks that the comparison doesn't feel fair. The only other trackpad that approaches the MBA's right now is in this year's Samsung Chromebook.
• Real world test: The speakers are loud enough to be heard clearly across a large room, over a noisy air conditioner.

Should You Buy This?

Yes. The price range on the MBA starts at $1000 and runs up to $2200 fully loaded. Our review unit was $1600 as configured, which is in line with the best ultrabooks. Other laptop manufacturers have built on the gains they made in last year's round of ultrabooks—some of this generation's are pretty outstanding—but the king is still the king. There is no major innovation here. Nothing flashy like Surface. It's just the best, most complete laptop for the general public—ever.

Specs As Reviewed

Processor: 1.8GHz Intel Core i5 17W Dual Core Ivy Bridge
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4000 512MB (Integrated)
RAM: 8GB (4GB x 4GB); non-upgradeable
Storage: 256GB Solid State Drive
Display: 13.5-inch 1440x900
Ports: Thunderbolt (compatible with Mini DisplayPort), 2x USB 3.0, SD Card Slot, MagSafe 2.0
Dimensions: Height: 0.11-0.68 inch; Width: 12.8 inches; Depth: 8.94 inches
Weight: 2.96 pounds



Source:  gizmodo.com