The 2011 MacBook Air (11 & 13-inch): Thoroughly Reviewed
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 28, 2011 3:25 AM EST- Posted in
- Apple
- Mac
- Intel
- Sandy Bridge
- MacBook Air
- Laptops
It's Back: The Backlit Keyboard
You knew as soon as people started complaining about it last year that Apple would have to return to a fiber optic backlit keyboard in the next MacBook Air. The 2011 models go back to their 2008 roots and both have a backlit keyboard.
The backlight functions no differently than in the MacBook Pro and is very useful for those of us who do a lot of writing at night. I lived without the backlit keyboard on last year's MacBook Air, but I always missed it.
The ambient light sensor is built into the camera assembly in the Air's bezel. Shine a bright light into that area and the keyboard backlight will turn off and the display will brighten. Conversely, cover the camera hole and the backlight will turn on and the screen will dim. You can disable each feature independently if you'd like.
Other than the backlight, the Air keyboard hasn't changed in three years. That's not to say it needs to, it's still one of my favorite keyboards. You get the same size keyboard from the 11-inch MacBook Air all the way up to the 17-inch MacBook Pro. The only difference is in the height of the function keys which are made smaller on the 11 simply due to a lack of space. Nearly every other aspect, key size, travel and feel remain unchanged between Apple's five notebooks. Maintaining consistency throughout a product line is always something Apple has excelled at.
There is one small change to the new MacBook Air keyboards - the function keys. F5 and F6 now control the brightness of the backlight, obviously absent from the previous model. There's no longer an eject button as Apple is really not expecting you to use any optical media with these new notebooks. F3 and F4 now have new functions thanks to Lion. F3 brings up Mission Control and F4 fires up Launchpad, both with sweet new pictures of each on the keys themselves.
Obviously you can map similar functionality to any function key on older Macs but it looks like this is going to be the standard Mac keyboard layout going forward. The trackpad remains unchanged in size or function from the previous MacBook Air.
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dertechie - Thursday, July 28, 2011 - link
Actually, I can see a $500 19x12 14" Thunderbolt Panel doing pretty well for them. It certainly won't move numbers but it is a more practically priced Thunderbolt display. I'd buy one, but admittedly I already want a 24" IPS panel with DisplayPort for an Eyefinity setup, using it as a docking station for my laptop is gravy.To be bluntly honest, if Intel wants to see Thunderbolt take off, the Thunderbolt-fed multipurpose displays are where it will happen, and it needs to encourage that. Storage won't sell it outside the Mac niche, USB3's backwards compatibility with * will destroy it there. But a display with the connectivity that desktops take for granted is an easier sell (and likely easier to tunnel that it would be over USB3). I can see other OEMs selling 22" 1080p ones with good connectivity at ~$250-300 (the TB chip itself is something like $40)
I think given a few years we'll have seen manufacturers test out displays and docking stations with everything from backup HDDs (complements an SSD laptop well) to external GPUs integrated into them. With a low enough latency connection, you can do all sorts of cool things.
darwinosx - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - link
You could show them a TN panel next to an IPS display. The differences are obvious.Wally Simmonds - Thursday, July 28, 2011 - link
If I were looking at buying a netbook today, I'd probably go out right now and grab this, however I already have a HP DM1Z. Okay, CPU performance isn't nearly as good, its body isn't as good looking or solid, and doesn't have a SSD, but looking at the battery life and graphics performance the E-350 based netbooks seem to fare better.It'd be nice to see some other pc manufacturers do something similar in looks/specs to the air but get some halfway decent graphics performance in there - Llano anyone?
Might see some price drops on the Samsung Series 9 too, here in NZ they're selling for *more* than the new MBA's....
quiksilvr - Thursday, July 28, 2011 - link
Just get an SSD for your DM1Z now and save the money wasted- er I mean spent on this.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
There really is no real need for crazy pixel pushing CPU performance in this day and age for an ultraportable since almost everything is hardware accelerated (GPU pushing). Having said that, the E-350 you have runs faster than the fastest DESKTOP Atom processor.
Plus you can also upgrade to 8GB of RAM too for pretty cheap, giving your laptop a real great edge:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
Broheim - Monday, August 8, 2011 - link
I'm curious, why would a CPU push pixels... seeing as that's the job of the (i)GPU.darwinosx - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - link
If you read the review you would know this is not a Netbook.Netbooks are cheap miniature laptops with poor quality screens, slow, clunky, and poorly made.
Rasterman - Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - link
DM1Z? lol you must be joking, you are comparing apples to xylophones.damianrobertjones - Thursday, July 28, 2011 - link
It's a shame that the Elitebook review didn't get this much attention and time spent on the review :(Either way I appreciate the information
damianrobertjones - Thursday, July 28, 2011 - link
P.s. How has the thermal paste been applied on these models as there have been reports stating that it's literally slapped all over the place which will lead to issues down the linedarwinosx - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - link
Those '"reports" are BS and they were't about this model anyway.