A Limited Mac: The 4 GB Early 2014 MacBook Air

Apple really messed up with the Early 2014 MacBook Air. The base version had just 4 GB of memory, and it shipped with OS X 10.9 Mavericks, the last version of OS X to run comfortably with 4 GB of memory. It’s a good thing Apple also offered an 8 GB option for those planning […]

A Limited Mac: The 4 GB Mid 2013 MacBook Air

Apple messed up with the Mid 2013 MacBook Air. It shipped with OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, and the base version had just 4 GB of memory. That was enough to run Mountain Lion and OS X 10.9 Mavericks, but OS X 10.10 Yosemite and beyond really want more memory. It’s a good thing Apple […]

Road Apple: The 2 GB Mid 2011 MacBook Air

Apple updated the MacBook Air in July 2011, migrating to the far more efficient Intel Core i5 and i7 CPUs, adding Thunderbolt connectivity, and going to a 6 GBps SATA Rev. 3 drive bus to further improve SSD performance. Sadly, Apple continued to sell a 2 GB version, which was scarcely adequate for the OS […]

Road Apple: The 2 GB Late 2010 MacBook Air

In October 2010, Apple added an 11″ model to the MacBook Air line – and a new low in CPU speeds for the line. On the plus side, the pokey 1.8″ hard drives were history, and the line was now 100% SSD – and it had a 4 GB memory option plus a new graphics […]

Road Apple: The Mid 2009 MacBook Air

The Mid 2009 MacBook Air was essentially a speed-bumped version of the Late 2008 MacBook Air. It runs at up to 2.13 GHz – almost 15% faster by clock speed – but it is still limited to 2 GB of RAM.

Road Apple: The Late 2008 MacBook Air

Where the original MacBook Air was a certifiable Road Apple due to its slow PATA drive bus, horribly slow 1.8″ hard drive, and fixed 2 GB of memory, the Late 2008 MacBook Air isn’t quite as bad. Yes, it is still limited to 2 GB of RAM, but at least it uses SATA for its […]

Road Apple: The Original MacBook Air

When Apple introduced the original MacBook Air in January 2008, 2 GB seemed like plenty of memory. This was the era of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, which ran very comfortably with 2 GB – even with graphics eating up 144 MB of system memory. But limited memory was not the MBA’s only problem.

Best MacBook Air Prices

When the original 13.3″ MacBook Air was introduced in January 2008, it created a new category of notebooks that were neither underpowered netbooks nor overly heavy laptops. Things have only improved from that point, particularly with the introduction of the 11.6″ model in October 2010.

Can I Compare a sub-$200 Chromebook to a MacBook Air?

I bought a Chromebook. Back in April, I reviewed a loaner Chromebook, a CDN$269 Samsung model. Overall, I enjoyed the experience; the hardware was reminiscent of an 11” MacBook Air ultralight notebook with many limitations – partly the result of the dramatically lower price point and partly due to running Google’s Chrome OS, an operating […]

11″ MacBook Air (Mid 2013)

The big breakthrough for the Mid 2013 MacBook Air (MBA) is improved battery life. The 11″ model is now rated at 9 hours in the field, a huge jump from the 2012 model. And if you don’t use your MBA regularly, it has 30 days of standby power.

13″ MacBook Air (Mid 2013)

The big breakthrough for the 2013 MacBook Air (MBA) is improved battery life. The 13″ model is now rated at 12 hours in the field, a huge jump from the 2012 model. And if you don’t use your MBA regularly, it has 30 days of standby power.

MacBook Air (Mid 2012)

For the first time, Apple has Macs with built-in USB 3.0 support. The improved USB specification is over 10x as fast as USB 2.0 and has half the bandwidth of Thunderbolt. There are already a lot of USB 3.0 drives on the market, and they are far more affordable than Thunderbolt drives. Best of all, […]

MacBook Air (Mid 2011)

Apple made some significant changes with the Mid 2011 MacBook Air – adding Thunderbolt, moving from Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs to Core i5 (with an i7 option), switching from Nvidia GeForce graphics to Intel HD Graphics 3000, and bringing back the backlit keyboard that disappeared with the 2010 model. The 11.6″ and 13.3″ models […]

MacBook Air (Late 2010)

Apple made some significant changes to the MacBook Air in October 2010, introducing a new 11.6″ model and moving the line from tiny hard drives to solid state drives (SSDs) exclusively. Apple claims its SSDs are up to twice as fast as conventional ones.

13″ MacBook Air (Mid 2009)

The June 2009 update of the MacBook Air (MBA) gets faster CPUs (1.86 GHz and 2.13 GHz) and lower prices ($1,499 and $1,799). It used the same Nvidia GeForce 9400M graphics processor, which uses 256 MB of system memory, as its predecessor.

13″ MacBook Air (Late 2008)

The Late 2008 MacBook Air (MBA) has the same Mini DisplayPort introduced with the 15″ MacBook Pro. Drive options are a 120 GB hard drive or a 128 GB solid state drive (SSD), but now on a SATA bus for much better speed.

13″ MacBook Air (Early 2008)

Apple took a completely different approach to ultralight notebook computers with the MacBook Air (MBA). Where netbooks used small screens, shrunken keyboards, and underpowered CPUs, Apple has gone very, very thin so the MacBook Air can have a 13.3″ LED backlit display, a full-sized keyboard, and a 1.6 GHz Core 2 Duo CPU – along […]