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Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (mid 2012)
9.0
final rating

reviewed on
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Criteria Comments Rating
  • Speed and features Flash storage, USB 3, Thunderbolt, and I bumped up to 8GB RAM = FAST!! Lots of great features in the OS & hardware. great!
  • Design and form factor Trackpad is amazing. It's light, thin, and sturdy. And beautiful. great!
  • Battery life I get many hours if I'm doing normal things (browsing the web, writing), but when the processor ramps up for large WiFi transfers or VMs, eats battery faster. good
  • Display It might not be retina, but it's sharper than what most ultrabooks have. Bright. great!
  • Durability Seems solid, but I am worried that if I have some hardware issue I'll be out of luck because there's almost nothing I can do to fix it. Few repair options. so-so
  • Expandability After you purchase it, you can increase the SSD (maybe) or buy peripherals. But if you're looking for expandability: why would you even think of an Air? poor
  • Noise Fan is usually silent, but when I have a VM running, it can get pretty loud. good
  • Portability (size / weight) It seems to weigh less than my iPad because the weight is so distributed. great!
Detailed review
This is the laptop that everyone should get. I've only had mine for a short time, but now I think there's nothing else that I would recommend. I know some ultrabooks are cheaper or have more ports or more storage, but I am so blown away by this machine that I have no desire to use another laptop again.

In addition to the notes I wrote above, I just want to mention that the speakers are incredible - much better sound quality than the speakers on my 2-year old Vaio Y (which I used to think was thin, but now!).

I am new to OSX, but I am happy with most of what OSX offers so far. WIth 8GB of RAM, it also runs both a WIndows 7 virtual machine very well and Ubuntu 12.04 machine pretty well in Parallels
review history
2012-08-04
Edited comment on Speed and features