MacBook Air battery better than advertised

MacBook Air battery better than advertised

When was the last time you purchased a piece of mobile electronics where the battery life exceeded the manufacturer's claims? For me, the last time was April 3 and my iPad is still outperforming Apple's 10-hour battery life claim. Add the MacBook Air to the list of portables that will meet or exceed your expectations.

We already know that 2010 MacBook Air benchmarks impress with Apple's rebooted ultraportable besting the 13-inch MacBook Pro. But, what about battery life?

For AnandTech always a thoughtful and thoroughgoing review the battery life story boils down to your usage model, even more so than with the MacBook Pro.

Light users are going to get wonderful battery life out of the new MacBook Air, particularly the 13-inch model. However, if you are the type of user who does a lot of multitasking or if you're running particularly CPU intensive apps (e.g. Photoshop, iMovie, etc) then these two notebooks will hardly last you.

I suspect this is the distinction Apple is looking to make. If you're a regular user, just playing around on Gmail and browsing the web then the MacBook Air is all you'll need. If you are doing any work with your machine however, you'll want to look towards the MacBook Pro.

Around the time I bought an iPad, I also picked up a cheap Dell Mini 10V, which is extremely easy to Hackintosh. This netbook just didn't cut it as the keyboard layout was horrible, the trackpad abominable and the battery lasted less than two hours when multitasking heavily, and I quickly sold it.

That said, a wi-fi iPad is my current mobile computer and, although it's doing the job well enough now, I'm really looking forward to iOS 4.2 (next month), which will bring multitasking.

To sum up

As the reviews have shown, Apple's MacBook Air is going to be greatly superior to any netbook both in terms of performance and battery life. Still, if you find yourself more than occasionally in Photoshop or other processor intensive apps (when away from electrical outlets), the MBA might not be the portable for you.

For everyone else, especially students and business types, the Late 2010 MacBook Air with its ultra-small footprint, relatively cool operation, light weight, pretty decent performance and, yes, long battery life is going to be a godsend

What's your take?

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