The WOW! Buzz

Last week we discussed the original MacBook Air (MBA) as an engineering exercise and the extrapolation of technologies from that original design.  As a value proposition, the original MBA didn’t make the grade according to most pundits.  I never owned one, so have little reason to argue.  It is clear though that technologies and ideas introduced in that original product have had a clear impact on subsequent designs, discussed last week.  Enter the MBA–second generation!

The new MacBook Air betters the original in almost every particular–as it should.  Apple chose to implement significant learnings from the original MBA and the recently introduced iPad:

1)  The new MBA will respond to  all ten “special” commands on its oversized trackpad that can be used on the iPad and iPhone, including two-finger scroll, pinch open and close, rotate, right click, 3 finger swipes, etc.

2)  Built in, high capacity batteries–Apple claims a 5 hour time for the 11 inch model and 7 hours for the 13 inch model, with 30 days of standby time possible.

3)  Full flash memory architecture, getting rid of any spinning hard disk drive with its performance, weight, and power consumption penalties.

4)  Nvidia GeForce 320M chipset for graphics (the same as the basic “on board” chipset in the MacBook Pro line–the only difference being that one can add additional graphics “oomph” to the MacBook Pro) for much better graphics capability than the original MBA.

5) Full iLife software suite that comes with any other Mac–iTunes, iPhoto, Garageband, and iMovie.  Capable programs for digital creation of media–head and shoulders over bundled software from other netbook manufacturers.

6)  Still a unibody aluminum chassis, machined out of solid blocks of the stuff.  This Mac has gone one better with the screen also being a machined unibody piece.  The result is an exceptionally solid machine that is light, but still can take it.

Based on tests run by a number of independent labs, the MBA II comes in at upper mid pack of the netbook world, but that doesn’t tell the whole story.  The Intel Core Duo found in the MBA II is essentially the same processor and clock rate that ran in the original, but subjectively (according to most users) has about twice the performance, probably due to architecture changes and dedicated on board graphics processing.  At all events, this architecture is miles and miles ahead of the Intel Atom processors found in most netbooks.  In the much pricier “ultraportable” catagory, the MBA II fell short compared with the Sony VAIO Z series and the Toshiba R700 in raw processing power.  Still, the aforementioned computers are far more expensive than the MBA, so that’s probably not a completely fair comparison. Better to compare those with the regular MacBook Pro line.

While not nearly as “ground breaking” from an engineering standpoint as the original MacBook Air, my sense is that the second generation will appeal to many more users with its increased performance and more modest pricing.  And, as a exercise in modern art, it doesn’t get much better than this in a mainline consumer product.

Until next time…