Tag: New MacBook Air July 2011

MacBook Air sales have jumped by 3 times. This jump has seen Apple sell over a million MacBook Air laptops. What’s fuelled this massive jump?

MacBook Air Sales Figures

Here’s some important Mac sales statistics:

• Worldwide from October to December 2011, Apple will have sold around 5.2 million Macs.
• Laptops make up 74% of all Apple Mac computer sales.
• In October 2011, 28% of Apple’s laptop sales were MacBook Air notebooks.

Apple does not release sales figures for individual Mac products. We can, however, combine the information above to estimate MacBook Air’s shipped in Q4 2011.

This an estimate that Apple will have sold 1.1 million MacBook Air laptops globally in the last quarter.

This estimate correlates with two other estimates by Ultrabook News, which put MacBook Air sales at approximately 300,000 units a month.

Dramatic Rise in MacBook Air Sales

In June 2011, MacBook Air sales accounted for 8% of all Mac laptop sales. The following month, the MacBook Air accounted for 22% in Mac laptop sales. By October, the Mac Air was 28% of laptop sales.

This dramatic rise in MacBook Air sales is mostly due to introduction of new MacBook Air models on the 21st of July, 2011. These new models use ultra low voltage Intel Core i5 & i7 Sandybridge processors, giving performance gains of 2 to 3½ times the previous models’ Core 2 Duo processors.

The new MacBook Air models have bought the MacBook Air’s processor performance up to the level of a entry level MacBook Pro (the 13 inch model). The MacBook Air retains advantages over the MacBook Pro of being considerably smaller & lighter, and coming standard with a fast solid state flash disc.

The new MacBook Air models also added a Thunderbolt port, a new connection developed by Intel. Thunderbolt enables connecting multiple external displays, high speed networks, disk arrays and other demanding peripherals, at speeds of up to one gigabyte per second. A “daisy chain” of displays & peripherals can be connected to the MacBook Air by simply plugging in a tiny connector to the laptop’s side.

The massive performance boost and high-speed connectivity has made the new MacBook Air more attractive to potential buyers than the last MBA model – enough to give a 3½ fold increase in sales over the previous models. The previous MacBook Air models, using Intel’s Core 2 Duo processors, accounted for only 8% of Apple’s laptop sales.

More MacBook Air Information

Mac Crazy has in depth, original, independent analysis of the the latest MacBook Air models, including:

• A comparison of the MacBook Air i7 vs i5 processors
• A back-to-back Macbook Air 11 vs 13 inch with some non-obvious differences
• MacBook Air battery life estimates for different usage patterns, with actual times from extensive sources, and fixes for common causes of poor battery life,
• Tips for MacBook Air external display selection, and videos demonstrating using a super high resolution Apple Cinema Display as a MacBook Air external display.
• There’s no main MacBook Air review, but these articles work well together to give a great overview of the MacAir.

MacBook Air Future

The proportion of Apple notebook sales from the MacBook Air 2011 model continues to rise. There’s conjecture that the MacBook Pro models will follow the MacBook Air, losing their DVD burners and hard disks to become more svelte. There’s also evidence in Apple’s supply chain that a MacBook Air 15 inch model will be introduced in 2012.

What do you think the future of the MacBook Air and Pro be? Will the two products merge? Let us know in a comment below.

There’s been a number of complaints in forums about MacBook Air heat problems and fan noise or fan running constantly. What causes these heat issues? What’s the fix? Does it affect the i5 model as well as the more powerful i7?

This article addresses fan noise and heat issues with the current MacBook Air 2011 / 2012 models, released mid-July 2011.

Here’s a video a Mac Crazy user sent in of watching video online with his MacBook Air i5 13 inch. The fan is loud!

(Thanks to Rajulun for sharing this view with Mac Crazy – you are a star!)

MacBook Air Fan Noise

First, lets start with a bit of background of why the MacBook Air get hot and why it has a fan. The MacBook Air has one fan inside it, at least in the late-2010 & mid-2011 models. The fan’s job is to keep the MacBook Air’s chips from overheating by pushing hot air out the exhaust port. The exhaust port is behind the keyword, at the screen hinge.

The MacBook Air fan runs constantly by design. The fan runs at or above a minimum speed while the MacBook Air is running. On my late-2010 MacBook Air 11 inch, the minimum speed is 2000 revolutions per minute (rpm).

At this minimum fan speed, during use, the fan can’t be heard by most people. If you put one ear to the keyboard, you can hear the fan. Some people, in a very quiet room, with very sensitive hearing, may be able to hear the fan at the minimum speed.

When the MacBook Air is busy it generates more heat. The fan then runs faster to keep the Mac cool. At higher speeds, you can easily hear the fan.

This is a normal cause of fan noise on the MacBook Air – MacBook Air is busy, fans are keeping it cool. Fan noise is like sweating – it’s a response to strenuous activity.

Examples of activities that make the MacBook Air busier are:

• running many apps,
• using web sites with animation (Flash) or video,
• playing games,
• playing or editing video, particularly HD video

The room temperature will affect how fast the fan will need to run to keep the MacBook Air cool. In a hotter room, the fan will need to run faster.

The highest fan speed on my late-2010 MacBook Air is 6500 rpm. You can check your MacBook Air’s fan speed with the free iStat Pro dashboard widget. iStat Pro will also measure the internal temperatures of your MacBook Air.

If you have constant fan noise, and your MacBook Air is not doing heavier activities, your Mac’s System Management Controller (SMC) may be confused. You can fix this with a SMC reset.

MacBook Air Too Hot

The hottest temperature on the bottom of the case I’ve seen quoted in the press is 105F / 41C (AnandTech) and in the wild is 109F / 43C (thanks for commenting Corbin). This benchmark was running Half Life 2 Episode 2, which works both the main processor and the graphics processor – both of which generate heat. Both processors are on the same silicon chip in the new MacBook Air.

(If you have a higher MacBook Air 2012 / 2011 bottom case temperature, please take a screenshot and leave a comment below.)

If your MacBook Air is getting too hot, there are some possible fixes below.

Heat and Fan Noise: Just the MacBook Air i7, or MacBook Air i5 As Well?

The fan noise and heat issues are affecting the i5 MacBook Air as well. Complaints of the MacBook Air heating up, overheating and fan noise are not restricted to the Intel Core i7 MacBook Air. I’ve had a reader send in a video of his MacBook Air i5 with a loud fan.

MacBook Air Heat Issues and Fan Noise Causes

There are at least several possible causes for the MacBook Air high heat and noisy fan:

1. Software functions that consistently use CPU are being used, e.g. video encoding, finding faces in iPhoto.
2. Apps or other software running in the background is consistently consuming CPU.
3. Adobe Flash, the technology used to deliver some animated ads in web pages and most web video is consistently using CPU. This is a specific, common case of the cause above.
4. Software runs at startup that is not compatible with Mac OS X Lion. The software keeps trying to run and keeps falling over causing load on the CPU.
5. The MacBook Air’s System Management Controller (SMC), responsible for controlling the fans, has become confused.

Cause #1: Software that Consistently Uses Processor

Software that is performing an activity that consistently uses can cause the MacBook Air to get very hot and the fans to run loudly. A few examples of heavy software are:

1. Video export, encoding or format conversion (transcoding). For example, Handbrake for converting videos for display on iPhone or Apple TV.
2. Importing photos to iPhoto or performing recognition of faces in your photo library.
3. Playing some HD video. How much processor video playback uses depends on many factors, including video resolution (720p, 1080i, 1080p), frame rate, detail in video (bit rate), how sophisticated the encoding is (e.g. high profile), the video player used to play back the video, and how the video player is configured! Generally 720p is fine, 1080p is fine if it’s a lower bitrate Quicktime H.264 movie playing back in Quicktime, and other 1080i or 1080p (high bitrate or non-Quicktime format, e.g. MKV or AVI) will get the MacBook Air hot and fans will run.
4. Playing web video. Web video uses Flash, and Flash video playback is less optimised than Quicktime. I’ve noticed that occasionally a web videos use several times more CPU than another at the same resolution. I suspect that is because some web videos uses formats that Flash is optimised for (probably H.264), and others use formats that aren’t optimised in Flash (probably non-H.264 Flash video ‘FLV’). I haven’t confirmed this.
5. 3D rendering (e.g. Cinebench).
6. Video editing and effects (e.g. Final Cut, Adobe Premiere, After Effects).
7. Exporting a music track (mixdown), from a multi-track music project.
8. Playing 3D games (e.g. Portal, Half Life).
9. Running benchmarks.

If you are doing sustained processor intensive work expect it to get warm or hot and for the fan to become audible or noisy. Using either the main processor (CPU) or graphics processor (GPU) generates heat.

In these cases that MacBook Air is usually performing normally. Some of the heat is dispersed to the case, so the case feels hot. The  fan speeds up pull cool are in and push hot air out of the MacBook Air.

Cause #2: Software in the Background Consistently Consuming CPU

Every application running in the background uses power and heats up the MacBook Air. If you use less battery, your MacBook Air gets less hot. If it gets less hot, it doesn’t have to use the fan. And on the way, you might double your battery life.

You can see how much power each app is drawing, use the free software coconutBattery. To help cool down your laptop, quit background apps or pause them using the 3rd party software App Tamer.

Note that it’s not just apps running in the background that consumes power. Other background services (often called daemons) can also consume power. Mostly these are pretty efficient, but for power users, it’s worth checking.

See my article “MacBook Air Battery Life” for more info on reducing power usage and making your Mac cooler and quieter.

Cause #3: Adobe Flash Consistently Using the Processor

Flash is software that can be installed as a plugin to most web browsers, such as Safari, FireFox & Opera. Google’s Chrome browser includes Flash. Flash is mainly used to include animated and video ads in web pages, to deliver web video and provide games in webpages. Flash is not uncommon for charting. It’s also often used for entires sites for big product launches, like Hollywood movies.

Flash tends to use a lot of CPU. Most people who use Flash aren’t professional programmers, they’re usually creatives. One poorly written banner ad can swallow an entire core of your MacBook Air’s processor.

While the latest versions of Flash do some hardware acceleration for video playback, Flash still uses considerably more CPU to play video than native video players like Quicktime X.

Consider if a Flash banner ads is not visible: it’s in other browser tab, your web browser is in the background while you’re in another app (e.g. Word), or the banner is in part of the webpage that isn’t showing in the browser window. The Flash portions of webpages continue to run and consume your processor and battery even when you can’t see them.

Flash’s heavy use of CPU was running of the reasons Apple doesn’t include Flash on the iPhone or iPad, and why Flash doesn’t come preinstalled on the MacBook Air.

To minimize Flash’s grip on your processor, you have a few alternatives:

1. Use one browser window at a time. Quit your browser when you’re not using it.
2. Use the free software ClickToPlugin for Safari. It stops Flash automatically running; it requires you the click a Flash part of a webpage to make it run – which sometimes you do (e.g. a YouTube video).
3. Deinstall Flash.
4. Deinstall Flash. Use Safari without Flash. When you really need Flash, use Google Chrome instead of Safari. Chrome includes Flash built in.
5. Use FlashFrozen ($0.99) to automatically stop Flash running in the background.

Some of these techniques can be combined. For example ClickToPlugin plus FlashFrozen.

If you watch video on websites that also have animated ads beside the video (instead of in the video), you’re getting the double penalty of Flash video plus Flash ads at the same time. ClickToPlugin might be a good option here. You can just click on the main video to enable it, and leave the ads disabled, giving you the best chance of the MacBook Air staying cool and quiet.

See “MacBook Air Battery Life 2011” for more background.

Flash seems to be the most common cause of the MacBook Air overheating and fan running fast.

Cause #4: Software Incompatible with Lion

Some software doesn’t work with Lion. If it contains software that runs in the background and restarts automatically, the software can start over and over again.

I’ve seen one case of this, when someone migrated five years of accumulated software from their old Mac to their new MacBook Air using Apple Migration Assistant. The person was very technical and fixed the broken software themselves. This may have been old HP printing software, but I haven’t confirmed this.

For the technically inclined, there wasn’t much CPU usage, but with the process continually respawning the was a high run queue for the CPU.

I’ve seen serveral cases where people an overheating MacBook Air and noisy fans ran the free Onyx utility and that fixed performance issues. Write a comment if you’d like more specifics. In none of these cases has anyone reported the root cause of the problem, but for now I’ll include these cases here.

Cause #5: System Management Confused / Needs Reset

Thanks so much to Chris posting a comment about this:

I was experiencing a similar problem on my new MBA 13″ with i7 (loud fan with nothing running), along with some other odd issues related to battery and power. System preferences (energy saver) claimed my battery was charged at 0% (though I knew that was not the case), and I couldn’t add the battery status to the menu bar (I would click that option, the menubar with reconfigure as if to accommodate the new icon, but then it would disappear). Furthermore, when plugged in to AC, I got no lights (green or orange) on the MagSafe adapter. The support page at http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3964 suggested that weird battery/power issues may be solved by an SMC reset, which I did. The fans have now stopped and the other symptoms that I mentioned have also gone away. Perhaps this can help with others.

So Chris’s MacBook Air symptoms were:

1. Loud fan with no apps running.
2. Battery showing 0% charged in Energy Saver in System Preferences.
3. Can’t add battery status to the menu bar.
4. Status LED on MagSafe power connector not lighting up when plugged in.

You may not have all these symptoms.

SMC reset instructions for a MacBook Air are:

1. Shutdown your MacBook Air (go to the Apple menu and choose “Shut Down…”).
2. Make sure your MacBook Air has external power. Connect the power adaptor, if it isn’t already.
3. Using the Air’s built-in keyboard (not a plug in keyboard or bluetooth keyboard), of the left hand side of the keyboard press Control-Shift-Option and on the top right of the keyboard, the power key at the same time.
4. Release all the keys at the same time.
5. Press the power key to start the computer.

If this fixes your issue, consider replying to Chris’s comment below with a thank you for him.

MacBook Air Fan Noise and Heat Issues Fixed?

Did this help fix your MacBook Air fan running too fast / being too loud, of being very hot? Drop me a comment and let me know what you did, and how it worked for you. Your comment, like Chris’s, may really help others, as we’re still learning which are the most common causes, and what are the best solutions.

If this article helped, please clicking +1 or Like or even better link to this page from your blog or website. It helps people find this page ahead of older, less useful webpages. (MacWorld has 41 million links – help us catch up!) Thanks for visiting!

Apple claims 7 hours of battery life for the current MacBook Air 2011 / 2012 model. Upset buyers say the battery lasts 2 hours. What’s the truth? How much battery life will you get?

There’s a big range in battery life reported for the new MacBook Air (MBA) – in the article you’ll discover why. You’ll also learn how to get great battery life.

Some people are complaining of the new MacBook Air being too hot and running the fan too often. Others say its fine – a little warm sometimes, nothing unusual. You’ll learn the probable cause for this.

This article gives both real life times and benchmarks for the 2011 / 2012 MacBook Air‘s battery life. Both the MacBook Air 11 inch and MacBook Air 13 inch models are covered. The battery life for Core i7 processor upgrade is also compared with the standard Core i5 processor.

The battery times in this article are specifically for the current MacBook Air 2011 / 2012 model, released mid-2011 (July).

To piece together the MacBook Air battery life puzzle, information is used from:

• industry authorities (Macworld, AnandTech, Engadget, ArsTechnica, LAPTOP Magazine)
• forums (Whirlpool Forums, Apple’s Support Forum)
• Mac battery software developers (coconutBattery, App Tamer, ClickToPlugin, FlashFrozen)
• Mac blogs (OS X Daily, iSource)
• Apple Support

This is a big article to write – there’s a lot of information to integrate, and lots of references, tricks & surprising findings I don’t want to leave out. Some people may be holding out on buying a new MacBook Air until the issue of battery life has been cleared up. For these people, I’ve written a short answer with the essentials until I’m able to complete the main article.

If you hang on until the end of the article (or just scroll down), you can also find out where you might get a discount on a new MacBook Air, from a company you already know. It just doesn’t occur to most people that they could buy their Mac Air there, and save a bit of money.

MacBook Air Battery Life – The Short Answer

1. The battery life estimates that Apple gives – 7 hours for MacBook Air 13 and 5 hours for MacBook Air 11 for wireless web – are possible.
2. The short battery times seen in forums – two to three hours – are possible too.
3. Long battery life comes mainly from the processor being idle most of the time, saving lots of power.
4. Making the processor just a little busier can burn down the battery surprisingly faster. Just 5% utilization of one of the Air’s two CPU cores can translate into 20 to 30 minutes less battery.
5. Flash, the technology used for a lot of web video and animated ads, seems to be the “usual suspect” for most people in using CPU and using up their battery. One bad Flash advertising banner can use a whole CPU core.
6. Apple ships the new MacBook Air without Flash installed. If you use the Air that way, you will most likely reach Apple’s “wireless web” battery life estimates.
7. You could uninstall or switch off Flash to maximize your MBA battery life. Most people, however, want Flash to watch video on the Internet.
8. There is software such as ClickToPlugin (free) for Safari, that disables Flash items on web pages until you click on the Flash item to enable it.
9. Leaving applications open swallows battery. I doubled my battery life by closing apps I wasn’t using.
10. You can see how much power your apps are using with the excellent free app coconutBattery. I’d close an app and watch the number of watts being used drop. Recommended.
11. Some software installs startup items, daemons, extensions or background processes that consume CPU. Possible background battery abusers are Adobe CS5, Microsoft Office 2011 and Skype. For example Outlook on my Air is checking my office emails in the background. If you install a lot of software, you probably have a lot of software running in the background that may not be visible as an app. Quit or turn off what you can.
12. If you use Apple Migration Assistant to move your previous Mac’s software to your MacBook Air, you may have dragged years of unused background software across. If you’re guzzling battery, try a clean install of Mac OS X Lion and the apps you actually use.
13. Screen brightness affects power use, but the number of apps running has a much bigger effect.
14. MacBook Air i5 vs i7 battery consumption: the battery consumption for the i7 vs the i5 is roughly the same for nearly all use. Battery time for the i5 and i7 is very close on the 13 inch MacBook Air. The i5 on the 11 inch MacBook Air get roughly half an hour more battery time that the i7 MacBook Air 11″.
15. You don’t need to see high CPU usage in the Activity Monitor app for your battery to be guzzled. Background software starting, failing and restarting repeatedly will eat battery.
16. If your MacBook Air has short battery life inexplicably, running select features of the Onyx utility has fixed battery life problems for some people.
17. Another possibility if your battery doesn’t last long is to try a SMC reset of your MacBook Air. I haven’t confirmed this helps – it’s typically done when the MacBook Air fan is running constantly. Please leave a comment if it helps your battery life.
18. Yes – this really is the short answer! Now you know why I’m tackling writing this article in parts!

Okay, here they are: MacBook Air battery life estimates for different patterns of usage. For all of these, the 13″ Air does about half an hour more, the 11″ Air around half an hour less.

1. Wireless Web (no Flash) – roughly 7 hours
2. Wireless Web (Flash) – roughly 5 hours
3. Wireless Web (Flash), Downloading & Video – roughly 3.5 hours
4. Lots of apps or background software running as well – roughly 2.5 hours

(Source: mostly AnandTech)

If you already got what you’ve needed from this article and you’ve read enough, please consider clicking +1, Tweet, Like or even better linking to this article from your website or blog. There’s a lot of misinformation about MacBook Air battery life – I’m aiming to clean that up and consolidate it here. Still, it’s not much use unless people can find this article in Google. Making a link to this article with the text “MacBook Air Battery Life” helps this article make the first page for search results. Thanks if you can!

Oh, and don’t forget the MacBook Air discounts, if that’s of interest.

MacBook Air Battery Capacity

Let’s start with facts. The MacBook Air (MBA) comes in two sizes – an 11 inch ultraportable, and a 13 inch for more general use. (If you want some facts to help decide between the models, see “MacBook Air 11 or 13 inch – which is better?”.)

Fact #1: The MacBook Air 11 inch has less battery life than the 13 inch. This is because the 11 inch Air has a smaller battery.

The battery for both size Macs is a lithium polymer battery. The 11 inch MBA comes with a 35 watt-hour battery. The 13 inch MBA, being larger, can fit a bigger battery. The MacBook Air 13 has a 50 watt-hour battery.

Here’s a table of the battery capacity for the current MacBook Air models. I’ve included the MacBook Pro battery capacities for comparison:

The 13 inch Air has 43% more battery capacity that the 11 inch Air.

Offsetting  the 13″ larger battery advantage is that the 13 inch Air will use more battery for the screen backlight because of its larger screen.

The 13 inch Mac Air’s screen is about 25% larger by area than the 11″ Mac Air, so the 13″ Air – at the same brightness – would pull roughly a quarter more juice for the screen. Complicating the screen size / power use comparison is the fact that MacBook Air’s use screens from two different manufacturers – Samsung & LG. The LCD panel’s power requirements may be different.

It is clear that the 13 inch MBA has more battery life than the 11 inch MBA, even with the power consumption of its bigger screen. Specifics on this battery length advantage of the 13 inch model to follow.

MacBook Air Battery Life – According to Apple

Now let’s get the official story. Apple gives the following estimates on its website for the new MacBook Air’s battery life:

These estimates are unchanged from the last-2010 MacBook Air models. These previous models used Intel Core 2 Duo processors (C2D). The late-2010 MacBook Air models have excellent battery life, often exceeding Apple’s five and seven hour battery life estimates.

Apple’s battery life estimates for the MacBook Air 2011/2012 models are impressive. Keep in mind Apple asserts the new MacBook Airs have 2 to 2.5 times the processing power over the last MacBook Air model. The new MacBook Air has new Intel technology integrating the graphics processor (GPU) onto the same silicon chip as the main processor (CPU).

This first generation of ultra low voltage Intel Core processors) benchmark up to three times faster than the previous Core 2 Duo models. Apple gives exactly the same battery life estimates as the previous models. Is this believable?

The Core 2 Duo processors in the late-2010 MacBook Air are in fact rated for roughly the same peak power usage as the Intel i5 and i7 processors in the 2011 / 2012 MacBook Air – around 17 watts. It’s plausible – on paper – that the new i5 i7 models could match the battery life of the previous models.

MacBook Air Battery Life Reported in Online Forums

Okay, what’s happening out there in the wild? All of these battery running times are for the 2011/2012 MacBook Air models with Core i7 or i5 processors.

We’ve got two to seven hours battery life across the responses, with one user claiming up to 14 hours. How can there be such a very wide range of battery life, especially as many users are just using the web? Let’s look at some controlled battery tests from MacBook Air reviews.

MacBook Air Battery Life Test by Macworld

Jason Snell at Macworld.com tested six models of the new MacBook Air, in both the 11 inch and 13 inch sizes, with the Intel i5 and i7 processors. The battery test is to loop playing a video in full-screen.

Here are the MacBook Air battery times Macworld got:

Notice there’s not that big a difference between the times for the i5 and i7 processors. So for fullscreen playback of a looped video, we have 3½ hours for the 11 inch Air, and 5 hours for the 13 inch Air.

MacBook Air Battery Life Testing by Engadget

Engadget’s standard battery life test is to loop playing a video. Playing a video is typically drains a battery faster than browsing the web. On their 13 inch MacBook Air i5, Engadet got 5 hours 32 minutes of battery time.

Tim Stevens, the reviewer, concludes:

The seven hours Apple advertises for the 13 (five for the 11) is well within reach if you’re not doing anything too taxing.

Tim also noticed that the MacBook Air 2012 / 2011 model lasted one hour more than the last year’s MacBook Air model.

LAPTOP Magazine Tests MacBook Air Battery Life

LAPTOP Magazine tested the battery life of a 2011/2012 MacBook Air i5 13 inch with continuous web browsing. Web browsing typically uses less power than video playback, used in some of the other battery life tests referenced in this article. LAPTOP Mag’s test gave 6 hours 25 minutes of battery life.

How Can the MacBook Air’s Battery Life Be So Short?

The current MacBook Air models have an amazing secret power. The Intel processors in the current MacBook Air lineup are in fact very, very special. Under a light workload, the ultra low voltage Intel Core i5 or i7 processor in a MacBook Air, runs at just 1.6 to 1.8GHz, and consumes little power.

What most people don’t know, is that the MacBook Air processors are firebrands that can speed up to 2.9GHz and match the performance of the processors in the 2010 MacBook Pro 15 inch and 17 inch models, and even match the current 2011 / 2012 MacBook Pro 13 inch model. The base MacBook Air, costing $1,000, has comparable processor and storage performance to my top-of-the-line 15 inch MacBook Pro purchased August 2010 for $4,000. That is simply amazing.

The MacBook Air’s high performance doesn’t come without cost. When the MacBook Air processor runs at full speed, it drinks a lot more power than when lightly used. Combine the capacity to run fast with a thin and light lithium polymer battery (read small capacity) and you have the possibility of short battery life. The battery won’t last long when software slams the CPU, either because the software is genuinely working hard, or because the software is not efficient.

If software was written to be energy efficient, software would only use the compute cycles it really needs. The MacBook Air would hardly ever rise over it’s resting heart rate. Unfortunately, the primary consideration for software is getting it working and released. Many programmers never think about the effect of their software on your battery. A poorly written animated Flash ad can consume a whole processor core. (Which is why Apple didn’t allow Flash on the iPhone, iPad & iPod, and why Flash no longer comes pre-installed on new Macs.) Apparently watching Netflix, which uses Microsoft’s Siverlight technology, can similarly eat a whole processor. Apple’s own iCloud sync process use some battery, as will hourly Time Machine backups.

The good news is some software is improving it’s processor and battery efficiency: Flash for Mac seems to have gotten much better over the last six months. I just tried playing some full HD (1080p) movie trailers on YouTube in Safari: Avatar used just 9% of one processor core, and the Lord of the Rings used 13%. It looks like Flash is now using the graphics processor for video decoding rather than the central processor. That’s a great improvement.

Full size laptops have much higher capacity batteries; the 15″ MacBook Pro’s battery capacity is twice that of the 11″ MacBook Air. So full size laptops have the battery capacity to last longer when their processor is working hard. Having a MacBook Air is like having a supercar that can go 200 miles per hour (320km/h), but has only a 6 gallon (22 litre) gas tank.

Using processor power generates heat. On top of the compute processor, these special i5 & i7 processors have the entire video processor, the Intel HD3000, on the same piece of silicon. Together this central processor (CPU) and graphics processor (GPU) can generate a lot of heat. When either processor is busy – and particularly when both processors are busy – the fan needs to run to keep the i5 or i7 chip in the MacBook Air from overheating. The MacBook Air is little, so it’s fan is little, and a little fan needs to rotate fast to push enough air to cool the processor. If the MacBook Air is under load, the MacBook Air fan can be noisy.

The last generation of MacBook Air models (released late 2010) look identical to the current Mac Air, but contain a Core 2 Duo processor. The Core 2 Duo’s performance is a 2 to 3.5 times slower than the Core 2 Duo. The Core 2 Duo does have one advantage over the i5 & i7: it can’t work as fast, so it can’t consume as much power. I could easily get over five hours battery life on my late 2010 MacBook Air 11-inch Core 2 Duo without doing anything special. If I’d applied the battery optimisation tips in this article, I’d probably get over 8 hours battery life. If you want great battery life and aren’t concerned with performance, get the MacBook Air Core 2 Duo 11 inch or 13 inch – they’re cheaper, and still available new.

To match the long battery life of the previous MacBook Air model, Apple could have speed limited the new MacBook Air’s processors. This would extend battery life at the cost of performance. Why didn’t Apple speed limit the processors? Well, having all the power in such a small package is just too attractive!

Since I got my Core 2 Duo MacBook Air, I hardly use my MacBook Pro. The MBA is light & svelte rather than big & awkward, and due to it’s flash storage, it’s fast – the Air makes computing more casual, convenient & fun. I don’t want to lug a Mac Pro with a DVD player and big screen around. If I need a big screen, I’ll plug one in – they’re cheap. When I did video work on the Core 2 Duo Air, its slow processor became obvious and I wanted my Mac Pro again. And if I wanted fast connections into my Core 2 Duo MacBook Air, like Gigabit Ethernet, and Firewire, I couldn’t.

With the latest MacBook Air, these two reasons to switch back to my MacBook Pro are gone. The i5 & i7 processors in the current MacBook Air are fast enough for video work. With the introduction of the Thunderbolt port in the current MacBook Air, just arrive at home or the office, plug in a tiny connector, and connect a huge external display and make ultrafast connections (1GB per second) to networks, fast disk arrays and other peripherals. The size and weight of the MacBook Air is the future of laptops. I suspect Apple’s MacBook Air engineers feel the same way, and they’re gradually removing reasons why you’d need a hefty laptop. That’s why I suspect Apple engineers couldn’t bring themselves to hobble the processors, even though this makes it possible to quickly burn the MacBook Air’s battery to the ground.

It would still be possible for Apple to add option to the Energy Saver panel of System Preferences to limit the processor speed when on battery. I hope they do.

Are you Buying a New MacBook Air?

If you’re buying a new MacBook Air and you want to buy from a trustworthy company, it’s worth checking Amazon.com’s current prices. Follow these links to get the current MacBook Air prices at Amazon:

• 13 inch MacBook Air
  • MacBook Air i5, 128GB flash storage
  • MacBook Air i5, 256GB flash storage
• 11 inch MacBook Air
  • MacBook Air i5, 2GB RAM, 64GB flash storage
  • MacBook Air i5, 4GB RAM, 128GB flash storage

At the time of writing, all the MacBook Air’s linked above come with free shipping.

If you click one of the links above and do choose to buy your MacBook Air from Amazon: (a) you may get your new MacBook Air a bit cheaper, and (b) Amazon will pay me a commission. This supports me to keep writing good Mac articles.

Thank You!

Was this article helpful? If you link to this article from your blog or website, or click the “+1” or “Like” buttons, it really helps share this article – thanks! (I’m playing catch up with MacWorld, who have 41 million links.)

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Can you really only buy a MacBook Air i7 from Apple’s online store? What if you don’t want to wait 2 to 4 days – perhaps longer – for your MacBook Air i7 to arrive? What if you want to take an i7 MacBook Air home today?

Mac Crazy investigates whether its possible to buy a MacBook Air i7 2011 / 2012 model over the counter today.

How to Buy a MacBook Air i7 – What Apple Says

The MacBook Air’s technical specifications on Apple’s website say the new MacBook Air i7 is only available at Apple’s online shop:

$1199 model configurable to dual-core 1.8GHz Intel Core i7 with 4MB shared L3 cache, only at the Apple Online Store.

Is this true?

Benefits of Buying a MacBook Air in the Apple Store

If you can buy a MacBook Air in store, you can save the time waiting for it to be delivered. You take it home (or to work) now.

Another advantage to buying a MacBook Pro at a physical Apple Store is business pricing. If you have a business, the Apple Store business team also give you special business pricing.

Emeryshores, a Mac Crazy reader in Tennessee, says he can save 9.25% off a MacBook Air by buying it from an Apple Store on a tax free weekend.

Does the Apple Store carry stock of the MacBook Air i7?

I checked the stocks of MacBook Air available at my local Apple Store. That’s an official Apple-owned store, not a Mac reseller.

What I found is that my local Apple Store carried stock of the MacBook Air (MBA) with the fast, new Intel Core i7 Sandy Bridge processor. They had the i7 MacBook Air in both the 11 inch and 13 inch sizes.

(By the way, if you’d like to more information about whether to buy an i5 or i7 MacBook Air model, see “i7 vs i5 MacBook Air – is the upgrade worth it?”.)

This matches my experience with buying a MacBook Pro i7 15 inch in late 2010. The high resolution antiglare display was officially only available from Apple online. I dropped into the Apple Store at Bondi, and they had an i7 MacBook Pro 15″ with an antiglare display in stock. This saved me the two to three week wait at that time for MacBook Pro with a custom configuration.

The Apple staff member explained that they don’t make any changes to the MacBook Air configuration at the Apple Store. This means, you get the size of flash storage (SSD) that’s preinstalled – you can’t downgrade or upgrade it at the store.

Stock of the i7 MacBook Air at Apple Stores in Different Countries

The Apple Store I checked is in Sydney, Australia. I asked the salesperson whether other Apple Store’s would also carry stock of the MacBook Air i7, particularly the U.S. He said that other Apple Stores have “got what we’ve got”.

At present we’ve confirmed the i7 MacBook Air has been available at Apple Stores in:

1. Sydney CBD, Sydney, Australia
2. Montreal, Canada
3. Pioneer Square, Portland, Oregon, U.S.A.
4. Pasadena, California, U.S.A.
5. Chadstone, Melbourne Australia
6. Bridgewater, New Jersey, U.S.A.
7. Natick, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

Thanks very much to readers who have commented on availability at their store!

I’m interested to hear whether your local Apple Store has stock of the MacBook Air i7. Please leave a comment here about what you find, if you can.

Conclusion

So it’s likely that your local Apple Store has stock of the 11″ & 13″ MacBook Air i7 right now.

Thank you for visiting Mac Crazy! If you found this article useful, please help spread the word by clicking the +1 or Tweet buttons below.

This article compares the current MacBook Air 11 vs 13 inch 2011 / 2012 models. Read on for facts and experience to help you choose between the MacBook Air 13 and 11 inch models.

Oh, and at the end of the article, you can save on a new MacBook Air.

MacBook Air 11 vs 13 inch – What’s the Same?

• Both the 11″ and 13″ models are fast and responsive.
• Both sizes come with Apple’s latest operating system, OS X Lion.
• Both have high quality displays.
• Both have an ultra thin design.
• Both have fast flash storage (SSDs) instead of slow hard disks.
• Both the 13 and 11 inch Air’s can have up to 256GB flash storage.
• Both have stereo speakers and a FaceTime camera.
• Both come with WiFi and Bluetooth.
• Both include the new Thunderbolt port.
• Both sizes can be purchased with 4GB of RAM.
• Both the 11″ and 13″ can be bought with an upgrade to an i7 processor.

(Source: Apple’s MacBook Air Technical Specifications)

Mac Air 11 vs 13 – What’s Different?

• The 11″ is smaller. Smaller is always easier to move around.
• The 13″ has seven hours battery life, two hours more than the 11 inch.
• The 11″ is about half a pound lighter (270g).
• The 13″ has roughly a quarter more screen space and pixels.
• The 13″ has an SD card slot. The 11″ does not.

MacBook Air 11 vs 13 inch – Case Heat

The new mid-2011 MacBook Air bottom case can get warm towards the back, particularly when the Air is under load.

Flash, the most common web technology for video and annoying animated ads, can use a lot of CPU. (This is probably why the new MacBook Air ships without Flash installed.) So Flash can cause your Mac to get hot.

The highest case temperature I’ve seen reported is 103 F / 39.5 C.

As the 13 inch Air has a larger vent to expel hot air, and has a larger aluminium case which heat can disperse over, it should get less hot than an 11 inch MBA.

The 11-inch MacBook Air already gets noticeably warmer than the 13″.
– Anand Lai Shimpi, AnandTech

If you intend to use the MacBook Air on your lap, and you don’t like warmth, you might enjoy the MacBook Air 13 inch more.

Buy the MacBook Air 11 or 13 Inch?

• “The simple life” – If you are just doing basic tasks – web, Skype, playing music and word processing, the 11 inch screen is big enough.
• “I love small” – If you want an ultraportable computer, get the 11 inch Air. I barely notice its weight in my backpack. It’s so unobtrusive and light, it’s easy to use anywhere – on the couch, in bed, playing DJ in the kitchen.
• “Calling creatives & techies” – If you want to do a lot of activities that benefit from more screen space – spreadsheets, illustration, PhotoShop, page layout, music production, video editing, web design, CAD, get the 13 inch.
• “Creatives & techies II” – If you’re happy to use an external screen for “serious work” then get the 11 inch, and stay ultra portable.
• “For the photo mad” – If you really want a built in SD card reader – handy for digital cameras – get the 13 inch model. (You could always get a $25 USB SD card reader for the 11 inch.)

Conclusions

The MacBook Air is the best laptop in the history of the planet. I really mean that. Both the 11 inch or 13 inch model are exceptionally beautiful and well engineered. If you’re about to buy your first “MBA” – be excited!

I love my 11 inch MacBook Air. I’ve done most of the web development and writing for my personal web sites on it, without an external screen. It’s so small and light, it’s no hassle to take it anywhere. I’ve been very, very surprised that I usually don’t feel cramped by the small screen. Especially when I’m used to using three large screens at work!

The new MacBook Airs come with Apple’s latest operating system, OS X Lion. All of Apple’s apps – Safari, iPhoto, Mail and more – have been updated with a full screen mode and hiding scrollbars. These features give as much of the screen as possible to what’s important – the content you’re looking at. Lion makes the small screen on the 11 inch MBA even more usable.

My personal perfect MacBook Air system is the 11 inch with a large-ish external monitor for serious creative work. That way I get the ultra portability and super lightness, but if I doing something that needs more screen space, I can just plug a monitor in. Monitors are cheap: I picked up a light and thin 23″ AOC full HD screen for $170, and it’s great! If you have the cash, Apple’s new ThunderBolt display is perfect.

If you are using the MacBook Air as your main computer, and you won’t be using an external screen, almost definitely get the 13 inch MacBook Air. The 11 inch screen is too small for most people to use for all their computer work. I’ve seen a comment from someone who bought the 11 inch, and wished they got the 13 inch.

Eleven inches is a small screen size. The 11 inch MacBook Air is a specialised ultra-portable machine for people who are prepared to compromise on screen size. Buyers of the 11 inch probably have another computer or laptop, or they will plug their MacBook Air into a big screen at work or home. I’ll quite happily work off the 11 inch for seven hours, and never want a larger screen. But then, I also get lots of time on big screen systems as well. If you buy the 11 inch MacBook Air, make sure you’re really happy to use a screen that size. Go in and try it! If it really suits you, you will love it.

If in any doubt, get the 13 inch MacBook Air. You don’t want to always be wishing you had a bigger screen. The 13 inch is a better size for general use.

Even with all the information above, there’s no substitute for actually physically trying out the different sizes to see which one feels right. I recommend going to an Apple store, and trying both the 11″ and 13″ models. Browse the web, close the lid, pick them up, heft them. Get a feel for them. (Just don’t juggle…) Which one feels right for you? Only you know.

Save on MacBook Air

Are you planning to buy a MacBook Air? It’s worth checking Amazon.com’s current MacBook Air prices. Follow these links to get the current MacBook Air prices at Amazon:

• 13 inch MacBook Air
• MacBook Air i5, 256GB solid state disk
• MacBook Air i5, 128GB solid state disk
• 11 inch MacBook Air
• MacBook Air i5, 4GB RAM, 128GB solid state disk
• MacBook Air i5, 2GB RAM, 64GB solid state disk

All the MacBook Airs above come with free shipping at the time of writing.

If you do choose to buy your MacBook Air from Amazon: (a) you may get your new MacBook Air a bit cheaper, and (b) Amazon will pay me a commission (if you go to Amazon through the links above). This supports me to keep writing good Mac articles – thanks!

A Couple of MacBook Air Tips

1. I really recommend buying a sleeve to protect your MacBook Air when you buy it. If you hit the case, the aluminium will dent.
2. You may be wondering whether the $100 to $150 to upgrade the standard i5 processor to the i7 is worth it. If you are see this MacBook Air i5 vs i7 article.

Thanks!

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If you have comments or questions, please use the form below. Thanks for reading!