So, if you’re considering picking up a new MacBook Air one the first concerns you should have is what kind of power this little beast has, and if its going to be too slow for daily use. Unscientifically I can tell you, its a surprisingly capable little machine, but if you try to kick it in the pants its gonna cry. I’ve only been using it for a couple days now, and while I haven’t spent very long looking at the pinwheel, don’t kid yourself and think you can’t bring the little guy to its knees (like playing Farmville and YoVille at the same time).
What does that show us? Basically, the base model 11″ MacBook Air with 2GB of RAM is overall on par with a G5 Xserve or the previous generation MacBook Air, which is convenient considering they share the same Intel Core. It also shows that my 13″ MacBook Pro with 4GB of Ram and a 2.53Ghz processor is a load faster. But real world how often are you going to use that power? I know for me, on an average day I’m switching back and forth between the web and email. For that – the Air has been excellent. How excellent? How about this:
That’s two 10 minute YouTube videos running (not paused), plus a Hulu episode of The Good Guys, and the WordPress editor all running in Safari at the same time, along with Mail.app and preview in the background. Matter of fact all three videos are still running in the background (they play smooth as silk) and I’m banging away at the keyboard of the Air typing up the last little bit of this post without a single slow down. The only way I can even tell there’s something going on in the background is because the CPU meter is still going crazy, I’m down to 700MB of free RAM and my leg is getting hot.
So, is the MacBook Air too slow? Hell No…
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