Apple MacBook Air (Core 2 Duo 1.86GHz, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M)

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Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 8 reviews Back to product review
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1 out of 1 people found this review helpful

4.0 stars

"A mini workhorse for those business meetings & trips"

by QuinzePrime on November 16, 2008

Pros: Size, weight, & sturdiness make this perfect to carry for business trips. LED backlight, gives great instant-on bright color. SSD HDD is great for quick bootups. Good battery life (~2.5-4 hours depending on usage). Cool temps, even on H.264 playback.

Cons: Slow recharge rate for battery (~4 hours to fully recharge). Battery charge capacity appears to be inferior to that of MBA 1,1. MBA 2,1 has 7% loss after only two weeks of usage vs. MBA 1,1 which has 6 months usage, losing only 5% capacity since.
Summary: If you have a MacBook Pro, an iMac or a Mac Pro, this is a perfect everyday-to-work or travel companion. I would not use this as a standalone computer unless your needs consist of only web surfing, doc editing, watching videos or importing photos from a digital camera. Some games, like WoW3, will play fine on default or low settings.

This is absolutely well worth the price and investment. It may be prudent to opt for the MacBook Air SSD option since it eliminates any risk of damage to the hard drive due to wearing down of internal mechanical parts.

MBA 2,1 is a mini workhorse. The NVIDIA update makes a huge difference in performance and it feels closer to a full blown MacBook/MacBook Pro without all the girth caused by the DVD-Rom drive.

For those still on the fence and need higher end performance, be mindful of the limited RAM since the NVIDIA card shares its memory with it (~2GB - 256MB Video = 1.768 RAM) . You may wish to wait for 3,1 when Apple boosts the RAM to 3GB or more.

Overall, I love my MBAir and am very pleased with my purchase. It is well worth the wait from version the MacBook Air version 1,1.

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Where to buy

Apple MacBook Air (Core 2 Duo 1.86GHz, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M): $1,449.00 - $1,449.99

store	price	in stock?	rating
	$1,449.99	Yes
	$1,449.99	Yes
	$1,449.99	Yes
	$1,449.00	No

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