Reviewing the new MacBook Air

I don't have an iPad, although I can see the day coming. I have a MacBook Pro, which I love and which is too new to replace. When that time comes, it may be that I can have both in the same machine.

Walt Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal's technology guru, has reviewed the new MacBook Air and found:

Some of the nicest, if little discussed, benefits of using an Apple iPad tablet are that it starts instantly, resumes where you left off, and has a long enough battery life that you aren't constantly fretting about running out of juice or looking for a place to plug it in. And it can do a lot of things for which people use laptops.

What if somebody designed an actual laptop that worked this way—you know, a computer with a real keyboard and a larger screen that could run traditional computer software and store more files than an iPad? And what if it was almost as light and portable as an iPad? Well, somebody has, and that somebody is Apple itself.

The new Air, he writes, comes to life almost instantly and yet has tremendous battery life.

In my harsh battery tests, I found the two new Air models almost matched Apple's battery claims, even with all power-saving features turned off, Wi-Fi kept on, the screen on maximum brightness and a continuous loop of music playing. The 11-inch model lasted four hours and 43 minutes, versus Apple's claim of up to five hours. The 13-inch model lasted six hours and 13 minutes, versus Apple's claim of up to seven hours.

It has less storage to make room for its better battery, he notes, a problem for someone needed to store big amounts of video, for example. And other things, like a DVD drive, have to be purchased separately.

"Overall," Mossberg writes, "Apple has done a nice job in making these new MacBook Airs feel more like iPads and iPhones without sacrificing their ability to work like regular computers."