Apple MacBook Air > Reviews (31)

We got this laptop in the reconditioned section of the apple store a year ago and it cost about £750 (my boyfriend bought it with his 21st birthday money). I use it on and off now but prefer to use my beast of a laptop most of the time, firstly because my boyfriend is very protective of "his baby" and because it isnt perfect for everything.

The technical info is all online and in the discription of this review so this will really just be a techno-novice's review about using this laptop. We got Mac office on this so that it would be more compatible for work and documents from the other computers.

My boyfriend was attracted to this by the ususal tricks; namely the thinness and resulting portability, the fact it is a mac, and the good design spec and aesthetics. I liked it because it was thin and small and I could carry it easily in my handbag.

Overall the experience of the air has been good but it is rubbish for somethings. The battery life is no where near that of other laptops which are available and it is not as good as it was advertised to be. I know that battery live varied depending on how you use it and what you have open and how you charge it etc, but it only lasts about 2 hours before you need to charge it. This really reduces its portability and is a bit of a shame and point of contempt over here.

Secondly, it gets reaalllly hot and overheats quickly. This computer really isnt designed for watching movies/video on for a long time because it gets too hot and it freezes the screen. The heat that this computer kicks out is amazing. You cant put it on your lap and it has actually nearly burnt me when I just had shorts on and was trying to use it. It doesnt help that the case is aluminum but this is a real problem.

Also, because it is so small, there are only 2 input/outputs; one headphone jack and one usb. This is a problem when you want to use more than one usb thing at a time and it is just generally frustrating when you can't plug things into it. There is also no cd drive, and buying one seperately costs about £50 - aka loads. This is annoying and puts me off the computer.

It is a smart laptop and all of the functioning and programmes that come with the mac are good and nice to have a change from the standard windows set up. Overall though, there has been a lot of development since the Air was developed and I think that now there are better thin laptops for less money, such as by acer etc. I really like the mac but I dont think I would reccomend it unless you are a millionaire with nothing else to buy. Also I am really glad we didn't pay the full price for it!