Here at Macworld Lab we managed to score an evaluation unit of the 1.6GHz MacBook Air, which arrived today. Our initial impressions? My oh my, this thing sure is thin, but it’s been a handful for us. Our first challenge was getting Speedmark—our suite of applications and test files we use to perform benchmarking—onto the Air. Since the Air lacks a Firewire port, we had to perform a wireless migration from another system, which took roughly two and a half hours (copying Speedmark onto new systems usually takes us about 30 to 40 minutes).
Now that we’re finally past that step, we’ve started benchmarking the notebook. Unsurprisingly, the Air isn’t turning in the speediest results. For example, it takes about 10 minutes to complete our Zip test, which involves zipping a 2GB folder; by way of comparison, the 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook (white) takes a little less than 6 minutes to complete the same test. I’m aware, of course, that this isn’t the fairest comparison. Macworld Lab will present a full chart of comparative results as soon as it’s ready.
10 mins as against 6 minutes on the macbook seems alright to me. For the portability, it sure it worth it. And let's face it, this thing is in no way meant to zip 2GB folders...