- Conclusion Get the lowdown
- Features How it compares
- Performance Real world benchmarks
- Differences Technical showdown
- Reviews Word on the street
- Competition Others to consider
- Discussion Answers and opinions
Apple MacBook Air 4th Gen
- 11.6"
- Core i5 1.67 GHz Dual core
- 4 GB
- 128 GB SSD
#1 in ultra portable laptops
Released July, 2011
Rated 100% by by H.-Sole (Aug, 2011)The computer includes an HD webcam (Facetime camera) which again if you travel and a friend or loved one has one of the more recent Macs or iDevices (iPhone 4, iPad2) you can do videocalls using Apple's facetime feature at no cost and with minimal setup.
Conclusion Check out the Apple MacBook Air 4th Gen
First reviewed December, 2011
Features Key features of the Apple MacBook Air 4th Gen
1.67 GHz
Intel Core i5 2467M
Rated 100% by by Glenn-R.-Howes (Jul, 2011)It's OK, but not the spectacular clear FaceTime HD of the camera in my laptop.
screen size
11.6"
15.6"
15.5"
MacBook Air 4th Gen by K.-D.-Hess (Sep, 2011)Although small, the screen is clear and bright, and the full-size keyboard is as good as one from a bigger computer.
MacBook Air 4th Gen by Milton-Donnell--fishin-fanatic (Dec, 2011)I even considered the 15-inch MacBook Pros with the powerful processers, huge hard drive, big glossy screens, etc, which are practically a desktop replacement, but the big price tags kept me away.
screen resolution
MacBook Air 4th Gen by R.-V.-Laxmikanth--L.V.-Raghavendra** Screen/Resolution:. >> Higher resolution on the 13" Macbook Air which i believe was greater than the 15" regular MBP definitely looked good.
MacBook Air 4th Gen by Chris (Jan, 2012)I was originally concerned about the smaller screen size, however the pixel density is so tight that it's the same resolution as usually found on a 13" laptop.
cpu speed
| 0 GHz | 2.6 GHz  | 3 GHz |
MacBook Air 4th Gen by E.-Kim (Jul, 2011)I purchased the MBA 11" with standard 1.6 gHz Core i5 and am happy with this.
MacBook Air 4th Gen by E.-Kim (Jul, 2011)Anandtech has found that the 1.8 gHz Core i7 upgrade produces significantly faster benchmarks.
processor
MacBook Air 4th Gen by J.-McWhirter (Apr, 2012)I know it sounds nuts, but the new i7 Dual Core MBA with 4 GB of RAM seems to be as fast as my 27" i7 Quad Core iMac with 16 GB of RAM, when it comes to managing RAW photos in Lightroom, and editing RAW photos in Photoshop...I kid you not!
MacBook Air 4th Gen by R.-V.-Laxmikanth--L.V.-RaghavendraThough the Processor in the Macbook Air was not the full quad core i7, my reasoning was the SSD should more than make up for routine tasks.
memory
| 0 GB | 8 GB  | 8 GB |
MacBook Air 4th Gen by Nancy-J.-Bookfan (Jan, 2012)When it comes down to a choice between quicker processor or more RAM, I've been advised to always go with more RAM, and I find this to be good advice.
MacBook Air 4th Gen by Urban-Geek (Nov, 2011)The only issue I have with the laptop is that the ram is not upgradeable so be alert to your needs and how much ram you will need.
Performance Real world tests of Apple MacBook Air 4th Gen
3DMark06 CPU
MacBook Air 4th Gen by GatorowlI don't run benchmarks, and the benchmarks I've seen so far show that this computer is much, much faster than my nearly 4-year-old MBP, which is my most important performance requirement.
MacBook Air 4th Gen by R.-Chapman (Aug, 2011)I haven't read any benchmarks on the performance over time with the new MBA.
battery life
5 hour
8 hour
8 hour
MacBook Air 4th Gen by E.-Kim (Jul, 2011)I am indeed able to use my 11" for about 6 hours with light usage, which is much better than Apple's claimed 5 hours.
MacBook Air 4th Gen by Harkanwar-AnandThe macbook pro has a much better outlandish battery life so if that is of a lot of concern I would recommend the 15 inch oddity cause it's beautiful.
cinebench r10 32Bit
MacBook Air 4th Gen by Wayne-N (Jul, 2011)the two CPUs are actually pretty neck to neck on GeekBench benchmarks.
Our analysis How does it stack up against its top 10 competitors
pros
-
1.3 MP -
Automatically adjust screen brightness for environmental factors -
0.1 ms (SSD) -
watch movies and share large files on DVDs -
4 GB -
24 Mbit/s (Bluetooth v4.0) -
1,080 g -
-
23.27 -
enjoy music and share files on CDs -
17 mm -
Dual core -
5,891 (Intel Core i5 2467M) -
2,421.2 (Intel Core i5 2467M)
cons
-
2.3 GHz (Intel Core i5 2467M) -
128 GB -
can't read a camera or phone memory card -
5 hour -
0.5 MB (Intel Core i5 2467M) -
3 MB (Intel Core i5 2467M) -
57 MB/s (USB 2.0)
Reviews Word on the street
 |   Rated by 391 users at amazon.com Rated 80% by by Eva--mellow1304 (Jun, 2012)  Rated 100% by by volsfan--volsfan Rated 100% by by Marcelo (May, 2012) |
|---|---|
Screen
Apple MacBook Air 4th Gen 11.6", 1.67 GHz, 4 GB, 128 GB SSD | Rated 100% by by Lovethefuture (Aug, 2011)Especially with 4 GBs of RAM.11.6" screen: Unless you really need a larger 13" screen, I'm confident you will be more than happy with what this model Air offers.
Apple MacBook Air 4th Gen 11.6", 1.67 GHz, 4 GB, 128 GB SSD | Rated 100% by by Y.-Zhou (Jul, 2011)it is NOT made of the same screen as the Pro and iPad (IPS), however, it is a matte screen so a much better screen in the sun.
Apple MacBook Air 4th Gen 11.6", 1.67 GHz, 4 GB, 128 GB SSD | Rated 100% by by Raj (Jun, 2012)All 3 work great.-Display - the resolution on it is amazing and it can get really bright if you're outdoors.-Keyboard - the keys on this thing are amazing.
Battery
Apple MacBook Air 4th Gen 11.6", 1.67 GHz, 4 GB, 128 GB SSD | Rated 100% by by Harkanwar-AnandIt is not seven hours, it never has ran more than four hours.
Apple MacBook Air 4th Gen 11.6", 1.67 GHz, 4 GB, 128 GB SSD | Rated 60% by by K.-Lew (Sep, 2011)As other reviewers mentioned, running any Flash modules on a Web page will eat into battery life even faster.
Apple MacBook Air 4th Gen 11.6", 1.67 GHz, 4 GB, 128 GB SSD | Rated 100% by by Bryan-Allen--originalbryan (Dec, 2011)It's as light as my old Dell Inspiron and the battery life is great!
Harddrive
Apple MacBook Air 4th Gen 11.6", 1.67 GHz, 4 GB, 128 GB SSD | Rated 100% by by TKKGUY--tkkguy (Feb, 2012)I appreciate the fast SSD hard drive (an SSD is a solid state drive without any moving platters like a traditional hard drive) and the near instant-on access and performance of the machine.
Apple MacBook Air 4th Gen 11.6", 1.67 GHz, 4 GB, 128 GB SSD | Rated 100% by by R.-V.-Laxmikanth--L.V.-Raghavendra** 256 GB SSD was perfect storage vs Speed Size for me.
Apple MacBook Air 4th Gen 11.6", 1.67 GHz, 4 GB, 128 GB SSD | Rated 80% by by Joon--The-RubyHead (Jan, 2012)I am concerned about the memory size and especially 256GB HDD, but so far so good.
Storage
Apple MacBook Air 4th Gen 11.6", 1.67 GHz, 4 GB, 128 GB SSD | Rated 100% by by R.-Chapman (Aug, 2011)The 2009 and 2010 MacBook Air base models only included 2GB of RAM and missed an entire generation of Core i-series processors, and despite having a solid state hard drive and a dedicated graphics card their of value in price to performance was very underwhelming compared to what was available for much less at the time.
Apple MacBook Air 4th Gen 11.6", 1.67 GHz, 4 GB, 128 GB SSD | Rated 100% by by Y.-Zhou (Jul, 2011)the $1200 macbook pro 13" vs the $1200 11" macbook air, the air has a better hard drive, but thats it.
Apple MacBook Air 4th Gen 11.6", 1.67 GHz, 4 GB, 128 GB SSD | Rated 100% by by James-R. (Feb, 2012)At first I was a little taken back by the specs of the smallest 11" MacBook Air, which was about $100 more than my previous 15.6" Windows laptop - but my Windows laptop had an HD screen, Blu-ray/DVD-R drive, 16GB of RAM, and a 650GB hard drive - the works.
Life
Apple MacBook Air 4th Gen 11.6", 1.67 GHz, 4 GB, 128 GB SSD | Rated 80% by by Anik (Dec, 2011)Excellent piece of hardware, fast start up, good battery life, mine went up to 5 hours with mediumusage like browsing and occasional you tube videos.
Apple MacBook Air 4th Gen 11.6", 1.67 GHz, 4 GB, 128 GB SSD | Rated 100% by by D.-Williams (Mar, 2012)Battery life is also better than any laptop I have ever owned.
Apple MacBook Air 4th Gen 11.6", 1.67 GHz, 4 GB, 128 GB SSD | Rated 100% by by Paul-Wren (Dec, 2011)Of course 5 hours at all is amazing in a computer that is so thin and light, but I want more.
Competition What else you should consider
 | 1 | Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga OK CPU benchmark score Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga vs Apple MacBook Air 4th Gen |
 | 2 | SAMSUNG Series 7 Chronos Largest amount of storage capacity SAMSUNG Series 7 Chronos vs Apple MacBook Air 4th Gen |
 | 3 | Sony VAIO S Series Highest resolution screen Sony VAIO S Series vs Apple MacBook Air 4th Gen |
 | 4 | Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Fastest processor Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon vs Apple MacBook Air 4th Gen |
 | 5 | Sony VAIO E Series 2-way tie: Most CPU cores Sony VAIO E Series vs Apple MacBook Air 4th Gen |
 | 6 | Samsung Chromebook More HDMI bandwidth Samsung Chromebook vs Apple MacBook Air 4th Gen |
 | 7 | ASUS X202E-DH31T 7-way tie: OK maximum data rate ASUS X202E-DH31T vs Apple MacBook Air 4th Gen |
 | 8 | Samsung Series 5 Ultrabooks 2-way tie: Longest battery life Samsung Series 5 Ultrabooks vs Apple MacBook Air 4th Gen |
New duel?
Let the battle continue or dare to compare.
Editions Editions of the Apple MacBook Air 4th Gen
| Price | Edition | Resolution | Cinebench r10 32Bit | 3DMark06 CPU | Manufacturer code | Compare | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | | 1366 x 768 | 5,891 | 2,421.2 | MC968LL/A | | ||||
 | | 1366 x 768 | 5,891 | 2,421.2 | MC969LL/A | | ||||
 | | 1440 x 900 | 6,533.5 | 2,750 | MC965LL/A | | ||||
 | | 1440 x 900 | 6,533.5 | 2,750 | MC966LL/A | | ||||
Popular Questions
February 19, 2013
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