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Macbook Air 11.6″ gets unboxed!

So the first batch of the new Macbook Air 11.6″ arrived early this week in all Apple Reseller Stores and we spared no time to get our hands into one of these babies. See un-boxing photos and first impressions after the jump.

I originally wanted to get it in SG since I was supposed to go there for a media coverage yesterday but due to visa issues with my Japan trip in two weeks, I wasn’t able to go (sent Calvin there instead to do the coverage). Dale, our special assignments contributor, also went to HK for some shopping and tells me the entry-level Mac Air sells for around Php46,000USD 784INR 66,452EUR 747CNY 5,709 there.

Fortunately, we found a local source that was able to give us a really nice deal at Php45k for straight cash purchase. Pretty good deal considering the SRP is Php52k.

So, on to the unboxing of the new Macbook Air 11.6″.

I’ve been a fan of the 11.6″ and 12.1″ ultraportables since last year with the MSI Wind U2xx series, the Acer Timeline and the Asus UL series. The Sony Vaio X was drool-worthy but being Atom-powered, and a Z-series at that, I felt they were a bit under-powered.

I’ve recently purchased a Core i3 ultraportable, the Asus UL20FT (review coming up this week-end), as an upgrade to the Core 2 Duo SU7300 1.3GHz of the Acer Timeline but the 3 to 4 hours battery life left me wanting. The Timeline really spoiled me with a 5 to 6 hours battery life.

So when the 11.6″ Macbook Air was announced, I thought this could be the closest fit to what I am looking for in an ultraportable. It’s super thin and super light, has pretty decent processing power and a 5-hour battery life I’m satisfied with. From my usage since yesterday, the claimed 5 hours of battery life is true and maybe I can even stretch it by lowering the screen brightness.

The new Air is pretty impressive at first glance — the thin and light form-factor gets very high scores and to think that it has an aluminum unibody adds to that great engineering feat.

The base configuration of a Core 2 Duo SU9400 running at 1.4GHz and a 2GB RAM is pretty decent and, based from experience, is already a good combination of a performance yet power-saving system. Add the embedded SSD into the mix and you get a very snappy system that boots very fast, launches applications in a jiffy and goes from sleep to wake in under a second.

The full keyboard comes with chiclet-style keys, standard for all Macbook, and the large trackpad are all comfy and easy to use. The entire trackpad is also the button so that need some time to get used to. The power button is also at the top right corner so I get confused it with the Delete button oftentimes.

The one big concern with the unit is the limited amount of storage space. Using SSD is great but that also limits capacity due to the expensive parts. The base config only has 64GB in it so if you’re carrying a lot of photos, music and videos, that will eat it up in no time. The 2nd variant comes with 128GB but at Php10k more.

Most logical and affordable solution is to bring an external storage for the large files (fortunately, I still have that 750GB My Passport that WD gave to me lying around).

My only other personal concern is the OS actually. It will take some time to get used to OS X and learn the ropes, find and use alternative softwares (anybody knows of a good SSH client for Mac similar to putty?). I would not really be a full-time switcher since I’ll still be using my old and trusty Window machines.

Over-all, the new Macbook Air is very promising. The combination of a smaller form-factor and above-average battery life makes it a good option for a walk-around laptop. The price-point has also gone down considerably since the first time the Air was introduced. You will no longer be burning holes in your pocket. Just one.

Abe Olandres
Abe Olandres
Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.
  1. Cool price! Sir Yuga, can you refer me to this reseller? I would appreciate it. Thanks! (You have my email here)

  2. you don’t need to download a 3rd party ssh client for os x. Just use the Terminal app. Since OS X is Unix based OS

  3. Sir Yuga can you refer me to this reseller? They might be selling cheaper brand-new macbooks too. Thank you so much. :)

  4. me too…can you share to me your local source sir yuga? sure buyer here…thanx! :)

  5. They sell it here on campus at a discount for students. P46k for the 64GB version and P55k for the 128gb version.

    Even the Ipods and Itouches are really cheap here. They’re cheaper than online resellers by a few hundreds selling at the cheapest prices i know of so far. 10.6k for 8gb. 13.6k for 32gb. and 18.7k for 64gb. Pretty cheap, huh?

  6. I think Digital Hub offers the cheapest for the 11″ entry level for php44000 cash purchase.

  7. “I would not really be a full-time switcher since I’ll still be using my old and trusty Window machines.”

    – Try to get the high-end Macs or iMacs and you’ll surely forget about your Windows machines. :-)

  8. And i thought you wouldnt be liking a mac, remembering your blog about mac vs pc

  9. wow..this is nice! what i like about OSX is that you can preview any files be it video or pdf or photo with just a tap of the spacebar, and the multi touch and inertial scrolling is a nice touch

  10. SSH is native in the terminal application.
    If you need SFTP then Cyberduck for mac is recommended and opensource

  11. let’s see if the saying “Once you go Mac, you can’t go back” holds true and applicable to Yuga :D hehe

  12. Nice review, made me want it more. Reminds me to do the laundry this weekend make the wife smile and get the 11.6″ early next week.

  13. 45k for cash purchase? Magkano ang Apple logo doon? 10k? :)

  14. @Arnold: for the desktop machines, he already posted more than once why he still uses IBM clones over Macs.

  15. @arnold

    fanboi spotted.

  16. hmmm… the Air is nice.. but i’d still go with a Macbook pro given a choice.

  17. lol @LULZ

  18. 45k is a great price! Please share reseller info as I’m about to get a MacBook Pro next month.

  19. Nice one and the price is down from the first gen of MBA!!!

    http://www.teknisyan.net

  20. Mr. Olandres,

    No need to acclimatize to Mac OS X. You can install Windows 7 OS using Boot Camp. Drivers for the Mac hardware can also be installed via Boot Camp.

    The only problem is the keyboard. Some Windows shortcuts are made a little longer due to the keyboard discrepancy. But, this is arguably a minor issue.

    The advantage is being able to utilize the Air’s hardware using a familiar OS (Windows). And, based on my experiences with replacing Mac operating systems, the machine will probably run even faster using Windows 7 than it did using Mac OS X.

    David Poarch
    http://coconuter.blogspot.com

  21. Mr. Olandres,

    No need to acclimatize to Mac OS X. You can install Windows 7 OS using Boot Camp. Drivers for the Mac hardware can also be installed via Boot Camp.

    The only problem is the keyboard. Some Windows shortcuts are made a little longer due to the keyboard discrepancy. But, this is arguably a minor issue.

    The advantage is being able to utilize the Air’s hardware using a familiar OS (Windows). And, based on my experiences with replacing Mac operating systems, the machine will probably run even faster using Windows 7 than it did using Mac OS X.

    Regards,
    David Poarch
    aka ‘the Coconuter’

  22. Awesome! I want that too ^_^

    Nice review again Sir Abe. Looking forward for future post ^_^

  23. Pashare naman ng reseller information and if magkano yung 13 nila

  24. You guys can call iStudio at the Shangri-la Mall EDSA. They give good cash discounts there.

  25. sir yuga, pati iba pang apple products like ipods, etc???

  26. @joeyoliver What’s your school? D:

  27. wow … droll !!!

  28. Hey it’s the Coconuter!

  29. Apple sells to Ateneo students at discounted prices.

    Available in Ateneo campus only. :)

  30. try Cyberduck for your SSH needs in Mac OS X

  31. nice one sir yuga! transition to mac osx from windows will be a breeze.

  32. In Ateneo they discount the Apple computers and iPods.

  33. If bootcamp is not your thing, I believe Parallels Desktop for Mac can work here. You can switch from Windows to mac with great ease. You can select whether window, crystal, coherence, full screen or modality. I currently use Parallels 5 on top of Mac OS Snow Leopard. It works perfectly. They have already updated it to version 6 but I haven’t tried it. :-)

  34. Very nice design by apple..but still i want zacate platform on that thing because the c2d architecture are almost at the end of the line.

  35. anybody knows of a good SSH client for Mac similar to putty? – terminal app is the application that you are looking for, it is native in macs

  36. You got your macbook from iStudio Shang? I was in iStudio Vmall, their price is 51,990 for the 64gb. Will go to iStudio Shang tomorrow and try if they’ll give me a discount for cash purchase, Digital Hub takes a while to update their stocks.

  37. Update: i called up iStudio shang, 64gb is reserved to me. Thank you for the info Abe. :)

  38. Ateneo! Super big discounts for students!

  39. hi mr. yuga, you have my email add, please refer me to the retailer or send me the name, branch and phone contact. P46T is a damn good price. thanks a lot.

  40. Can i invite you in my segment What’s New? We feature the what is the latest Gadgets, places, trends, restaurant… etc…

  41. 5 hrs web browsing
    3.5 hrs or less watching flash videos on youtube.

    tested it on a unit at simlim.

    I would buy straight away on 5 hrs battery life or more on flash. My first gen unobody macbook pro does the same thing just thicker.

  42. sir abe have you seen this?

    http://www.tipidpc.com/viewitem.php?iid=7802013

    http://micgadget.com/1649/macbook-air-knockoff-full-review-unboxing-and-hands-on/

    can you run your own review of this for us?

  43. tried calling digital hub robinsons, and iStudio Shang, taguig,vmall, but they dont have stocks of 505 nor 506 and nobody seems to have heard of a price of 46T for spot cash. they all say price is 51,999. did you guys talk to a certain person? can i have the name? maraming salamat po.

  44. pwede kaya ako mag-panggap na Atenean para maka-avail ako ng huge discounts? mga magkano kaya? aabuting ng 7K ang discount?

  45. Nice One…

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