We've heard many things about the MacBook Air, people praising and criticising its small formfactor, its single USB connector, ... . On the opposite, it still performs good, especially when compared to other "ultra portable" computers, that usually lose most of their performance.
Gizmodo has compared the 1.6 GHz model with 80 Gb HD to a MacBook Pro 2.2 GHz (previous model) and a MacBook 2 GHz (also a previous model).
Contrary to all expectations, the MacBook Air's performance is actually close to the MacBook 2GHz in most of the tests. It even outperforms the fastest computer with great advantage, in an MP3-encoding test.
The 800 MHz FSB definitely is the major catalyst here (the other models have a 667 MHz bus). It's also remarkable that processes that require a lot of interaction with the harddrive are doing quite well, thanks to the 8Mb cache memory. Apple has chosen for the only 1.8" HD with 8 Mb cache here, usually these models feature only 2 Mb.
The lack of a bigger harddisk and limited connectors will still be considered an obstacle for those who want to use it as a desktop replacement and don't need a very powerfull machine, especially in 3D graphics.
[translation by xavier]
