The superslim MacBook Air comes with two different configurations, a base model with a 1.6GHz processor and an 80GB 4300RPM mechanical harddrive. Earlier tests have shown that the harddrive becomes a big bottleneck at occasions, but that’s where the second model comes into play. It sports a faster processor, 1.8GHz, and a 64GB Solid State Drive. This is basically the difference between the two Air models, but the thing is … it costs $1,300 more. Which is basically what you normally pay for an entire laptop, is it really worth it?
Ars Technica has published a follow-up to the recently published Air review, where they compare the 1.6GHz and 1.8GHz models, with a focus on harddrive performance.
Their tests show, as expected, that it all comes down to what you use the computer for. The SSD technology has some big advantages and the system turned out to act considerably smoother with the SSD installed. No more harddrive lag, which was quite considerable during bandwidth intensive tasks. At the same time, the SSD is not much faster and neither we nor Ars Technica recommends anyone to spend $1,300 on the top model. The entire review can be found over at Ars Technica.com.
