Mainstream media has the first overviews of the MacBook Air available today: you can catch the high-level thoughts at USA Today, the Wall Street Journal and Newsweek. These are less of a review and more of a general impression and description of the device, but two of the three hit a key point worth a mention: actual battery life.
Edward Baig at USA Today indicates 3 hours and 40 minutes while surfing and writing; watching a movie knocked it down to 2 hours and 40 minutes. Walt Mossberg got 3 hours and 24 minutes with his standard test of playing loops of music with no power management and the screen brightness at full. As a standard test, I think it's lacking in terms of pushing the processor, but that's just my opinion. Steven Levy at Newsweek didn't offer a true battery run test, which causes me to raise an eyebrow, but he does say he was getting slightly less than the five hours that's advertised. Unfortunately, we don't know what he had the machine doing for those nearly five hours.
The device is still effective for a segment of the mobile market, but if you're on the go and can't plug in, you'll want to watch the clock... and wish for the basic ability to use a spare battery before you run out of Air. I still can't get past the decision to implement a non-user-replaceable battery solution. Had the battery run-time been stellar, even better than the Apple claim of up to five hours, then perhaps I could overlook it.
译文:
MacBook Air测评：电池寿命似乎有点弱
主流媒体今天第一次全面回顾了MacBook Air笔记本：你可以在 USA Today、 the Wall Street Journal 以及Newsweek上读到他们的高见。与其说这些文章是产品评论，倒不如说是对这个设备的印象和描述，不管怎样，这三家媒体中至少有两家说中了关键，值得我们关注：即MacBook Air实际的电池寿命。
USA Today的Edward Baig说，如果上网和写作，电池可以使用3小时40分；如果看电影，只能用2小时40分。Walt Mossberg有自己的测试标准，他不接电源循环播放音乐，屏幕亮度调到最大，电池用了3小时24分钟。我认为，作为一项标准化测试，还应对处理器施加更大压力，但这只是我的个人观点。Newsweek的Steven Levy并未进行测试电池的实际性能，这让我感到惊讶，但他也确实说过，他使用时，电池寿命也比广告上所说的5小时偏少。但不幸的是，我们不知道他在这将近5个小时的时间里，用电脑做过些什么。
作为移动设备市场的细分产品，这个设备还是十分好用的，但如果你在路上不能接电源，你就得看着表数着还剩多少时间了……在Air电池耗尽之前，你会寄希望于其基本性能——换一块备用电池。我还是想不通，他们为什么不允许用户更换电池。要是电池可以用很久，甚至比苹果公司声称的5小时更长，那么我可能会忽略它。