Unfortunately, this brightness isn't enough to produce solid viewing angles, as I saw color darken at 45 degrees to the left and right. That's similar to the 340-nit 12-inch MacBook, and it outshines the 290-nit category average, the 319-nit Swift 7 and the 286-nit ZenBook UX330UA. The Air tries to make up for its color deficiency with brightness, emitting up to 336 nits. The Swift 7 (105 percent), ZenBook UX330UA (106 percent) and 12-inch MacBook (117 percent) all rated higher. Our colorimeter measured the MacBook Air as producing 71 percent of the sRGB spectrum, which is beneath the 100 percent category average and low for this price.

Even though Apple doesn't seem to believe the Air needs a Retina-level, or at least full-HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) display, I felt as if my eyes had gotten worse after using this machine for extended periods, as text on the screen doesn't look as sharp as it does on any of my personal devices.