Which means that, according to Apple, it's better than the CPUs in the other laptops it's competing against. That slow i7 is typical for thin+light 13" machines. I fail to see how this is a bad thing or even sneaky marketing.

Intels marketing is more at fault here. i7 cpus range from slower 4 core 1.8ghz thin and light cpus to high end desktop 8 core 3.5ghz ones.

When the name i7 is mentioned people are more likely to think it's one of the high end desktop processors rather than the mobile processors.

If they targeted exclusively the consumer or media editor market - sure.

But then they throw in code compilation... that's where they stop being honest.

They also said it's the fastest laptop CPU?

"in its class"

Classic Apple claim

So you're disappointed that the MacBook Air doesn't beat the CPU and GPU performance of a hulking "desktop replacement" style notebook?

The complaint is that Apple interprets “in its class” to mean literally the slowest mobile processor of the prior generation made by Intel. It’s not even “fastest in the class of low-priced value notebooks for everyday use” which is what a reasonable person might interpret that to mean.