I heard this ultra-thin notebook caused quite a buzz at the Macworld Expo and I just finished reading a review in The Register. Steve Jobs got to present this little wonder himself even going as far as demonstrating that the notebook was so thin it could be placed into a manila envelope. Okay, I can't imagine the shape it would be after shipping, even with a sturdy anodized aluminum casing; my father worked for the postal service and used to joke about this large automated sorting machine called the SBPS or Small Bundle and Parcel Smasher.
Anyhow, it is soooo thin (0.16-0.76 inch); it fits into a manila envelope and weighs just 3 lbs. I find that pretty impressive for what turns out to be a full-fledged notebook sporting the following:
- 13.3in widescreen, LED backlit display that’s instant-on
- Built-in iSight camera
- Full-sized, back-lit keyboard, and a trackpad with multi-touch gesture support
- 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 4MB on-chip shared L2 cache, though a 1.8GHz upgrade will be available too
- 2GB of DDR 2 memory as standard
- The 1.6GHz model comes with a 4200rpm 80GB hard disk drive
- The 1.8GHz model has a 64GB solid-state drive
- USB 2.0 port, a headphone jack, and a micro-DVI port that supports DVI, VGA, composite, and S-video output
- 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR
The MacBook Air reportedly has five hours of battery life. Now for some of the downsides:
- No internal optical drive, but an external drive can be had for $99
- The battery is not end-user replaceable; a new battery can be purchased for $129, but you have to hand over the notebook to Apple for replacement
- The 1.6GHz model is estimated to cost $1799, while the 1.8GHz model will set you back $3098
This is a nice looking notebook and you can get more details on Apple's website here, but I'm not ready to replace my IBM ThinkPad even though I still sometimes call it by the old "StinkPad" moniker I learned a while ago. Can anyone out there comment if they've purchased the MacBook Air and how satisfied or dissatisfied they are with it?
Comment Preview