The world’s thinnest notebook. Revolutionary. One of a kind. These are just a few of the terms used to describe the new MacBook Air from Apple. How revolutionary is it though? Like everything Apple releases, it’s difficult to tell if one of their new products is truly is revolutionary or just another arbitrary electronic. Indeed the Air is the world’s thinnest notebook, but is it worthy of the attention it’s receiving let alone the $1,800 asking price? Do you need to upgrade from your existing laptop to the “Air”?
Let’s begin with what the Air’s strengths. The laptop weighs three pounds and at its thickest, is well under an inch in girth. It will wirelessly connect to any 802.11 A/B/G and N networks. The N standard has yet to become official, but the Air will support prerelease dubbed “Draft N”. The multi touch technology found in Apple’s iPhone’s has now been incorporated into Air’s “trackpad” or touchpad used in place of a mouse. This enables the zooming in and out along with the rotating of photos and text in specific Apple applications.
The Air does not include an optical drive nor an Ethernet port for wired internet. The reasoning behind the exclusion of an optical drive is the Air's ability to wirelessly connect to another Mac or PC and use that computers optical drive. You insert a disc in the neighboring computer and connect the Air to that computer wirelessly. You can then run the disc on the Air streaming it off the neighboring computer. This is pretty incredible but without a neighboring computer you have control over, you’re out of luck if you need a disc drive.
Now for where Apple cut corners. The lack of an Ethernet port on the Air will undoubtedly be an annoyance for many without wireless routers. The Macbook Air contains a Core 2 Duo Processor which was specifically redesigned for the Macbook Air, reducing the chips size by 60 percent. This results in a lowered clock speed and ultimately a decrease in performance. The largest hard drive offered for the notebook is 80gb. The 160gb iPod offers twice the storage space of the Air...
The Air has only one USB port. With everything the notebook doesn’t include you‘re going to have to carry around quite a few accessories, most of which will plug in through USB.
On the air however, you will only be allowed to use them one at a time. If you want to buy an optical drive for the notebook, it will cost you $99 coming from Apple. This is somewhat ridiculous when you can buy a great optical drive that will burn, rewrite and read DVD and CD’s for around $30. You’re paying a $69 premium to have the official Apple drive. As well you may need wired internet which will cost you $30 from Apple and will likely plug in through USB. The included webcam doesn’t have a microphone to go along with it so you will likely need to get a microphone to plug in through USB for Skype conversations.
Many of the people buying this notebook will be people who travel a lot and need internet access, even when there is no wifi available. The adapters to give you internet outside of wifi will be yet another dongle plugged in through USB, some of which won’t fit due to the discrete placement of the USB port on the Air. That’s a lot of accesories for one USB port.
I must say the Air is a typical Apple creation in a very good and a very bad way. Apple includes features such as an automatic backlighting keyboard and multi touch technology but leaves out 3G network chips and “duh” features like more than one USB port. In short Apple is very good at making incredibly attractive electronics with some revolutionary features, but leaves out many obvious functions even the most basic users would find nice to have. You gotta give Apple credit for creating the world’s thinnest notebook, at the same time though you gotta laugh at them for leaving out so many obvious must haves.
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