The MacBook Air is the sub notebook of a road warrior's dreams. It's thin, lightweight, and perhaps most important for those on the go, sturdy. In fact, if you add the SSD (Solid State Drive), the MacBook Air is nearly indestructible, at least from a data loss point of view.
- Thin is in
- Lightweight (3 lbs.) is good, too
- 13.3" display
- Full-size keyboard
- Multi-touch trackpad
- Limited ports
- No user-replaceable parts, including the battery
- Small hard drive
- Solid State hard drive option is expensive
- Only 0.16" thick at its thinnest point
- 1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor (1.8 GHz optional)
- 2 GB RAM
- 80 GB hard drive
- Optional 64 GB Solid State Drive
- Built-in iSight camera
- Built-in microphone
- 802.11n Wi-Fi compatible with 802.11 a/b/g
- 1280x800 native display resolution
- It’s cool. 'nuff said.
The MacBook Air is Apple's modern take on a sub notebook for frequent (and weary) travelers. And Apple being Apple, it looked at the needs of road warriors from a different angle than most manufacturers do. Instead of trying to cram the most possible power into the smallest form factor, Apple focused on what business travelers need most when they're on the road, and came up with a product that stands out from the crowd.
The difference starts with display size. Most sub notebooks use a 12" or smaller display; some displays are downright diminutive (under 10"). The primary reason for choosing a small display is to keep overall weight down. Apple took a different tack. Choosing a comfortable 13.3" display was really a no-brainer, even if it wasn't an obvious choice to anyone else. Going with a slightly larger-than-typical display allowed Apple to throw in a full-size keyboard that's rumored to be Apple's best keyboard yet. With decisions about display and keyboard size made, Apple set about trimming the MacBook Air's weight and reducing its bulk to make it easy to grab-and-go just about anywhere.
The result is a svelte sub notebook, with a height that ranges from 0.16" at its thinnest to 0.76" at its thickest, and tipping the scales at a mere 3 lbs. To achieve this form factor, Apple jettisoned the optical drive and eliminated the user-replaceable battery. It also limited the number of available ports to four: a single USB 2.0 port, a Micro DVI port, a headphone jack, and a MagSafe power connector. Surprisingly, the MacBook Air doesn't have an Ethernet port, although a USB-Ethernet converter is available from Apple. Because the MacBook Air includes 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1, networking connectivity should not be an issue.
