MacWorld 2008 Review - MacBook Air

Apple will be adding a third product to the notebook line up called the MacBook Air. What make this notebook special? It's all about size for this kid. This notebook was introduced by pulling it out of a envelope. It weighs in at around three pounds, which a drastic reduction from the typical computer. The thickness ranges from .16 to .76 inches.

Even with the tiny size, there was still room to fit a full-sized keyboard into the computer. Apple isn't skimping on the rest of its hardware either. It sports a Core 2 Duo CPU, which will easily run your computer quietly and efficiently while keeping its cool. It also features the same hard drive that is found in the iPod Classic. If you want to go all out, there is a 64 GB Solid State Device, but this isn't for everyone. This pricey new technology will set you back $1000 just for the upgrade for the hard drive. This is a decent price; on newegg.com you can't get it for any cheaper.

The downside comes when you start talking about what Apple had to remove to make the computer this thin. The MacBook Air completely lacks an optical drive. You have to use remote desktop to share a optical drive with another computer. Granted, I don't really use mine all that much anymore since practically anything can be downloaded or made into an ISO file.

The only real issue would come in when you need to reinstall the OS. For this you need a computer to remotely connect to the DVD drive. For a PC, that requires the Guest account to be open. This severely limits the uses on company networks. For home users, this is not that big of a deal in reality.

This computer was also slated to lack other features to cut space, such as an RJ-45 connection. If you really need one, they have adapters available to plug into USB ports.

This laptop really has a small market niche. There are the people that will buy it for the size alone because they want something as thin as they can get. I could also see people getting this to go along with a desktop, where they want something mobile to carry around with them. But this isn't going to work as a stand alone computer.

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