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Review of Macbook Air

Posted Jan 30, 2008 Matthew Brodsky

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If you were groaning when Apple discontinued their portable iBook line you may be pleased to know that the thin and light Macbook Air is now on the market. It's svelte aluminium chassis weighs around 3 pounds.

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Full review of Macbook Air

Apple defined what a music player must be. It defined what a smartphone should do. And now the company could be setting the bar, very high again, for what an ultraportable laptop should be like with its MacBook Air. All within less than an inch of metal, 3 pounds of total mass, and the starting price tag of $1,799, Apple has managed to deliver what all consumers have come to expect from their laptops, and much more.

The 13.3-inch backlit LED display does not compromise on resolution (1280x800) or performance. The keyboard is full-sized. The battery doesn't weigh the Air down, yet still motors on for as long as five hours. And somehow in its narrow confines, the MacBook has room for an iSight camera as well.

And then there's the innovation that we've all come to expect from Apple. The trackpad features Apple's multi-touch input, made famous by iPhones, where you can pinch and spread your fingers to zoom in and out of your display. Then there's an innovation truly MacBook Air: the laptop has no optical drive and instead forces you to rely on Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to backup files on Time Machine, download music and movies, and communicate with others.

Its environmental advances will become industry standard and are numerous enough to deserve their own article.

"No optical drive?!" you might be able to hear an old-timer choking in panic and disbelief, unable to get over the previous paragraph. "How can I upload a driver or a new app, huh, huh, huh!?"

MacBook Air has this covered. Say you need to install a driver via a CD. The laptop has what's called Remote Disc, a wireless process that allows your Air to "borrow" the optical drive of a nearby computer with a drive. It's so freaky it's almost parasitic.

But it's progress, right? Sort of like the advanced human life forms that will thousands of years from now whose brains will be five times as big as ours and whose bodies are lifeless, useless spleen-like appendages.

But I digress. Back to the MacBook Air. If there ever was a weakness, it could be its 80GB of hard drive. A quieter 64GB solid state drive is optional as well as an external USB SuperDrive. Or the built-in mono speaker. But am I being picky here?

Otherwise, the hardware in this 3-pound package is Apple up-to-snuff. A 1.6-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo is standard, with 1.8 optional. The RAM is a standard 2GB.

Perhaps you'll never look at your old ultraportable the same way again.

Macbook Air Technical Specifications

  • Processor 1.6-1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 800 MHz FSB
  • Memory 2 GB DDR2 667 MHz
  • Harddrive 80 GB 4,200 rpm P-ATA (Optional 64 GB SSD)
  • OS Mac OS X
  • Weight 3 pounds (1.36 kg)
  • Screen 13.3 inches
  • Screen resolution 1280x800

Pros

  • Extremely Thin and Light
  • Exclusive Design
  • Optional Solid State Drive
  • Long Battery Life

Cons

  • Mediocre Performance
  • No Optical Drive
  • Only One USB Port

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