The MacBook Air not only sheds some weight, it makes do without some key features you’re used to having.

 

The Facts

 

Apple products lay claim to lofty titles: the world’s easiest operating system, the world’s best-designed computers, the world’s most popular portable digital media player. And the list goes on. Now with the MacBook Air, you can add the world’s thinnest notebook computer to the roll call of superlatives. At its widest point, the Air is 0.76 inches. At its narrowest point, it’s 0.16 inches. Weighing 3 pounds, the Air is also the lightest notebook Apple has produced; the company has come a long way since the introduction of the 15.8-pound Mac Portable some 19 years ago.
At the heart of the Air is an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, a redesigned 65-nanometer Merom chip that Intel says is not exclusive to Apple. The base configuration comes with a 1.6GHz processor, and a 1.8GHz upgrade is available for an additional $300. The processor uses an 800MHz frontside bus and 2GB of RAM is fixed to the motherboard. There are no RAM slots for you to add more memory, and 144MB of the RAM is used by the Intel GMA X3100 graphics subsystem.

 

The $1,799 model comes with a 4,200-rpm 80GB hard drive. A 64GB solid-state disk option that uses flash memory for storage is quieter, faster, and consumes less power than a hard drive, but it’s a pricey $999. Apple says the Air’s small size makes it impossible to include a built-in optical drive, but a $99 external USB SuperDrive is available. Apple has also developed a new feature called Remote Disc, which lets you put a CD or DVD in a networked computer, fire up your MacBook Air, and then access that disc over the network.

 

Open the Air and you’ll find that instead of going with a small screen often seen in ultraportable notebooks, Apple has opted for a 13.3-inch glossy, widescreen, LED-backlit display with a native resolution of 1,280 by 800 pixels. You’ll also find a full-size, backlit keyboard that auto-adjusts to ambient light, and is similar to the MacBook keyboard design. Taking a page out of the iPhone interface, the Air’s trackpad lets you perform finger gestures (zoom, pan, scroll, rotate, and more) in Apple software, such as iLife ’08.

 

AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR are standard, and if you like to use a mouse, make it a Bluetooth one because the MacBook Air has only one USB 2.0 port. There’s also a Micro-DVI video port that, with the proper adapters, provides Composite, DVI, S-Video, and VGA video output (Apple includes DVI and VGA adapters). Next to the USB port is a headphone jack.

 

Finally, we get to what is the most controversial feature of the MacBook Air: the battery. While its stated 5-hour battery life is good enough for most people, the battery is integrated into the notebook—you can’t remove it. If your battery needs to be replaced, Apple has a service similar to that for iPhone battery replacement. You bring your MacBook Air to an Apple Store and pay $129, which covers the cost of the battery and installation.

 

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History’s Judgment

 

The MacBook Air is envelope-thin, incredibly light, and surprisingly sturdy, but it occupies the same desktop footprint of the MacBook. By going with a 13.3-inch widescreen display, it’s clear that Apple wanted to make no compromises in the viewing of iTunes videos (movies, especially).

 

Can the MacBook Air truly be called an “ultraportable” notebook? Not if weight and size are your primary concerns; there are lighter, less expansive PC notebooks on the market. No, what the Air has going for it is its reedy profile, a profile so thin, one might even call it “2D.” If you had the pleasure of using the Air at Expo ’08, you know that photography doesn’t do the product justice. Its design lines—or lack thereof?—must be experienced first-hand to appreciate. In short, if having the newest, coolest, freakiest notebook is your goal in life, the Air is your ticket. It’s an impressive piece of physical design, and we’ll still be recognizing that a year from now.

 

But what the Air really gives us is a peek into the future of the MacBook and MacBook Pro lines. In these full-featured computers, you’ll definitely see smaller motherboards and processors, and the Air’s trackpad finger gestures. As for the Air’s dependence on wireless connections and iTunes for data downloads, this points to a new direction for all notebook manufacturers. Apple missed an opportunity by not including 3G Internet connectivity in the Air, but other than that omission, the new notebook is decidedly wireless friendly. It’s ready for action in a world where data lives remotely on some networked hard drive or Internet server, though we can’t say we’re ready to join the Air in that universe.

 

Rest assured, you won’t see stripped-down MacBooks and MacBook Pros anytime in 2008. Those machines serve as primary Macs for users who perform data-heavy work, work that would be stifled by the bandwidth limitations of Wi-Fi and USB. Because the Air doesn’t have a lot of key features that people depend on (FireWire, an optical drive, and built-in Ethernet, to name a few), it’s best suited to be your secondary Mac.

 

History will judge the MacBook Air as a beautiful, slim-fit notebook with features that anticipate some version (but maybe not the winning version) of computing’s future. But from an “Oh my god, Apple has done it again!” perspective, neither its design nor its features inspire an iPhonian reaction.

Greening The Air

 

Along with the accolades Apple receives for its products come complaints and pressure from environmental groups for the company to be more environmentally friendly. In his keynote, Steve Jobs made it a point to highlight the efforts Apple made with the MacBook Air to create a greener Mac. The MacBook Air’s case is made of recyclable aluminum, and the display is mercury free and uses arsenic-free glass. The motherboard is free of brominated flame retardants and polyvinyl chloride. The MacBook Air’s lack of an optical drive will force people to depend on network transmission of data, weaning users away from those shiny silver discs. And if (or when) you bring your MacBook Air in for a new battery, Apple disposes of the old battery properly.