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Lightweight new MacBook Air is heavy-duty
When Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced the new ultra-slim MacBook Air notebook computer at last month''''s big MacWorld
expo in San Francisco, I was impressed but skeptical of what lay under the lid.
I thought the 3-pound MBA, as it''''s known, was, excuse the pun, just too lightweight. I questioned whether the tradeoffs necessary to pack so much in such a tiny package justified its steep $1,795 starting price.
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Now that I''''ve had one for a week or so, I can tell you that while the MacBook Air may not be for everyone, it is very much for me.
In fact, as soon as I return the evaluation unit sent me by Apple, I''''m hitting eBay and craigslist to sell my 5-month-old, 15-inch MacBook Pro and buy an MBA of my very own.
I can sum up the MBA with three words: stunning, elegant and convenient.
The keyboard is full-sized and back-lit. The track-pad does neat gesture recognition and zooms and squeezes like the iPhone.
It is an absolute delight to look at and to use. That''''s the stunning and elegant part.
But it is the convenience of the MacBook Air that I think has been most underreported.
For the corporate worker who runs from meeting to meeting, this is the gadget you want. It''''s not much bigger than a legal pad in a binder. And, with Wi-Fi now being standard in most of the corporate world, you have full access to your calendar, your address book, e-mail and the Internet, so you''''re never out of touch.
Toting this is way easier than lugging along a Franklin Planner.
The super skinny shape is made possible by stripping out a lot of the standard features. There is no optical drive for CDs or DVDs. You can buy an external one from Apple for $99 but, really, you don''''t need it; you can "borrow" the drive of another Mac, or even a PC.
Load Apple''''s Remote Disc software into the machine you want to use and you can then install software on the MBA from the host machine''''s optical drive wirelessly. I''''ve done this with a Fujitsu PC and another Mac. It is amazingly easy.
What about watching movies? Again, you don''''t need to use a DVD. Download a $3.99 rental movie from the Apple iTunes store. How simple is that?
The whole idea of connectivity has been redesigned with the MBA. A little pull-down flap that''''s all but invisible on the right side of the machine reveals a USB 2.0 port, a headphone jack and a micro-DEVI for hooking up a projector for PowerPoints. That''''s it.
You can get adapters and hubs if you want more ports and hookups, but the architecture is minimalist. Just what you need and not more, though I think Apple should have included an Ethernet port instead of forcing you to buy a $29 adapter.
The hard drive on the standard MBA is a 1.5-inch mechanical drive like those used on digital music players. It''''s not the fastest or the biggest for notebooks, maxing out at 80 GB.
I''''ve loaded the MBA that Apple sent me with Microsoft Office, Adobe''''s Dreamweaver and Photoshop, Apple''''s Final Cut Express video-editing program and a bunch of other applications.
They join the Safari Web browser, Apple Mail, the iCal calendar program, Apple''''s Address Book and the full Apple 2008 suite of photo, music and video programs preloaded on the MacBook Air. Even with all those programs, the 80 GB hard drive still has over 51 GB left.
Apple also has a faster SSD (Solid State Drive) with no moving parts that you can order. But because SSD technology is just now moving into portables, it has a capacity of only 64 GB and costs almost $1,000 more. I would not recommend it at that cost.
The MBA comes with a 1.6 GHz Intel Duo Core processor. That is certainly not the most robust available in portable computers today. But I really have not noticed any speed issues. Maybe that''''s because Apple includes 2GB of RAM as standard.
But really, how much speed do we need? Except for hard-core gamers and those who do massively complicated processor-intensive tasks like editing a full-length Hollywood
Published: February 13, 2008
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