MacBook Air
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About the Macbook Air
The Macbook Air is Apple's ultraportable notebook computer. It is not designed to be their most powerful laptop, just their most portable one. Weighing in at a mear 3.0 pounds (1.36 kg), it is perfect for any road warrior.
To get this portability, Apple had to make a few sacrifices. The Macbook Air does NOT have a built in CD/DVD drive and has a very limited selection of ports. By very limited, it has a: Micro-DVI Port, 1 USB Port and a headphone sound out. Oh yeah, and the power plug. But that's it.
In exchange, you get a 1.6 or 1.8 ghz core 2 cpu, built in iSight, Bluetooth, Wireless N, 5 hours of battery life and a very slim profile machine.
One of the most exciting aspects to the Macbook Air, is it's storage options. The standard configuration comes with an 80 gig hard drive. No big deal there. But it has the option for a 64 gig solid state hard drive. NICE! However, this solid state goodness will set you back a cool $999. To quote Steve Jobs: "It's expensive, but it's fast". So if you are willing to pay the price, you can get a fast little laptop with no moving parts!
Macbook Air Specs
The Standard Macbook Air:
- 1.6 Ghz Core 2 Duo CPU
- 13" Widescreen display
- 2 GB memory
- 80 GB PATA hard drive (4200-rpm)
- 802.11n Wireless & Bluetooth
Price: $1,799.00
The Solid State Macbook Pro:
- 1.8 Ghz Core 2 Duo CPU
- 13" Widescreen display
- 2 GB memory
- 64GB solid-state drive
- 802.11n Wireless & Bluetooth
Price: $3,098.00
Apple Macbook Air Ad
Macbook Air Reviews
- Engadget Macbook Air Review
Engadget's in depth review of the Macbook Air. Lots of good pictures. - CNET Macbook Air Review
CNET's view of the good and bad about the Macbook Air. They also added benchmark results. (Includes video) - Review by USA Today
The Macbook Air reviewed by Edward C. Baig of USA Today. (Includes video) - Wall Street Journal Review
Review of the Macbook Air by Walt Mossberg fo the Wall Street Journal. (Includes Video) - Macbook Air review by Newsweek
Review by Steven Levy of Newsweek. (Includes video) - No Spin: MacBook Air with Solid State Drive
A Macbook Air with a standard harddrive vs Macbook Air with the solid state drive comparison. They have lots of benchmark graphs. A really great evaluation of solid state hard drives.
Apple Macbook Air Guided Tour
Pre-Release Rumors
The MacBook Air is expected to be announced at MacWorld 2008.
Rumors about a ultra-portable Mac Laptop have been running around for some time. Those rumors reached a fevored pitch running up to MacWorld.
Wired claims to have obtained pre-release images of the sub-notebook: http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/01/breaking-macboo.html and MacRumors.com has been going crazy with sub-MacBook rumors for the past month.
MacWorld 2008 Anouncement
10:02 - 1 Hour into Keynote. Still no notebook anouncement. Steve is still chatting about Apple TV and iPhones...
10:08 - There it is: "As you know, Apple makes the best notebooks in the industry. Today, we are introducing a third kind of notebook. It's called the MacBook Air"
Introducing: "The World's Thinnest Notebook"!
