So the MacBook Air is designed to be a wireless machine? Right Steve. I speak from experience with cut-down laptops when I say, to actually use it properly, you'll need to have several cables coming out of it to connect the kit that the chassis isn't big enough to take.
These extra bits also cost. The external SuperDrive costs £65, while you'll need a £30 USB adapter to gain something so basic as an Ethernet port! Wired networks still exist and still need to for high bandwidth data transfer, we're afraid.. As for USB itself, there's only one port. One port! That's like, so 1998!
Not needing to use external devices is, I'm afraid, a utopian dream and one that's rarely practical unless you're using the Air as a second machine to pootle about on the net and with iTunes. Not being able to use more than one USB-based device at a time is seriously limiting even if, day to day, an optical drive isn't necessary (and you can use the nifty AirDrive feature anyway).
That's why, practically speaking, I won't be buying a MacBook Air, even if the aesthetic part of my brain is won over. Added to which, there's no user-replaceable battery. Not a problem for 98 per cent of users, but an issue for some.
A remarkable achievement
Don't get me wrong, it's genuinely bold of Apple to produce this machine. Intel also seems to have pulled out all the stops to design the architecture - we're currently trying to find out exactly what's under the hood. The thickness of the chassis is a remarkable achievement.
By the way, I was worried about the weight initially, but now conclude that it's fine. 1.36kg may not be as light as many sub-notebooks but it's plenty light enough. However, it's worth noting that it doesn't have that much of a weight advantage over ultraportables that are more fully-featured - it's 450g lighter than a robust and optical drive-sporting Samsung Q45. It is, however, significantly lighter than the 2.27kg MacBook.
I'd make an impression turning up to a meeting with a MacBook Air, that's for sure.
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thatianmillerbloke
January 24th 2008
1. I agree they're beautiful, what else would you expect from Apple, but thanks for the info as regards the extra spend. In addition, I'm waiting for the stories of them snapping in rucksacks similar to the tales of people sitting on their first-gen Nanos!
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