Move over, Michael Jordan. Apple has introduced a notebook that’s going to be getting some serious air. And I don’t mean that lightly. At Macworld 2008 today in San Francisco, CA., Steve Jobs unveiled to the world the thinnest laptop computer ever made: The MacBook Air. This computer is so thin that Intel Corp. had to downsize their popular Core 2 Duo processor into a footprint that’s over 50% smaller.
But who’s going to want this ultra-portable full-sized MacBook? If any of you remember back a few years when Fujitsu introduced their super small Lifebook Q2010, which measured just 0.75″ thick, it wasn’t that popular. The MacBook Air is a wedge, coming in at 0.76″ at its thickest point, and an amazing 0.16″ at its thinnest. Aside from the custom Core 2 Duo, one of the main reasons Apple is able to pull this product off is the fact that it has no optical drives. CD-ROM? DVD-ROM? Keep guessing. The secret is “Remote Disc;” what I like to call the Air Drive (Not to be confused with Hair Dry). This interesting little feature to Mac OS X Leopard lets you scan the airwaves for Mac or Windows computers running special software that allows it to share the optical drives wirelessly
Is the $1799 MacBook Air wireless warrior going to be on my next Christmas list? Not a chance. For almost two thousand dollars, I’d like something that at least plays movies in their original hard media releases. All in all, MacBook Air is an executive toy geared towards Mac power addicts and the sheep that have become the iTunes userbase.
To sum it all up: If iTunes can’t do it, your new MacBook Air probably can’t either.
January 15th, 2008
Apple / Mac