MacBook Air is taking off

published : Wednesday, February 06, 2008 | model : APPLE MacBook Air

Theme : Computing | Laptops

The Macworld 2008 Keynote, hosted by Steve Jobs, has set a surprise for its final part with the introduction of the thinnest notebook ever : The MacBook Air. A wonderful achievement for Apple!

MacBook Air: the ultra portable laptop by Apple

We have been talking about that for months, and here it is! Apple just introduced its new ultra portable: the MacBook Air. Dimensions are impressively small and thin : 1.6 cm for the largest part and only 4 mm for the thinnest edge and a weight of only 1.36 Kg. The MacBookAir is equipped with a 13.3" backlight LED screen (like MacBook Pro), and the catch is magnetic. It pioneers the multitouch pad that is close to what we find in the IPhone's interface, like for example switching from one window to another without a click and zooming with two fingers.

MacBook Air configuration

Inside the computer we can find the Intel Core 2 Duo Penryn processor, developed especially for the MacBook Air. It is 60% smaller than a Core 2 Duo classic and has a clock speed of 1.6Ghz or 1.8Ghz. It will be supported by a standard 2 GB RAM and a 1.8'' 80Gb hard disk. Unfirtunately, this hard drive will be rather low with a poor revolving speed of 4200 rpm. As gossips said, a 64Gb SSD hard disk (flash memory) will be available as a very costy extra feature. Because of its compact format, it was impossible to enclose an optical player it into but you can chose between buying an external superdrive (USD 99) and use the optical player of another Mac already on your network. Finally, the MacBook Air will be sold with a 45W MagSafe (a more compact version of the power supply) and will be equipped with only one USB output, one Micro DVI output and one audio output. Wifi 802.11n and Bluetooth 2.1 will also be in the air ! The battery is claimed to be of 5 hours.

Price and availability of Apple's MacBookAir

The MacBook Air is already available on the Apple Store but can be delivered within 2 weeks. It costs USD 1799 (USA) and Euros 1699 (Europe). A not really friendly price for Europeans (USD 1799 = Euros 1200). As usual, Apple offers expansive options, for example the p1.8 Ghz cheap for Euros 270, the 64 Gb SSD flash memory for Euros 800, the Superdrive for Euros 99 and finally, the remote control "Apple Remote" (optional too), Euros 19 only.