Apple Announces the MacBook Air
The speculations have indeed shown to be correct, as Apple unveiled its new notebook: the MacBook Air. Dubbed the “world’s thinnest notebook”, it runs a sleek 0.74″ on one end down to 0.16″ on the other. It features a 13.3″ LED backlit screen, full-size backlit keyboard, multi-touch touchpad with gesture support, an iSight camera, 802.11n, and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR. The casing is made out of aluminum and the computer only weighs 3lbs.
Inside, there is a 1.8-inch hard drive, like in the iPod, and an optional 64GB solid state drive is also available. Apple has also asked Intel to shrink down their Core 2 Duo processors 60% smaller so that they could fit in the MacBook Air. The battery life is measured at 5 hours. One thing the Air doesn’t have would be an optical drive, and this is compensated by a USB powered SuperDrive which is priced at $99.
The MacBook Air has mercury-free and arsenic-free glass display, circuit boards are free of BFR and PVC and the packaging has 56% less volume than the regular MacBook. The Air starts at $1799 and will be available in two weeks.
Images taken from macinate. Some rights reserved.
Tags: air, macbook |
January 15th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
That thing is frickin’ awesome but I am disappointed by how the Apple brands itself now. On top of innovation their name now stands for:
- Overpricing our products
- Missing out important features that other products (that cost less) have
How can a computer not have an optical drive? Especially a laptop. And what’s the use of carrying an ultra thin laptop if you’re going to have to carry an optical drive around. I’m sure it’s not always needed but if a laptop is designed for travel / portability such as this one, then I’m sure many will need an optical drive. Plus, the HD is a measly 64GB??!!
I love how thin this thing is but the pathetic HD space and lack of an optical drive really degrades it. The specs better be worth hearing about when they are released. Btw, were any specs given?
January 15th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
That would be a 64GB solid state drive, which is one of the biggest ones available. It uses flash memory instead of movable parts so seek time and latency will be much lower.
January 16th, 2008 at 8:59 am
OH I want one !!! I think it will do great replacing may MacBook I’m just not too sure about the external drive tho !
January 16th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
This is a travelers dream. I mean it could be. Maybe You can get Your hands on it and review it. That would be cool.
As I travel often to China I’m still looking for a lightweight but yet powerful notebook, especially in terms of battery.
For my upcoming stay in Kunming it’s too late to buy one, but I’ll consider it for my autumn journey to Shanghai.