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MacBook Air

Published by marco on

 Apple recently announced a new laptop that weighs only 3 pounds and is less than an inch thick at its thickest and only a quarter of an inch thick at its slender foward edge.[1] It’s a nice step forward, combining a large, excellent screen with a full-size, back-lit keyboard to provide a very comfortable mobile experience. It’s got an iSight camera, plenty of RAM and all the wireless goodies you’d expect. The drive is a bit small (only 80GB) and might also be a bit slow, there aren’t many ports and there’s no DVD at all. All of these things can be addressed with more money: buy a USB hub, buy a separate SuperDrive (available from Apple for $100) and buy a solid-state 64GB hard-drive for $1000. The last option speeds things up considerably, but also drops the amount of extra stuff you can have on your laptop – so iTunes movies, TV shows and so on have to go on an external drive.

It’s a gorgeous laptop that will be a perfect fit for people who check mail, browse the internet and edit documents. People who churn through a lot of data will need a few external supplies, but it should still be fine. Even developers could probably use it without a problem; video editors will have to look elsewhere. A lot of gadget nerds have felt the need to air their grievances[2] online about how Apple jammed a middle finger in their eye by making a gorgeous laptop that they find themselves too spoiled by other awesome Apple hardware to use. It’s not upgradeable; it’s not super-cutting-edge in its hardware selection; in short, it’s flawed because it strikes a balance between flight of fantasy and hard reality. Apple built a laptop appliance instead of a classic computer. Just like the iPod and the iPhone. Good luck with that, Apple.

Despite the awful title, MacBook Air Haters: Suck My Dick by Wil Shipley (Call Me Fishmeal) makes its point well:

“But let’s admit amongst ourselves that the overwhelming majority of people out there have never pulled the battery out of their existing laptops, and didn’t even know or care that it comes out. In fact, if something goes wrong with their battery, this majority – whom we’ll call “NORMAL PEOPLE” for convenience – will just take the damn machine to the store and get it fixed, whether it’s user-serviceable or not. Because we don’t want to hassle with it.”

Exactly. It’s a gorgeous step forward in portability (a very light portable with a full-size keyboard, an innovative keypad and a huge screen) and will be an affordable choice for a lot of people for whom the current crop of MacBooks was too big – and offered a power and expandability that they didn’t need. And, as always with Apple, this is only what will amount to a solid first version of such a machine; its successor will be even better.


[1] 1.36kg and 1.94 cm, respectively, but it sounds so much sexier in pounds and inches.
[2] Pun is neither intentional nor amusing.