MacBook Air Reviewed

Here’s a perfect treat available in the market that all gizmo freaks and convenience lovers would find hard to resist. The infamous Apple’s newest tot is indeed a baby version of the weighty laptops available in the market. Still dumbfounded as to what I am saying then read on...

Apple recently announced the 16-inch, ultra thin MacBook Air. It is the sleekest, and if I may say so, the sexiest laptop available on the market. Apple seems to have designed the MacBook Air through reverse engineering by concentrating on their unique selling proposition: the "form factor" — its shape and size — and then squeezed the pc into its shape. Apple has been known to adopt such measures that sets it apart from other computer development giants. Its promotional gimmick is just as outrageous-- a laptop so thin it fits in a manila envelope.

This ultra-portable machine offers a full-scale keyboard , LED-backlit that immediately turns on at its full brightness, 13.3-inch, 1,280-by-800-pixel display with built-in iSight, and the track pad has been enlarged more so for convenience then style to support multi-touch gestures and to pan around. A vivid full-size display and backlit keys make it functional without any headiness and squinting prevalent in most gadgets offering ultralights. It's slender frame and light weight makes it easy to be carried around.

Quite a few features of the iPhone can be found in Mac Book Air. It offers effortless browsing, rotate with two fingers, pinch to zoom and move windows with a flip. Known for its ultra thin gadgets, Apple’s size secrets lie in its consistent use of the same 1.8-inch 80GB drive that's in the iPod classic. However, it offers an option to order an additional 64GB SSD. This shiny aluminum shell has a battery life of 5 hours of wireless efficiency. Pricing starts at around $1799. It may definitely squeeze out your savings, but it offers incomparable style and unmatchable durability.

The down side to all of this, however, is the overwhelming price tag, not to mention some serious shortfalls in terms of its features. The MacAir is evidently airless when it comes to the number of USB ports it has to offer, it has no CD/DVD drive, no FireWire or Ethernet port, no microphone jack and so forth. MacBook Air's memory is non-expandable and its battery is irreplaceable. MacBook Air has just three ports, hidden in a drop-down hatch on the right side (though some may find this little flap cute): a micro-DVI port, headphone jack, and a single USB port.

Apple is bound to get a multitude of mixed responses due to the compromises it has undertaken to produce a lightweight but not all that high-tech in terms of performance. MacBook Air is a blissful treat for people willing to dish out huge bucks for this sassy piece of tech. It's quick enough for general computing tasks like using web, email, office applications, watching videos, facebooking, etc. The slowing down of the MacBook becomes an issue when memory usage is pushed past its 2 GB of built-in RAM. This close to perfection model comes with a severe case of cognitive dissonance as on one hand they offer a sleek, lightweight design, but on the other they take external support away like additional ports and give you a permanent battery. As seen with most pioneer products, this notebook is not without its share of setbacks like minor performance quirks due to driver glitches. But with our fingers crossed and Apple’s continuous efforts all these problems are likely to be resolved.

Pros

• High resolution and brighter display with wide viewing angle.
• Durable due to its three pounds packed, thin and lightweight design.
• Multi-touch trackpad. Micro-DVI video port. Backlit, full-size keyboard.

Cons

• Irreplaceable battery.
• Small hard drive.
• Slow charging speeds.
• Very few ports.