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January 16, 2008

intel_macs

MW08: The MacBook Air - A few more details.

Posted Jan. 16, ’08, 2:00 PM PT by Aayush Arya
Category | Hardware » Intel Macs

MacBook Air width=As soon as word hit the street my iChat conversation that Steve Jobs had started talking about a sub-notebook yesterday morning, I put everything aside and feverishly started writing up a post to keep you, our readers, informed. All that information overload ended up resulting in a fairly lengthy post and even though I had the nagging feeling that I was missing something(s), I hit the ‘Publish’ button and hoped that everything was covered.

I should’ve known. When have I ever gotten what I’d wished for anyway? (Well, aside from yesterday.) I missed some points and came across a few more details about the latest shiny new gizmo from Apple, so I’ve whipped up this post to tie up all the loose ends. Hope you find it enlightening.

Steve Jobs said that they didn’t want to compromise on the two main things that their competitors had—the screen and the keyboard. Of course, this meant that there had to be other compromises instead. I’d covered the lack of an optical drive, FireWire port, ExpressCard slot, and more than one USB 2.0 port in the previous post but, the list is a bit larger than I’d initially thought.

It turns out that the MacBook Air does not have an Ethernet port either, which means that unless you have a USB modem, wireless connectivity is the only way to access the Internet. You can also spring for an optional USB Ethernet Adapter ($29) if connecting to wired networks is an absolute must-have feature for you.

The other issue that has much of the media up in arms is that the MacBook Air ships with a non-user-replaceable battery à la the iPods and iPhone. Engadget reports that you’ll have to send in your notebook to Apple when you want to have it replaced. The installation itself will be free and the battery will cost $129, the same as a MacBook Pro battery (you can see the completely sealed bottom of the MacBook Air above).

The other thing I missed the last time around (and I regret this huge omission) was Apple’s novel idea that, in my opinion, largely offsets the limitation of not having an optical drive. Apple will include a free application, called Remote Disk, on the Mac OS X install disks bundled with the MacBook Air that, once installed on another Mac or Windows based PC, will allow you to share the CD/DVD drive of that computer wirelessly as a network drive. It will mount in the Finder, just like other network drives, and you can not only use it to install applications and copy files off the disk but also to boot your notebook from. You cannot, however, write anything to blank media through this method.

So, here it is, a summary of the omissions from the previous post and all the other info gleaned by us since its publication. Hopefully, we’ve covered everything there is to know about the MacBook Air between these two posts. If something else crops up, rest assured that you’ll be made aware of it with astonishing promptness and efficiency. (Pardon the self-appreciation. These slight morale boosters are what keep us going.)


3 Comments

David said:

Has anyone confirmed the options for mobile broadband from the major cellular carriers like Verizon and ATT? This is a big need for business users - especially if no express card slot is available.

January 16, 2008 2:58 PM
Sam S. said:

The lack of an optical drive and other ports really does not bother me as much as it does other people. Obviously, Apple does not intend for this to be the user's only Mac as evidenced by the use of remote disk. That in itself may be a problem, but the truth is that Apple has never really provided its users with a $$bargain$$ (unless you count usability and lifespan), so saying that $1,799 is too much for users to pay for a second machine is a moot point for Apple. I think the thing is really pretty awesome as long as you dont use it for judo chop practice, but it would definitely be a nice thing to throw (gently) into the bag in the morning before the walk to campus.

January 17, 2008 12:01 PM
krye said:

Don't forget the worst compromise of all: the memory is soldered to the logic board and can not be upgraded!

January 18, 2008 10:35 AM

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