The MacBook Air was announced at MacWorld this week. Apple calls it the “world’s thinnest notebook.”.
A nice thin ultraportable notebook from Apple, I thought. No, CNET says “The MacBook Air is not quite an ultraportable”, while PCWorld and other sites compare it with “other ultraportables”.
Controversy? Confusion? Hot Air?

I’m not going to try to figure out whether or not it meets some definition for an ultraportable. Even if it isn’t ultraportable, it is still pretty neat, a small, thin notebook. Oh, apparently it is not the thinnest notebook ever, according to CNET.

The specs have been mentioned on just about every tech website out there. The most notable is the trackpad which can recognize multi-touch gestures just like the Apple iPhone or iPod Touch. Now that is a trackpad and a half.

On the downside the MacBook Air doesn’t have a user replaceable battery, which is a serious omission for a notebook. Also, it is so thin that an optical drive just could not be squeezed in. An external optical drive is available from Apple for a mere $99.

Among the ultraportable competitors to the Air, the Sony VAIO TZ150N/B Notebook has a built-in DVD writer, a fingerprint reader, 100 GB hard drive and media card reader. It weighs in at 2.7 pounds, just under the MacBook Air’s 3 pounds.

Posted on January 18th, 2008 by mervyn