Review: Apple MacBook Air (AppleInsider)

Apple MacBook Air AppleInsider has published one of the most in-depth reviews to date of the MacBook Air. Very detailed, covers design, and performance and battery efficiency compared to the MacBook, as well as covering just how small can Apple make their laptops before it begins to work against them:

Physics simply limits the degree to which the Air could be reduced in size using the same design proportions. Were it to attempt to cram the same full sized keyboard into a smaller outline, it would have to use a smaller 11″ display but would also quickly lose internal volume unless it reduced the thin taper on the edges. Less internal room would mean it would either need to have a much smaller battery and compromise its logic board and disk allocation further, or revert to the boxier shape of conventional laptops. That’s exactly what the 12″ PowerBook did; it used a slightly smaller keyboard and display, but ended up considerably thicker than the 15″ and 17″ models it was sold next to.

They also get into what they consider to be missing from the MacBook Air, namely an optical drive (although to be fair, Apple has made a couple of options available, which they cover, namely the MacBook Air SuperDrive and the ability to mount optical drives over ethernet/wireless), WWAN radio – something I don’t think Apple wants to deal with at this point, and finally FireWire and built-in Ethernet (the Air uses an ethernet dongle). Firewire is a sticking point with many Mac users, so we saw this criticism coming.

Full Review at AI