Apple's MacBook Air Is Beautiful and Thin, but Omits Features

Lack of removeable battery, built-in DVD drive may turn off road warriors.

ByABC News
January 29, 2008, 12:06 PM

Jan. 29, 2008 — -- Apple finally has entered the subnotebook market, introducing a lightweight laptop meant to please road warriors. But, typical of Apple, the company took a different approach from its competitors. The result is a beautiful, amazingly thin computer, but one whose unusual trade-offs may turn off some frequent travelers.

The new aluminum-clad MacBook Air, which I've been testing for several days, is billed as the world's thinnest notebook computer. Its thickest point measures just three-quarters of an inch, which is slimmer than the thinnest point on some other subnotebooks. And it employs some innovative software features, such as fingertip gestures for its touchpad that are similar to those on Apple's iPhone.

Apple refused to make the most common compromise computer makers employ to create their littlest laptops. Other subnotebooks — a category generally defined as weighing three pounds or less -- have screens of just 10 to 12 inches and compressed keyboards. The three-pound MacBook Air, by contrast, features a 13.3-inch display and a full-size keyboard.

It's impossible to convey in words just how pleasing and surprising this computer feels in the hand. It's so svelte when closed that it's a real shock to discover the big screen and keyboard inside.

But there's a price for this laptop's daring design: Apple had to give up some features road warriors consider standard in a subnotebook, and certain of these omissions are radical. Chief among them is the lack of a removable battery. So, while the MacBook Air will be a perfect choice for some travelers, I can't recommend it for all. It really depends on your style of working on the road and what features you value most.

The MacBook Air, which will be available next week, costs $1,800 with an 80-gigabyte hard drive and a generous two gigabytes of memory. A second model, with a faster, cutting-edge, 64-gigabyte, solid-state drive and a slightly speedier processor, costs a whopping $3,100. The $1,800 price for the main model isn't unusual in subnotebooks, which can easily top $2,000, although some competitors cost less.