Apple MacBook Air (MB940LL/A) 13.3 in. Mac Notebook

The MacBook Air has always been a very strange animal.  It's definitely a member of the ultraportable laptop class due to its 3lb weight and razor-thin profile, but it is actually on the small end of the conventional thin-and-light class in the key dimensions of width and depth.  Its lack of ports and missing optical drive are again solidly in the ultraportable class, but its spacious keyboard and 13" screen are once again in the mainstream thin-and-light class.  Actually, the lack of ports is more severe than just about any other computer including the $300 netbooks that are all the rage right now, but the Air costs A LOT more than $300.

So what exactly is the MacBook Air, and should you buy one?

For starters, sex sells, and sex is what the MacBook Air has over every other portable on the planet, even after 18 months on the market.  Yes, there are a few machines that are thinner than the MacBook Air's thickest point (the rear), but none come close to the knife-like front.  There are ultraportables and netbooks that weigh less than the MacBook Air's 3 lbs and that run longer than the MBA's 5 hours, but not with full Core2Duo power.  With the exception of other ultra-premium models like Dell's Adamo and Lenovo's X301, they all cost less as well, in the case of netbooks MUCH less, but some, again the Adamo and X301, actually cost more, much more depending on configuration.

With all of that in mind, I am now the proud new owner of a new MacBook Air.  Specifically, mine is the November 2008 high-end model, meaning it has the new nVidia graphics and 128 GB SSD, a 1.86 GHz Core2Duo processor with 6 MB of level 2 cache and the new mini-display port for video.  The models introduced in June 2009 are essentially identical, save for the mandatory processor speed bump.  I bought my previous-generation Air on the day after the new ones were announced, and was able to take advantage of close-out pricing that dropped the outgoing SSD model to the same price as the new hard drive model with the same processor speed, which sure sounds like a great value to me.  Lets see, same 1.86 GHz processor, same video, faster SSD, same price.  Easy choice.

What is not so easy is choosing the MacBook Air over competitive ultraportables or Apple's own 4.5 lb 13" MacBook Pro, which is cheaper, faster and much more versatile.  The new MBP is 50% heavier at 4.5 lbs to the MBA's 3 lbs, but in that weight you get the new 7 hour battery, a DVD burner, FireWire 800 and a second USB port.  You also get an LCD display that is much improved over last-year's and may even match the Air's, though I couldn't see a difference between them.  Most important is the all-important ability to install up to 8 GB of RAM and a full-sized laptop hard drive compared to the soldered-on 2 GB and choice of 128 GB SSD or 120 GB (slow) hard drive, which is all that the Air will ever see without buying a new future revision model.  Finally, the Air does not yet have the glass trackpad of the MacBook Pro models, though it does support all of the three and four finger gestures only without the surface-as-button technology.

So why did I pick the MacBook Air, and more importantly, should you?  Simply put, I chose the MacBook Air because it is not my only computer.  Yes, it is my primary machine, but my work is mostly email, word processing, PDFs and web-based research.  Even a five-year-old iBook is adequate for that, so a machine like the Air is not lacking for power in that role.  What the Air gives me that no other computer does is a package so portable that I no longer need to carry an actual computer bag to court, takes up less space than a paper file and weighs less than any law book, including the thin soft cover ones.  In that magic combination of thin and light I also get the instant and reliable suspend/resume for which OS X is justly praised, resulting in the perfect computer for the courtroom lawyer.

Do I do other things with a computer that are beyond the Air's capabilities?  Perhaps.  I like to watch video on my laptop when I travel, and while the Air is more than adequate in that role, its 128 GB SSD is a bit small to store much of a library.  My music library alone is about 20 GB, and I also like to play Windows games when I travel, but again hard disk space is in short supply, further complicated by the need many Windows games have to mount the actual CD or DVD to play, and while there are utilities to image the disk and get around that limitation, they are fussy and of course take a lot of disk space.  If I only used Windows the drive would be adequate, but as it is, a Windows partition would have to be small enough to only permit a single game to be installed.  At home its no problem, I have a powered USB hub with a large 500 GB USB hard drive that stores much of my video library (I have about another terabyte archived) connected to it.  That drive can easily go to my office as well, though work files are all on the SSD and backed up to the office file server.  For work there are no real limitations, rather only for entertainment does the Air fall short.

What that means is that the Air is not my long-trip travel computer despite its small size.  For a short hop or even an overnight, I'll take the Air and its AC adapter and leave everything else behind.  The small SSD is more than adequate for loading a few movies or the latest episodes of my favorite shows, and I haven't even bothered to install boot camp or any high-end games and probably never will.  I have Parallels installed with Windows 2000 for my old favorite Age of Empires and for WordPerfect, which I need on rare occasions.  Otherwise, the Air is more than adequate for any task that I throw at it.

Now not to sound vain, but there is another reason why I wanted the MacBook Air, and that is strictly the way it looks.  Call me shallow, but I just like to use nice things, and the MacBook Air is extremely nice.  It is a luxury item, jewelry, an image device and a reward for years of hard work.  I'm strong enough to carry a 6 lb laptop to court, but 3 lbs is much more pleasant.  I could squeeze a two-inch thick machine into my bag, but at .76" I don't have to.  I could read my email on a 9" screen, but the Air's 13" LED backlit display is one of the nicest I've ever gazed upon.  I could reply to email on a smaller or cheaper keyboard, but the one on the Air is a delight to the touch.  The list goes on.  Simply put, while a netbook would make my budget happy, the MacBook Air makes ME happy.

Can the MacBook Air be your only machine?  That depends entirely on what you do with a computer.  If you aren't into games and you don't need to keep a large archive of photographs, music and especially video, then yes, the Air's 120 or 128 GB is actually quite a lot.  Its nVidia integrated graphics are quite powerful for an integrated chipset and are actually up to gaming.  My daughter has the regular MacBook with a 2.0 GHz processor and the same graphics, and that computer plays fairly high-end games like Mass Effect on medium settings just fine, so I see no reason why the MacBook Air would do any worse

The biggest limitation of the MacBook Air is in its single USB port.  Now if you only need you peripherals at one or two locations and can have a permanent setup it is easy to work around.  At my office, for example, I have a powered USB hub to which are connected my beyboard, mouse, a smart card reader and an external hard drive.  I also have a 19" LCD monitor with its DVI cable connected to Apple's (extra cost) Mini-Displayport adapter and a pair of external speakers. 

You could also use a USB CD or DVD drive through a hub, just not Apple's which only works directly through the MBA's USB port.  So configured, the Air becomes a slightly slow desktop computer with dual displays that is quite nice in use, though of course any laptop can do the same at a lot less cost.  Yes, there is a web of cables in this setup, but at an office or home office such peripherals rarely if ever are unplugged, so it isn't too bad.  Non-Apple DVD drives may or may not be bootable, but almost any should work just fine for all other purposes.

Of course, you may not even need all of that external stuff.  For people who use email, web browsers and perhaps download your photos to iPhoto for light retouching, the Air is just fine as-is.  Chances are your printer is already wireless through your Airport base station or another PC or Mac, along with shared drives for backup or storage.  In this more connected office or home, the Air is a delight. 

The Air was designed to be a second, or even third computer, though that doesn't mean it shouldn't be your primary.  I use the MacBook Air with other computers and network resources.  At home everything is wireless, though I do set the Air on a notebook stand and plug an external keyboard and mouse into the USB port.  The 13" display, while small in that desktop role, is sufficiently sharp and clear that it does just fine.

The last thing I would like to discuss about the MacBook Air is the build-quality, which is better than any other laptop I've ever seen, including ThinkPads, previous and current Apple models and even Panasonic's ToughBook series.  Special ruggedized laptops may be stronger, but nothing is as finely built.  There are no gaps in the casing, no play in the display hinge and no rough surfaces on the metal.  It looks more like it was made by Rolex than by a computer company.  Oh, did I mention that is super thin, ultra light and knock-out gorgeous?