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In-Depth Review of the MacBook Air With Photos 244
Engadget has the first really in-depth review of the MacBook Air that I have seen with plenty of great photos and specifics. They do a great job of highlighting the highs and the lows with plenty of concrete examples to back their claims up. It seems that while the MacBook Air is a great step towards ultra-portable computing, overall the pricepoint is just too high. Which is not surprising from a new Apple gadget I guess.
Worth reading if you still care (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, it did actually make clearer to me who would want this laptop.
Re:Worth reading if you still care (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been a Mac owner since 1991, and my main machines have always been Macs. Currently I'm considering the Asus eee PC, which is both tiny and light, and which seems capable of handling 80% of my computing needs. It's so (comparatively) inexpensive that I'm tempted to buy now, even though I want to wait and see the 2nd generation of eee PCs.
Air Smaller (Score:3, Interesting)
Further, the Air is only a third of an inch deeper (8.94 vs. 8.6), so in terms of depth (and in screen height when opened) they're functionally identical. As such, on a airline tray table they'd behave pretty much the same. (Since tray tables are typically 16.5" wide by 9.5-10.5" dee
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Further, the Air is only a third of an inch deeper (8.94 vs. 8.6), so in terms of depth (and in screen height when opened) they're functionally identical. As such, on a airline tray table they'd behave pretty much the same. (Since tray tables are typically 16.5" wide by 9.5-10.5" deep, the Air's extra width has little impact. Still room for it and a cup of coffee.)
Or you could get a regular MB, which takes up essentially the same amount of space on the tray table as an MBA, but is substantially more capab
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Re:Worth reading if you still care (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Worth reading if you still care (Score:4, Insightful)
As I was discussing this with someone else, I would call it an ultra portable based on it's weight (sub 5lbs) and its thinness. For me, and keep in mind I'm not buying this, thinness represents more usable space savings. A 1/4 inch off the top to me means extra room for a couple of shirts or 75 to 150 sheets of paper. A 1/2 inch off the sides to me represents traveler sized shaving cream, tooth paste, perhaps a travelers brush and maybe a razor. The space crunch in my bag comes from thickness not width.
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Thinness is the ultimate measure only because Steve Jobs said so. Being slightly thinner than most while still having a full sized screen and keyboard does not make it an ultra-portable. Neither does a custom CPU package or an undesirable hard drive form factor.
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An awful lot of people make frequent overnight or two-day business trips, for which packing one carry-on bag, including both computer and toiletries, makes the most sense. Of course you don't pack them in the same compartment, but a good multi-compartment laptop case designed for the frequent flier will allow you safely pack everything. And yes, in that case the thickness of the laptop is the limiting factor for how much other stuff you
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If a super-small screen and cramped keyboard were the only consideration, I'd be writing articles on my iPhone.
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Re:Worth reading if you still care (Score:5, Funny)
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After seeing it, and reading other reviews, we got him a tricked out MacBook with the DVI dongle for his big Samsung LCD display. With educational pricing, it was less than the Air by a bit. He gets a good compromise of weight and power for his needs.
What the author pointed out is basically what we came to; not
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Although, I'm not so sure the author actually knows so: I thought it was strange to expect a Front Row remote and the USB optical drive with a laptop designed to leave out as many bulk-adding hardware features as possible. Perhaps he either expects people to pay extra for something they might not use, or that Steve was going to throw them in for free out of the goodness of his heart?
Armchair Quarterback (Score:5, Insightful)
Typical financial analysis from someone whose probably only managed and owned a paper route.
The first point to consider is that if they concentrate on hitting Dell's price points they'll have to do the same as Dell and start going for the cheapest components they can find. They'll also have to cut R&D, design, and materials costs. As such, those "extremely well engineered electronics" will begin to be anything but.
And speaking of R&D, one has to remember that Apple, unlike Dell, has an entire operating system division to support. Cut costs and reduce margins, and ultimately you begin to cut out all of those things that make a Mac a Mac.
Next, what's wrong with being high-end? Do you see Lexus or Mercedes or BMW or Jaguar going after the econo-box market?
Further, you're making a common assumption that the "make it up in volume" approach always applies. Making more machines means higher fixed costs, as you need more factories, suppliers, shipping, management, etc.. And I'm willing to bet that Apple is already getting the best deals possible from its suppliers. Besides, do you know how many more machines they'd have to sell to make up the difference if they cut prices 30%?
Which leads us to the next point. You're assuming that price is the primary reason people aren't buying Macs. I mean, it can't be proprietary software needs, Window's requirements, comfort levels, corporate hardware requirements, existing software ownership, lack of games, or the "if it isn't broken too bad then there's no need to fix it" mentality.
If the market isn't ready to switch, then cutting costs simply means cutting revenues.
Finally, take a peek at Apple's stock performance vs. Dells [yahoo.com]. I'd say they're competing quite well.
Stock Price (Score:2)
Yep, Apple's "marketing strategies" and "business practices" really suck.
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Price-point? (Score:5, Funny)
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Except that raising and lowering interest rates in 0.25-percent increments is exactly what the Fed does. I.e., reporting it that way is not, in fact, wrong.
Oh, and "Fed" is an abbreviation, not an acronym, so "FED" is wrong.
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It's 100% understandable English, but annoying inelegant.
Re:Price-point? (Score:4, Funny)
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From 1900 to 1989 it was only uttered by bearded and PHD'd market analysts describing what we mere mortals refer to as MSRP. Then in the dot-bomb days, everyone decided that sounding like a market-droid was a desirable thing, so we heard tons of over- and mis-used buzzwords.
My biggest problem with it is it is unnecessary extra verbiage that serves no useful purpose other than an attempt to make the speaker appear more "intelligent" or
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Of course, when someone is simply trying to appear more intelligent or hip, then s/he's a tosser. But there's nothing you can do about that
Banish DVD (Score:2)
Re:Banish DVD (Score:5, Funny)
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It's the main distribution media for software ... None of that was ever true of the floppy.
The 80s and 90s would like to have a word with you. Hell, I remember making my own 7.5.1 Macintosh boot disk (Required deleting color resources and stuff). 1.44 MB and I could boot into a full GUI.
Yes, software was distributed primarily on Floppy's.
And Apple (as they pointed out in the keynote) is hoping to move Music and Movie distribution from physical media to the Internet.
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1) 80mm media
2) jump drives
3) copy to HD / virtual drive
Nothing stopping you from putting your important portable shit on any of these.
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Apple TV Promises to Take 2008 [roughlydrafted.com]
Light but lower performance (Score:2)
Another article here [macworld.com].
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Re:Light but lower performance (Score:5, Insightful)
The other issue is that as the Mac hardware is essentially now the same as a PCs, there's not much stopping the likes of Sony from designing a similar form-factor laptop. Apple have proved the concept works, although I can envisage some people carrying around a bag of cables and adaptors to get the most out of it.
On another note, I was interested to see how Intel shrunk the Core 2 for the Air - it seems they shrunk the PCB block rather than the chip die itself, which would make shrinking it a lot cheaper overall. Very nice work though - hopefully it'll encourage them to make their chips smaller overall in future.
Re:Light but lower performance (Score:5, Funny)
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I saw my first eeePC in the wild yesterday. I was impressed, and the girl using it was happy to show off the new toy*, but I was struck that there's no way I'd be typing on it for long. That keyboard is tiny. That's one thing about the Air (not that I'm buying one--my 2005 PowerBook 15" is fine for now)
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RE: Light but lower performance (Score:3, Insightful)
OK - I've got an EEE and am not particularly inclined to buy a MBA, but I'm not sure about "feature laden". You've picked out some strengths - Ethernet, USB ports, portability and removable battery* but rather neglected RAM (512M vs 2G), storage capacity (4G vs 80G), CPU power (630MHz x 1 vs 1.6GHz x 2), screen (800x480 7" vs 1280x800 13"), trackpad (tiny with scroll
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Great! (Score:2, Informative)
Great post!
I've got a carbon fibre shovel (Score:4, Funny)
OK, it is 20 times more expensive that a wooden-shafted version with a steel end, and it will only do the same work, but that's more than made up for by it's looks.
Did I mention it looks great?
nice try (Score:5, Informative)
Dell Latitude X1 is smaller (albeit slightly thicker), has a gigabit ethernet port, comes with a external DVD burner, has two USB ports and and SD and a CF slot. The battery is easily removed and replaced or upgraded.
The MacBook Air has a dualcore 1.6 GHz processor where the X1 has a single core that clocks 1.1 GHz. Also the Air can take 2GB versus the 1.25 GB of the X1.
The X1 comes with an obligatory copy of Windows XP, but I upgraded it to Kubuntu Feisty. The MacBook comes with an obligatory copy of Mac OS X.
I have been developing KDE4 on my X1 just fine. The extra speed would be nice, but for a portable machine battery life is more important.
If the X1 were still in production, it would clearly be the better laptop.
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Nice try, indeed (Score:3, Informative)
Meanwhile, people are quibbling that the MBA is slightly slower than other Mac dual core laptops...
Re:nice try (Score:5, Informative)
Its *great* for use on an airplane because the seat in front of you can be back and you can still fit it on the tray. Its great for tossing in a bag.
There is no way on Earth you could use it as a full-time laptop unless you had midget hands and only used Office.
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I know I got it wrong. I've been on hold with Comcast for 90 minutes and my brain is turning to mush from their horrid hold music.
I'd like to see how durable the Air is by cracking someone over the head over at Comcast.
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The blog post you linked used some specious reasoning to show that the X1 is better at some of the comparisons. I think the X1 looks generally better, but the biases used to show that the X1 is better by a huge margin are as over the top as an Apple cheerleader's biases.
I'll take just one example here. The calculation for "pixels per inch" is completely wrong
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Dell Latitude X1 is smaller (albeit slightly thicker)
"Slightly" is quite an understatement. The article you cite quotes the dimensions as:
MBA: 1.94×32.5×22.7 = 1431.235 cc
X1: 2.5×28.6×19.68 = 1407.12 cc
But the thickness of the MBA tapers from 0.76" = 1.930 cm to 0.16" = 0.406 cm. The average thickness is thus 0.46" (1.168 cm, so the X1 is 2.14 times thicker), and the actual volume is more like 861.692 (so the X1 is 1.63 times larger).
And quite frankly that's not the only flaky part of the comparison. The author makes claims such as "t
Poor presentation, but some useful content (Score:3, Insightful)
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Maybe you should spend a bit more time with a dictionary before presuming to nitpick. "Etiolated" is not that fancy a word--it's hardly the first time I've seen it used in its broader meaning of "feeble."
Even if one only knew about the specific horticultural meaning, it would be a pretty good metaphor.
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Maybe it's a showcase? (Score:5, Interesting)
Lord knows I love all things Apple-y, but not the MBA. That being said, perhaps the MBA is a showcase machine, not really designed to be practical, but to show off new technologies for light laptops. And, unlike concept cars, you can drive this one home with you.
I guess that's positive enough spin :)
--Rob
Boot from USB?? (Score:3, Informative)
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Oddjob's Laptop? (Score:2)
So instead of the MacBook Air we should call it Oddjob's Laptop? Seems appropriate given that it's an Apple and they definitely made some bizarre choices when designing it.
Good balanced review (Score:2)
Overall, a good review - it's nice to see it acknowledged that thin, light and stylish is a feature some people will pay for. But there's one thing in particular that bugs me about all reviews of the MBA, namely the lack of replaceable battery. I s
I want to love this machine, I really do (Score:5, Insightful)
It's hard to know the target market for this machine, though it's clear the machine was designed for Steve personally. I'm sure that this machine will look great sticking out of the designer backpack on the passenger seat of a new 3-series BMW that Mommy and Daddy bought for college commuting, but it's hard to relate to a market that far removed from the kind of office that has machines in varying states of assembly. The MBA is a glorious consumer machine but the slashdot crowd is not the core market for this product.
Ultimately, the slashdot crowd isn't Apple's market at all and it's a happy accident for Apple that slashdot intersects with other products aimed at Apple's core demographics.
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As it's been said a gazzilion times, it's not meant to be a desktop replacement, or a "power" users portable machine. It's an ultra-portable, meant to be nothing more.
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Misses the point. (Score:5, Insightful)
The MacBook Air is not for old-school hardware-centric geeks. Its not for 'road warriors'. In fact, I think the crafty (doubtless purposeful) acronym "MBA" should tell you alot. This product is designed for management types, social types, the fringe of the tech-savvy users. I will go so far as to say if you don't love the MBA, you're not in the the target market group. All the MBA nay-sayers remind me of film critics panning a movie like StarWars saying how trite, contrived, overstated, and juvenile it is. The fact is that for millions (billions?) of people, StarWars is the magnum opus of film. If you don't agree, you're not wrong, worse you're just he wrong reviewer, and too tunnel-visioned to realize it.
This article actually comes closest to the truth by repeating itself on how solid the keyboard/engineering 'feels'. Bingo! Two points. (I'd have to see the audio port in question- that sounds like a possible legitimate problem.) But look, the target market doesn't care about how much gigahurtses or how many RAMS it has... The target market for the MBA cares about looking really good at client meeting and having a beautiful, dependable machine. And by this measure, the MBA solidly delivers.
The only competent criticism I've seen from this review (or really from any review) is the lack of 3G/Edge built in for always-on internet. While I'm sure it would be a great boost to the product and the image of the MBA to have it, I say with almost certainty that this was an issue with the carriers, not Apple's engineers.
Finally a smidge about the tech: 2gb isn't enough for you? 2gb is overkill except for hardcore adobe geeks. I'm pleased they put that much in. MacBooks ship with 1gb, and almost nobody ever goes over 2gb. Remember, this is OSX, not Windows. Ethernet, HD, processor: all are ample for the aforementioned target market. No optical drive? for what? Who actually installs software after you buy the machine? Oh, I get one for $99? Should I buy two incase I need to install the software again? Are you familiar with the target market yet? This is a laptop for people who don't like computers, to love.
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Maybe you're missing the point that small changes could have made the product noticeably more useful. Unfortunately the story is out: Jobs and Ives worked on the form-factor mockup. Then the rest of the team got tasked to make stuff fit in there. Surprise, surprise someone (Jobs) needed to go back and budge on the form factor a bit. The tapered edges for instance steal substantial internal space from the case but don't offer the user very much.
You say that the MBA isn't for "road warriors" but rather
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Also, it's not really 2gb of ram. The integrated graphics take their share and that would really make 1gb impractical. Performance is going t
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As Engadget does too often for my taste, the review misses the point of this product entirely. Please pull your head out of the tech-sheets long enough to look at the thing as a 'product' not a 'laptop'
Doesn't work as a "product" either (at least for any product where "works as a computer" is a significant factor). A regular old MB gives you essentially the same amount of portability at a much lower cost (and with much more functionality).
This is a laptop for people who don't like computers, to love.
T
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Re:Will we ever see a Macbook Air on display, thou (Score:2)
Put a locked display case in the centre of the room. People will flock from far away just to catch a glimpse of it!
"But it has no firewire port!"
"But it has no gigabit ethernet!"
"But it has no DVD writer!"
"It costs $US700 more than a MacBook!"
"But it's less than 200mm thick!"
Too many missing things - like a modem. (Score:2)
Sitting around at home with a reliable WIFI connection it may be fine, but if I were travelling I'd feel obliged to also drag along the external DVD, the external Ethernet dongle, an external USB hub (probably powered), and I suspect a few other things that I would later realize Apple has left out.
It's interesting that no-one seems to comment on the lack of a dial up mo
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http://groups.google.com/group/mac-book-air/web/networking-tweaks [google.com]
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And Apple dropped internal modems in all of their notebooks back when they made the Intel switch.
reviews - bah, humbug! (Score:3, Insightful)
The MBA targets the upscale mobile user who needs a notebook for traveling, that sacrifices little in the uses one encounters while traveling. This would seem to hit the mark. How many people carry stacks of DVDs to watch while traveling? Especially when so much content is downloadable and with Apple pushing iTMS video rentals. I can easily see airport wifi video rental franchises catering to this market. Does it run Office? Yes -- either the OS X version of Office, or Windows via a variety of ways. Corporate email platforms supported? check.
The horsepower seems perfectly adequate to me, as I surf the web and am typing this on a 1 GHZ iBook G4 (my desktop machine is a venerable Powermac G5 dual 2 GHz machine, something that is pretty close the the MBA in horsepower). The 1.6/1.8 GHz Core Duo seems admirably powered to me, perhaps not to a full-time gamer, but THAT'S NOT THE MARKET THIS IS TARGETING.
If we compare the competition in this marketplace, the MBA seems very robust, with more horsepower, a better display, better keyboard, and a price that is comparable to its ultralite competitors as well. For a traveling business person, especially one with a corporate-supplied notebook, this would be a VERY desirable machine. Gotta have the corporate-approved Windows install? Install it via Boot Camp and run Windows, Apple is still happy to make the sale and get an entry into the corporate markets.
Watch and see if these machines don't start showing up at business conferences, or accompanying CEOs on weekend golfing boondoggles via the corporate jet. Or with journalists (broadcast and print) who travel a lot. Heck, a significant amount of production feature film editing has been done using less capable notebooks than this in the not-too-distant past -- although no one would use a machine of this performance level today, when others are better suited to the task (it's a DIFFERENT MARKET).
The biggest failure I can see, given the targeted market segment, is the lack of a cellular connection capability. And given that such a feature would lock one into a particular cellular network, I can understand the omission -- but a space to add such a card at a later time would have been nice.
Fer the FSM's sake, pull yer heads out and quitcher moanin about it not being the machine made personally for YOU. That machine does not exist, and likely never will. It's why we look at what's available and choose what best suits our needs. Just because I have no use for an OLPC or a high-end GPU, does not mean that those things are doomed to failure, it only means that I have no use for them. Nothing more.
If a given product satifies nobody's needs, or has a competitor that is superior in either price or fit, then it is in danger of failure. The Macbook Air is not.
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Great comment, but I would like to make one observation.
OSX can simply utilize a cell phone as a cellular connection via a bluetooth link. Since those who purchase a MBA will most likely already be carrying a
Why bother? Get an Eee. (Score:2)
Here's why an Eee PC rocks:
- Eee software is 99.9% hackable. Replace your OS with another distro, or boot off the SD slot.
- Eee hardware is hugely hackable. For another $450, you can plug in additional USB hubs, a GPS module, bluetooth, another SDHC card reader with another 8GB SDHC card, another 4GB USB drive, a 802.11N wifi, an FM transmitter, a Conexant modem, and a 2GB DDR2 memory module. All of it internal
It's the software, babe. (Score:2)
The 'distro' of my choice isn't legally available for the Eee PC, nor for anyone else in the target market for the Macbook Air.
Why pay the premium for the Mac except to get the Mac software and usability?
Well, that's kind of the point, isn't it? Why would you bother comparing it with anything that's not running OSX?
Re:NOT Bad placement (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:NOT Bad placement (Score:5, Informative)
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Well many of us laptop users, including us Macbook and Macbook Pro owners, have multiple power adapters. I have two magsafe adapters, one for at home and when I travel, and one at the office. That way in a typical month when I only work with the MB at work or at home I can pop it in a bag without having to grab the power cable.
Why is that relevant? Well if I were to decide to buy an Air (which I wo
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I was also somewhat intrigued by the '8"-11"' comperable ultraportable statement...I'd think you'd have to put this in the class with the Fujitsu Lifebook S [shopfujitsu.com] for
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Re:Listen up, airheads (Score:5, Interesting)
What I want to know is does Intel and apple have an exclusive contract on that motherboard? or can Intel start selling those boards to anyone? in 6 months will sony be selling these? Better yet will someone merge one of these and an LCD TV to make turely interactive TV.
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I also had it last night on my MacBook which I upgraded to Leopard about 2 days ago. Previously (under Tiger), it had been fine - the most reliable Wifi I'd ever used. Full signal strength at home, never dropped out.
Last night I watched my wifi icon mysteriously blink on and off every few seconds, and the list of 5-ish wireless networks around me dropped to 1 (my external WAP, not my internal WAP). My Macmini (also Leopard
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Well, there's me. The things that it lacks for me are...
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Battery is Easy to Replace... (Score:3, Informative)
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EXTRA carbon footprint? Give the thing a removable battery and a battery compartment like that of the MBP and you need MORE materials for both the compartment and the battery, and for the replacement battery... which you'd probably have to drive to the Apple store to buy anyway.
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The MacBook Air does stack up well against other ultra thin laptops in its category however, mixing leading performance, graphics capabilities, a full size keyboard and display with an ultra-thin package priced very competitively. And it solves many of the engineering tradeoffs with light and thin laptops in software. So it should blend in well with the rest of the hot selling MacBook line.
How the MacBook Air stacks up against other ultra-light notebooks [roughlydrafted.com]