Macbook Air

Apple has released a cool new aluminum cased laptop today, the Macbook Air. It’s considered an ultra portable laptop, weighing 3lbs with a maximum height of just .75 inches when closed. The Air will be available in two configurations, both of which with will come with the maximum 2GB of ram. The base model has a custom-made Intel Core Duo processor that’s operating at 1.6ghz and includes an 80gb IDE hard drive. The top tier model will come with the same custom Intel chip but the clock speed is bumped to 1.8 GHz. The top model will also include something that has never been seen in an Apple computer, a 64 gb solid state hard drive or SSHD.

Normal IDE hard drives kind of work like a needle on a record but with magnets and magnetic media instead. As the disk spins, the magnetic arm is busy trying to read and write to the platter. Other than exhaust fans, these are usually the only moving parts in modern computers and can be real power hogs creating loads of heat along the way. These fancy new SSHDs solve this by completely using no moving parts and storing the data on RAM chips. This not only saves power and cuts down on heat but can substantially extend the life of the hard drive and virtually eliminate shock induced damage. Really cool stuff.

The Macbook Air also includes full sized backlit keyboard, a new multi-touch trackpad that draws upon iPhone technology, and an integrated battery that is expected to last around 5 hours.

All of these pros don’t come without a few cons. The RAM is soldered in, so there really isn’t any room for an upgrade here. There isn’t an optical drive built into the unit (which is certainly understandable) but they do offer an external USB drive ($95) for those that can’t do without. And lastly the battery, which is integrated, meaning it cannot be replaced without taking the unit apart. Luckily they already have an answer for that, in that they have outlined a $120 (the same price as a normal Macbook pro battery) mail-in replacement program for which they have said to be committed to a very fast turnaround.

It’s a very impressive piece of technology that I’m sure will be considered by many as an engineering marvel.

Currently available for pre-order at www.apple.com