Mac Air, in the flesh!

I was walking to dinner the other evening in the West End and happened to past by the window of the Apple Store in Regent Street. Lo and behold, the above display caught my eye. It was the MacBook Air, the world's thinnest laptop. Now, I have read all the advertorials about it and seen pictures on TV and the Internet but its strangely cool to see it in the flesh.

The must-see TV advert has a catchy tune to go along with it..

Catch the Ad here TV Advert

It is only 1.94cm thick at its thickest edge and has a 13.3cm widescreen display. The downside is of course, for the price of £1,199.00 its only £100 cheaper than the much more capable MacBook Pro and almost £500 more than the basic MacBook, both of which are 'quite' thin already! But that is not the point. The Air has been designed to proof that Apple has the know how and ingenuity to produce ground-breaking products, just as the iPod nano and the iPhone was. According to Apple, the Air is aimed squarely at people who already have an Apple computer and its role is to supplement the user with its portability and design, sort of like a Mini Cooper and its X5 big brother would.

Apple Store, London

Drawbacks?

Apart from the cost, the Air only has a limited feature set, albeit a rather good one. There are 2 versions available, the 80GB 1.3Ghz at £1199.00 and a 64GB 1.8Ghz machine costing £829 more! Yes, more for less. The 64GB version has a solid state drive storage (like your flash memory cards) and hence no spinning discs, should be faster and less power hungry. Both versions do not have any form of CD/DVD player due to its size but Apple sells a USB plug-in Superdrive for those wanting to watch DVD movies.

The MacBook Air comes equipped with high speed Wifi connectivity and Bluetooth. Will I get one? The answer is probably no, as I already use a MacBook and find that it is quite portable, although it does weigh a bit, and a 5 year old iBook G3 which whirrs away..slowly.