MacBook Air Review
By Aditya Mhatre at 19 April, 2010, 4:37 am
It’s been almost a month that I have been playing around with the Mac Book Air sent to me by Apple India. If the first sighting of this beautiful machine doesn’t bring a smile to your face then you most probably are in depression. Please stop reading right now and seek help. For others, continue reading.
The glazed aluminum slender (0.76 inches) body of the Mac Book Air feels makes you feel as if you are holding a new born baby. Actually, it’s lighter than a new born at only 3 pounds. My first reaction was to hold it at eye level to actually believe how slim it was. Next, I flipped it over and by the side. No buttons or port connections visible. The machine has only 3 connectors, an audio out jack, an USB 2.0 port and Mini Display Port hidden by a flip cover.
I was in the Mumbai local train during peak hour, when I first powered the MacBook Air. The machine attracted immediate attention would be an under statement but it sort of made me uncomfortable. It is difficult to work on your laptop with 25-30 people staring and whispering about the machine. I guess, beauty does have its disadvantages. Once you open the laptop screen, it reveals a full well spaced keyboard. Hit the power-on button and the backlit keyboard reveals itself. The build is quiet solid for a light weight laptop. 30 minutes into the journey and the MacBook Air started to fry my lap, quiet literally. The ambient temperature was around 30 degrees and I was trying to installing a very resource intensive software on it (iPhone OS SDK) but the machine heated up so much that I cancelled the installation immediately and shut the machine down. A quick Google search, and it is clear that Macbook Air does have a heating problem.
Moving on, I have a 4-hour daily commute. So I do appreciate a thin, ultra-lightweight laptop with a decent size display. However, I found it very difficult to use it as my primary computer. First, the Air has no ethernet port and comes with a USB to RJ45 jack converter dongle. So the only USB connector available cannot be used for anything else. Every time I had to 
use a pen drive to transfer files, I had to disconnect from the internet. I couldn’t even connect my external HDD which requires 2 USB ports. Needless to say that Air does not have a built in DVD drive but that didn’t bother me much. However, this makes watching a DVD movie on the Air troublesome and lack of standard video out port means that one has to buy and maintain as many accessories.
It seems like it lacks a lot of things but here is what I believe. Company don’t always create products to sell. Apple probably made this product knowing very well that it wouldn’t move millions of these units but still did it just because they can. It’s almost like Apple challenging the other hardware manufacturer to top their creation. It’s Apple trying to be snobbish by showing how awesome their product development and engineering teams are. A person will most probabaly walk into the store to check out a Macbook Air for its engineering ingenuity but will end up buying a MacBook Pro or some other shiny gadget that Apple put out.
Final verdict, at the end of my one month with the MacBook Air is that I probably wouldn’t buy one but I definitely desire it.
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Well written article !
I believe that the MacBook Air and the iPad are very similar. Both are a rich-mans toy. As you specified the Air offers no incentive to be bought, the only one probably would be the size, which holds no value if it doesn’t come with a DVD drive, or if you can’t install certain files within a stipulated time.
I think with the creation of the Air and iPad, Apple has just tried to flaunt its technological prowess in the market. Again, these products are no where close to being directed at the middle class masses, but rather to the high spending part of society.
So to conclude, Apple has done nothing great or revolutionary with the Air (or iPad for that matter)