Thinner than air

Apple8217;s MacBook Air is set to fly off the shelves

Apple has done it again8212;they8217;ve made the world8217;s thinnest Notebook, the MacBook Air. The defining features of the Notebook are its weight and dimensions: it8217;s just 1.9 cm thin, weighs 1.3 kg and is made of aluminium. Does this mean some features have been left out or that the Notebook will cost a bomb?

The most work that Apple has done on the MacBook to avoid the tag of 8216;ultra-portable8217; and still fit the thin-light category is to retain the screen size 13.3 inch. They could have gone down to 11.1 inch but it would have meant a smaller keyboard. This Notebook has a full-size keyboard, and like other MacBook Pros, it8217;s backlit. The screen supports a maximum resolution of 1280215;800 pixels and has LED backlighting, which helps provide a crystal-clear picture.

With many homes and offices going wireless, Apple has taken out the Ethernet connector, but you can buy an optional USB-to-Ethernet adapter for wired Internet connection. A word of advice: move to wireless, it8217;s cheaper.

Apple has also done away with excessive ports, so the MacBook Air has only three ports other than the power connector, a headphone jack, a USB port you can increase this by using a USB hub, and a Micro DVI connector it lets you connect the MacBook to an external LCD monitor using a VGA connector or a DVI source, all convertors included in the box.

Another thing that8217;s missing is the optical drive, so you can8217;t insert any CDs. So if you want to install a programme or upgrade, go for remote disk, which will use an optical drive of another computer on your network, or buy an external USB-based super drive DVD writer.

What8217;s new in the Notebook is the technology used in iPhone and iTouch8212;gesture control. So you can zoom, rotate or scroll with a flick on the touch pad.

As for the hard disk, the lower-end model has the Core 2Duo 1.6 GHz. For some reason when fast hard disks are the norm, Mac has shipped an old technology, IDE hard disk, running at 4,200 rpm. This is a big downer, but then Mac has another ace up its sleeve. It has a model that ships with a 64 GB solid state hard disk. The battery has been thinned down, but you will get five hours of back-up time.

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There are two variants: a C2D 1.6 and a C2D 1.8. Both the models ship standard with 2 GB RAM and come with OSX v 10.5 Leopard pre-installed. If you are a Windows user, you can always use Mac Bootcamp and boot into Windows.

The MacBook Air is not available in India currently. While one model will be available here for Rs 96,100 US 1,799, the other8217;s price is still not known US 3,098.

For details, visit
apple.co.in/store/flash/macbook_air/macbook_air.html