Apple MacBook Air 13.3-Inch notebook Technical Details

• 1.6 Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 4 MB shared L2 cache; Intel GMA X3100 video processor with 144 MB shared memory
• Thinnest, lightest MacBook ever includes multi-touch trackpad, built-in iSight webcam, and up to 5-hour battery life
• One USB 2.0, built-in Wi-Fi (802.11n draft plus 802.11b/g), Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, Micro-DVI video output with adapters
• Preloaded with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard operating system and iLife '08 suite of applications
• 13.3-inch glossy LED-backlit screen; 64 GB solid-state hard drive; 2 GB of RAM (maximum capacity)

Apple MacBook Air 13.3-Inch Description

Amazon.com Product Description
With the MacBook Air, Apple has created the world's thinnest laptop--measuring an unprecedented 0.16-inches at its thinnest point (and 0.76 inches thick overall). Apple also introduces its vaunted multi-touch technology, found on the iPhone, to its laptops with the MacBook Air, enabling you to pinch, swipe, or rotate to zoom in on text, advance through a photo album, or adjust an image via the oversized trackpad.

Despite the its slender shell, the MacBook Air doesn't skimp on the specifications. It includes a 13.3-inch LED-backlit widescreen display, full-size and backlit keyboard, and a built-in iSight video camera for video conferencing. The MacBook Air is powered by a custom-built 1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, which provides an optimized, multithreaded architecture for improved multitasking performance. And this model is loaded with a 64 GB solid-state drive, which has no moving parts for enhanced durability. Other features include 2 GB of RAM, Wi-Fi connectivity via 802.11a/b/g/n standards, a micro-DVI video output (with included adapters), and up to a 5-hour battery life.

It comes pre-loaded with Apple's Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard operating system, which adds over 300 new features including easy backup of your most important data via Time Machine, a redesigned desktop that helps eliminate clutter, and the newest version of the fast-loading Safari web browser. It also comes with the iLife '08 suite of applications, including iPhoto, iMovie, Garageband, and iTunes.

Amazingly thin at just 0.16 inches at its thinnest and 0.76 inches at its thickest point, the MacBook Air weighs just 3 pounds.

Apple's Thinnest Laptop Is Also Its Greenest
The MacBook Air embodies Apple's continuing environmental progress with its aluminum enclosure, a material highly desired by recyclers; Apple's first mercury-free LCD display with arsenic-free glass; and brominated flame retardant-free material for the majority of circuit boards as well as PVC-free internal cables. In addition, the MacBook Air consumes the least amount of power of any Mac, and its retail box, made primarily from 100 percent post-consumer recycled material, is 56 percent smaller by volume than the previously smallest MacBook packaging.

Design
The thinness of MacBook Air is impressive, but even more impressive is that fact that there's a full-size notebook encased in the 0.16 to 0.76 inch of sleek, sturdy anodized aluminum. This svelte, 3-pound laptop has a vibrant, energy efficient 13.3-inch LED-backlit glossy widescreen display, and its spacious trackpad offers multi-touch gesture support for pinch, rotate and swipe--making it more intuitive than ever to browse and rotate photos or zoom into web pages in Safari. It also features a full-size keyboard that's backlit, making it ideal for dimly lit environments such as airplanes, studios or conference halls. It includes a built-in ambient light sensor automatically adjusts the brightness of the keys as well as the display brightness for optimal visibility.

One of Apple's most celebrated innovations is the MagSafe power adapter connector, which offers a magnetic connection instead of a physical one. So, if you happen to trip over a power cord, you won't send the MacBook Air flying off a table or desk--the cord simply disconnects, without damage to either the cord or the system.

Optical Drive
Because of the amazingly thin design of the MacBook Air, an optical (DVD/CD) drive was not included. To install software from a disc, you can wirelessly use or "borrow" optical drives on remote PCs or Macs using the Remote Disk feature. This allows you full access to an optical drive without having to haul one around. If you want to have an optical drive for burning CDs and DVDs, you can purchase the optional MacBook Air SuperDrive (sold separately). This multi-format CD/DVD read/write drive is powered by the MacBook Air's USB port, eliminating the need to carry a separate power adapter.

Networking
The MacBook Air doesn't include wired Ethernet networking, and instead relies solely on Wi-Fi to connect to your home network as well as wireless hotspots. The built-in 802.11n wireless networking provides up to five times the performance and twice the range of 802.11g, but it's also backward-compatible with 802.11a/b/g routers, enabling you to communicate with the a wide variety of Wi-Fi resources. It works seamlessly with the optional AirPort Extreme base station as well as Apple's Time Capsule Wi-Fi base station/hard drive--both of which include 802.11n capabilities. If you don't have access to a wireless network, you can use an optional USB Ethernet Adapter (sold separately)

Use the built-in Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) wireless technology to connect to your PDA or cell phone, synchronize addresses, or download pictures from your cell phone. You can also use a wireless headset for iChat audio chats and VoIP calls as well as quickly share files with a colleague.

Video Conferencing with Built-in iSight
Artfully placed in the display bezel is an iSight camera, which enables easy video conferencing as well as allows you to snap pictures of yourself and create video podcasts. Using the iChat AV application, video conferencing is integrated into your iChat buddy list, so initiating a video conference is a breeze. iChat also lets you hold audio chats with up to 10 people and provides high-quality audio compression and full-duplex sound so conversation can flow naturally. For video podcasting, you can record a short clip using the iSight camera, then use iWeb to create a video blog entry or post your GarageBand-recorded podcast.

Display and Graphics

The MacBook Air includes a vibrant 13.3-inch LED-backlit display and a full-sized keyboard.

Whether you're working on a Keynote presentation or watching a movie before you catch a flight, every document, video, and photo on your MacBook Air will look sharp on the glossy 13.3-inch widescreen display. With pixel-perfect 1280-by-800 resolution, it's great for viewing and working with media. Video is powered by the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100, which provides 144 MB of DDR2 SDRAM shared with main memory. It features Intel Clear Video Technology, which delivers outstanding video playback with sharper image quality, increased clarity, and enhanced visual quality of interlaced content on progressive displays.

Hard Drive and Memory
For storage, this MacBook Air comes with a 64 GB solid-state hard drive. Faster and more reliable, solid memory provides a rapid boot-up and quicker access to applications while improving battery life. It's also more reliable than a hard disk drive because there are no moving parts. Since data is written to stationary memory instead of a spinning hard disk, you have less risk of hardware problems with the hard disk when you're on the move. The 2 GB of PC5300 DDR2 RAM (two SO-DIMMs of 1024 MB) has an industry-leading 667 MHz speed, and it maximizes the capacity for this laptop.

Intel Core 2 Duo Processor
Custom-built to fit within the compact dimensions of the laptop, the MacBook Air is powered by a 1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with a super-fast 800 MHz front-side bus (FSB), and an enormous 4 MB of Smart Cache, an L2 cache that can be shared between the cores as needed. (An L2, or secondary, cache temporarily stores data; and a larger L2 cache can help speed up your system's performance. The FSB carries data between the CPU and RAM, and a faster front-side bus will deliver better overall performance.)

The innovative now-you-see-it, now-you-don't port hatch flips down to reveal (and closes to hide) all the ports you really need: a USB 2.0 port, a headphone jack, and a micro-DVI port.

The Intel Core 2 Duo's 128-bit SSE3 vector engine handles 128-bit computations in a single clock cycle, accelerating data manipulation by simultaneously applying a single instruction to multiple data. And its two execution cores are designed to share resources and conserve power, helping it to achieve higher levels of performance since it uses fewer watts. And with 4MB of shared L2 cache, the MacBook Air is a multi-tasking monster. With such substantial L2 cache, data and instructions can be kept close to the two processor cores, greatly increasing performance and allowing the entire system to work more efficiently. And, because the processor cores share the L2 cache, either can use the entire amount if the other happens to be idle.

Other Features

• DVI output using micro-DVI to DVI adapter (included)
• VGA output using micro-DVI to VGA adapter (included)
• Composite output using micro-DVI to video adapter (optional)
• S-video output using micro-DVI to video adapter (optional)
• Analog audio output/headphone out (minijack)
• Built-in mono speaker and omnidirectional microphone
• Integrated 37-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery provides up to 5 hours of battery life
• Built-in full-size keyboard with 78 (U.S.) or 79 (ISO) keys, including 12 function keys, 4 arrow keys (inverted "T" arrangement), and embedded numeric keypad
• Supported resolutions: 1280 by 800 (native), 1152 by 720, 1024 by 768, 800 by 600, 800 by 500, 720 by 480, and 640 by 480 pixels at 16:10 aspect ratio; 1024 by 768, 800 by 600, and 640 by 480 pixels at 4:3 aspect ratio; 720 by 480 pixels at 3:2 aspect ratio

Preloaded with Leopard, you'll enjoy enhanced productivity and a clutter-free desktop (thanks to the redesigned 3D Dock with Stacks).

Preloaded with Leopard and iLife '08
The biggest Mac OS X upgrade ever, the Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard operating system features over 300 new features, including:

• Time Machine, an effortless way to automatically back up everything on a Mac
• A redesigned Finder that lets users quickly browse and share files between multiple Macs
• Quick Look, a new way to instantly see files without opening an application
• Spaces, an intuitive new feature used to create groups of applications and instantly switch between them
• A brand new desktop with Stacks, a new way to easily access files from the Dock
• Major enhancements to Mail and iChat

Leopard's new desktop includes the redesigned 3D Dock with Stacks, a new way to organize files for quick and easy access with just one click. Leopard automatically places web, email and other downloads in a Downloads stack to maintain a clutter-free desktop, and you can instantly fan the contents of this and other Stacks into an elegant arc right from the Dock. The updated Finder includes Cover Flow and a new sidebar with a dramatically simplified way to search for, browse and copy content from any PC or Mac on a local network.

Time Machine lets you easily back up all of the data on your Mac, find lost files and even restore all of the software on their Mac. With just a one-click setup, Time Machine automatically keeps an up-to-date copy of everything on the Mac. In the event a file is lost, you can search back through time to find deleted files, applications, photos and other digital media and then instantly restore the file.

The MacBook Air also comes with the iLife '08 suite of applications that make it easy to live the digital life. Use iPhoto to share entire high-res photo albums with anyone who's got an email address. Record your own songs and podcasts with GarageBand. Break into indie filmmaking with iMovie and iDVD. Then take all the stuff you made on your Mac and share it on the Web in one click with iWeb.

What's in the Box
MacBook Air, MagSafe power adapter, Micro-DVI to DVI adapter, Micro-DVI to VGA adapter, cleaning/polishing cloth, install/restore DVDs, printed documentation

Apple MacBook Air 13.3-Inch Reviews

Compromises? Not In My View., March 17, 2008

By PenPal (San Antonio, TX) - I did a fair amount of soul-searching before pulling the trigger on Apple MacBook Air 13.3-Inch notebook purchase, in large part because of all the "compromises" apparently required to make as thin as Apple MacBook Air 13.3-Inch one is. For me, the MBA replaced a ThinkPad T-40, which has been as sturdy, consistent, and feature-laden as it is unattractive. My worry was that, though I was sure I would like the size and appearance of the MBA, maybe I would miss the T-40's feature set. Worse, I might miss a particular feature while traveling. So, I almost didn't buy the MBA.

I needn't have worried -- the MBA is simply incredible. As others have mentioned, the case is quite sturdy. Apple's engineers ingeniously relied on some of the internal components themselves as part of the skeleton for the case. This sounds scary, except that they were designed to serve both functions. The keyboard is crisp and comfortable (and keep in mind that I'm coming from a very well-regarded keyboard in the ThinkPad). The trackpad gestures more than make up for all of the extra keys the ThinkPad has. Although it takes some getting used to, the three-finger swipe, the two finger "right-click", pinching/expanding, etc., are all intuitive, comfortable, and fairly addictive. I've even started missing them on my desktop. The screen is really impressive -- a *big* improvement from my previous laptop. And battery life has been just fine -- definitely not the advertised five hours, but consistently well over three.

What do I miss? Honestly, not much. I've started using downloaded movies when I travel, including iTunes rentals. They all look just as good as a DVD did (on a laptop, at least) and are better for battery life. When I use an external mouse, I use a Bluetooth wireless model, so it doesn't take up the USB port. I was never a battery-swapper anyway, so that's not an issue. (I'll probably gripe about the built-in battery every couple of years when I replace it, then forget it the rest of the time.) And I can't save everything I have on the hard drive, though it holds everything that I would ever need on-the-go. I don't even miss the Ethernet port, as I travel with an Airport Express, and have for years. For me, the only real downside is the speed of opening applications. Opening most apps is noticeably and annoyingly slower than with my desktop (or, presumably, than all of the other Apple notebooks). However, once open, they do just fine. I now leave them open, which Apple says is fine, and speed is more than adequate.

As a disclaimer, I should mention that I'm a lawyer, so my usage doesn't involve heavy graphic or media work. I tend to run the Microsoft Office suite, Safari, iTunes, iPhoto, watch movies, and use the internet. For those types of things, the MBA comfortably meets my needs. I've even added VM Ware's Fusion program (running Windows XP) and, once loaded, it does the job as well. A speed demon this computer isn't, but if you use general productivity software and Apple's consumer applications, you'll probably be very happy.

I own a MacBook Air... (update), February 16, 2008

By Axel Grothey (Rochester, MN USA) -
I just came back from a 3-day trip - my first travel experience with the MacBook Air. I do own a first generation MacBook Pro and was honestly tempted at first to bring it along in case I need "it". "It" mainly referred to the DVD drive, built-in ethernet and perhaps superior hard-drive speed/access time. I decided to go with the MacBook Air alone (and the USB ethernet adapter) - and see what happens.

It went great. First of all, the bag on my shoulder felt almost unreasonably light. Battery life was more than sufficient to support my three-hour flight with about 25% of capacity left at the end. Connecting to the internet at the airport (via wi-fi) and in the hotel (USB-ethernet adapter) was a breeze (note, however, that I did need the $29 USB-ethernet adapter).

At the conference, laptop-envy abounded... quite amazing, actually. The reaction of someone who has never seen it to its size, sturdiness, and form factor is quite impressive.

I ichatted with my family without problems with good quality video; the systems overall felt a bit more responsive than my 2-year old MacBook Pro with the first-generation Core Duo chip.

If you want a light, thin, sturdy laptop with full-size keyboard, a gorgeous screen, MacOS X (10.5), and you don't necessarily need a CD/DVD drive (you can buy an external one, but somehow lugging this extra piece around somehow defies the purpose of the MBA), and can put up with not "optimal" hard-drive performance, then the MBA is exactly what you want!
I would buy the USB-ethernet adapter, though.

If you need high-speed performance, FireWire, a high-end graphics card, a built-in DVD/CD drive etc, then the MBA is not for you - but I guess then you would not be looking at this page...;)

Honestly, I could not be happier with my purchase. My MB Pro will be up on eBay soon...


Update:

I have been using my MacBook Air now for 4 weeks and have taken it on several trips. This now allows me to update some of the comments made before.

- Battery life: I am quite happy with the battery life which easily allows 3-4 hours of text processing, PowerPoint slide generation, and EndNote work. For me this mainly happens on flights which allows to lower the brightness of the LED screen to save power. I have not pushed my MBA to play videos. In fact, I have no digital entertainment files on it since these files can fill up the (limited) space on the drive quite fast.

- Ports: One USB port is not enough! For instance, if you have to connect to the internet via USB adapter (again, still indispensable!), you block the one and only USB port - unless you carry a USB hub along (Belkin has a nice 4-port one with a swivel design, but quite pricey). Thus, I have added a small USB hub to my travel utensils.

- Design: The MBA still turns heads and sparks comments. In fact, on one of my flights the captain himself left the cockpit to take a look after one of the flight attendants had told him about the MBA on my lap...

- Heat: The MBA is MUCH cooler than my MacBook Pro. You can easily keep it on your lap without feeling uncomfortable.

My wish list for future MBA generations:

- At least 2 USB ports. Should be easy to do.
- Reconsider built-in ethernet - the USB adapter works fine, but blocks the one USB port at this point.
- As soon as larger 1.8'' drives (HD or SSD) are available, they will surely find its way into the MBA to overcome some space limitations.

- It might surprise some, but I honestly do not see a great need for a swapable battery. I would leave it as is in order to keep the amazing form factor.

Superb machine in most ways!, February 20, 2008

By PaulM "PaulM" - Superb quality, beautiful super-bright screen with good viewing angles, doesn't get hot like most notebooks, fantastic design that slips in between documents and you don't even notice it, good battery life given the power (I average 3 1/2 hours with regular use and wireless on), light weight, fast wifi connections, tiny power adapter and great feeling full-size keyboard that is backlit for work in low lighting. This is as close to the perfect travel computer that I've ever used!

Now the not-so-greats:

- there really should have been more than one usb port. It can be handled if you need more through a small usb hub, but that's not ideal. One more port should have been included.

- Wired ethernet. Would have been nice to have that built in too, but the dongle works well and is really almost never needed for me at least. I bring a small wireless router with me anyway so I never really need to use wired ethernet. Still, it's a convenience.

- built in battery that require unscrewing many screws to replace. This is a design decision and I'm not sure I agree with it. If the battery holds up reasonably well for a year or so and it's easy to get replacement batteries, I think it's not a bad decision, but if these batteries are not good quality and don';t last it'll piss me off. I'd like the option to bring an extra battery, but I've never done it before so even if I had the option I probably wouldn't use it. If you need to work for many hours on the plane, this is not good. On the other hand, it's just a matter of time before all airlines start having plugs for laptops in all cabins. Mixed feelings about this decision, but I love the design so much (and it would be different with a removable battery) that it feels like it outweighs this issue....not rational, but that's the way I feel.


That's it. This is the nicest laptop I've used, despite it's minor inconveniences. As long as you're aware of how you work and what you need and compare that with the macbook air's capabilities, you'll simply LOVE this machine.

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Apple MacBook Air 13.3-Inch notebook - 1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 2 GB RAM, 64 GB Solid-State Drive

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