MacBook Air

When I think of the ultimate form factor for computing portability what immediately comes to mind is weight, not size. It doesn't seem that Apple agrees with me. Hence, the MacBook Air. The thinnest laptop in the world. At first it would seem to me that being thin would almost surely equal less weight, not so. It is light, there is no doubt but it isn't lighter than other "thicker" laptops out there such as the Toshiba R500 that comes in at 2.2lbs as compared to the MacBook Air's 3.0lbs, not a huge difference but those of us who have had to lug a laptop )or two) through a busy airport know, every pound counts.
While it is beautiful, I know my jaw sagged at some of the pictures, I began to wonder if it is something I would ever be interested in. And if not, then who is Apple marketing this for?
Some facts: it is supposed to be almost completely wireless. I say almost because you still need to charge it, no? Other than that it does not have it's own ethernet port, that comes as a separate dongle you have to purchase. You only get one USB port, one Micro-DVI port and a headset jack. There is also a separate optical drive that can be purchased. In trying to be wireless, it looks like there are an awful lot of things hanging off this thing! To be fair, Apple will be offering software that can be installed on either a Mac or PC which will allow the Air to use that computer's optical drive as though it was it's own. Finally, the battery can only be replaced at an Apple store when you need to purchase another battery, they will do it for you for free plus the cost of the battery.
The only thing that I haven't mentioned about it is what compels me the most: you can get it with a 64GB Solid State Drive for only $999 more! Solid State meaning there are no moving parts in the hard drive, it uses the same kind of memory as that in the iPod nano. That is a pretty hefty addition to the $1,799 price of the base model, bringing that configuration to $2,099. So what is so cool about Solid State memory? It's fast! There are no platters to spin up, no write heads to zoom around and read the sectors. It's really fast. Apart from the 802.11n wireless ethernet, that's the only other thing that is fast about this model. The Air itself comes in either 1.6 or 1.8 GHz flavors, not particularly exciting.
So who would buy this? My wife possibly. Someone who doesn't really care how powerful her machine is as long as it is reasonably fast and, most importantly, looks cool. I don't think she's burned more than one or two CD's for herself since we got her a MacBook last year, she has an iPod nano. Other than doing what she needs she could care less when I tell her about the speed of the Intel chip inside or that it has 802.11n wireless ethernet compared to the 802.11g in my older iMac.
"It's much faster than the current wireless spec if you have a router that will do the same" I told her.
"So it can get on the internet, right?" her eyes glassy and wandering back to the TV.
I sigh, admit defeat and say "Yes, Baby. It can."