If you are following the Mac scene, you will already know that Steve Jobs yesterday announced the worlds thinnest notebook - the MacBook Air.
If you have time, watch Steve's keynote speech. Highly entertaining and amusing. Even if you are not interested in Mac products, you can learn from his presentation skills.
Below: The new machine - learn more about its features in the guide that somebody uploaded to YouTube.
And you can get the Mirai-chan wallpaper in the wallpaper tool.
Below: Machine specs. There are two models available. The 1.6GHz is 1799 USD and the 1.8 GHz is 3098 USD. the 1.8GHz costs much more because of the solid state drive inside. More specs at Apple.
Below: Inside of the machine. Battery takes up most of the space.
Below: The actual computer with fan attached.
Below: They managed to fit an entire Mac on this board.
Below: The machine is designed to be a wireless machine so doesn't even come with an Ethernet port. The only ports it has are headphone, Micro DVI (for projector/monitor output) and a USB 2.0 socket.
One can buy an Ethernet USD adapter for an extra 29 USD.
Below:MagSafe socket.
Below: Bottom of the machine. No panel lines because there is no user replaceable battery. The built in one lasts for 5 hours and can be replaced for a 129 USD-ish fee at the Apple Store.
Below: A load of people at MacWorld playing with the new machine.
Below: The new touchpad supports the same gestures that we first saw with the iPod Touch. You can pinch, zoom and flick through pages too. You can see some of these gestures in the YouTube video above.
Below: Just like the MacBook Pro, the keyboard is backlit. The only time I find the backlit keyboard useful is when I'm on a flight. Not really a required feature.
Below: Comes with the latest version of Leopard.
Below: The MacBook Air does not come with an optical drive. Instead, you can share the drive of your other PC or Mac and the MacBook Air can use that to install software.
So, ultra thin, decent speed, full size keyboard and decent screen size too. No optical drive, Ethernet or Firewire ports - worth buying?
If you have other machines at home and are on the move a lot - external meetings and business trips then I recommend it.
I'm going to wait and get the latest model (if any) thats out in May to use in a presentation - been invited to give a presentation on Otaku culture and business opportunities at Trend Day in Hamburg Germany. Prof. Muhammad Yunus who won the Nobel Peace Prize 2006 spoke at the last Trend Day. Need to watch more Steve Jobs Keynotes as practice ^^;;;
If you are not on the move often then its probably not worth it as you can get a MacBook or MacBook Pro for a bit more.
If you are a Windows user then don't forget that Mac run Windows perfectly with BootCamp - no messing with drivers either. You may find it interesting that there where many users at Microsoft who had a MacBook Pro running Vista ^^
Given all that, is the MacBook Air something you would consider buying?
Images from Apple and Impress.
