Jan 24

MacBook Air Reviews Started Popping Up

The Web is full of articles about the MacBook Air already, and everyone keeps writing, and writing, and writing... I don't want to go against the flow, as long as I have something to say, and since some how news emerged today, I thought it would be nice to tell you about the 3 reviews published today in Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Newsweek. Their subject is, obviously, the MacBook Air, and we're talking about the version using a "traditional" 1.8-inch hard drive, and not an SSD...

Don't ask me why I don't write my own review, because the reason is obvious. As soon as I get my hands on a MacBook Air, be sure I'll share my experience with you, but now let's see what others have to say, shall we?

I won't get into "who-wrote-what", but I'll try to summarize the good and the bad for you, adding my own thoughts at the end. Are you ready? Here we go...

The positive parts noticed by everyone were the excellent keyboard and display, lower temperature compared to previous MacBooks, good battery life(only with Newsweek), the multi-touch trackpad and, obviously, the size and weight.

On the other hand, USA Today and Wall Street Journal concluded that the battery life was way below expectations (maybe those batteries needed to be formatted first? just a thought...), and everyone noticed the lack of Ethernet support (obviously, you could get an external adapter, but that's not something you think about when you get a MacBook Air), Firewire , and the MIA optical drive. Of course, you can get a SuperDrive for $99, but when using your computer in a plane, bus or train, it may not be really comfortable. Oh, yeah, the 80GB drive is also pretty small by today's standards!

Now, I should add something, that's what I promised, right? Well, being given the drawbacks of the "junior" MacBook Air, they forgot to add the price isn't quite a deal. In my opinion, Apple could take advantage of this whole deal and come up with a nice "student-only" promotion for those using their MacBook Airs for educational purporses. Let's hope someone "up there" will have the same idea, because that would be simply great!