Macbook Air – Hands-On Review

I briefly held, photographed and played with the MacBook Air at MacWorld on Tuesday. I plan on spending more time with the laptop later today and over the course of the week, so this is just an initial post (and photos) likely more to follow.

First, the MacBook Air is really thin. Seriously thin. It is hard to underemphasize this point, the numbers don’t do it justice. While I played with the first one I managed to get my hands at a friend stopped by, in her bag she had her 6 month old  15″ MacBook Pro. We stood the two laptops on their sides and compared them, the MacBook Air was, literally, about as thick as the MacBook Pro’s screen.

The MacBook Air is also really simplifying the laptop experience, it is as if every bit of cruft and rarely used part of most more typical laptops had been removed and only the very few key bits were returned. Many argue that perhaps too much was taken away, though I almost never have to use an optical drive with my laptop (most software I install is downloaded from the web, yes I rip CDs but can and do easily do that with my desktop computer, and while I do watch the occasional DVD my laptop’s graphics capabilities and audio leave something to be desired – and I can already load a lot of video which I purchase from iTunes or other similar services, or which I freely download as in the case of a podcast such as the Onion News Videos).

I do, to a degree, agree with the criticism that only having one USB port may not be enough – I certainly frequently attach both an external HD and my iPod or iPhone, it may be possible to solve this problem via the use of a USB hub but that can offer some complications at times – specifically if it is not a powered hub some devices may not have sufficient power and a powered hub requires an outlet and the power cords to reach that outlet usually.

And just minutes ago I loaded my SD card from my camera to the SD slot on my laptop and uploaded my photos from the camera. A very simple yet frequently useful thing to do.

All that said, however, the MacBook Air does have the following highly crucial ports:

• external power w/magsafe connector to protect against people tripping on the cord – as a frequent user of laptops in cafes and at conferences this is an appealing feature for any modern Apple portable
• a headphone jack – which I and many others use on our laptops quite frequently, laptops are very often used in places where public noise can be an issue, so listening via headphones is often very useful. And while there are now some bluetooth stereo headphone options they are far from widely adopted.
•  a USB port. I use USB devices (my iPod, iPhone, external HD, USB memory sticks) on a nearly daily basis. And there are countless more ways I can use a USB port
•  a mini-DVI port w/adapters. Most crucially this allows the MacBook Air to connect to an external monitor – or more likely in case at least – an external projector which can then be used to give a presentation, for example.

And that is it for ports. No microphone in (but there is a built in microphone), no smart card readers, no slots of any type which might then be used for an EVDO/wireless data card. Not even the ability to swap out the battery while traveling.

So then what is my opinion of the MacBook Air? Would I buy one?

Short answer – yes, I would buy one as I am absolutely the target audience for a MacBook Air, but slightly longer answer, I’m not going to be buying one immediately as so many of my friends already have.

Why would I buy one? Allen has raised a bunch of questions about the MacBook Air and on quite a few other blogs issues and questions about who the laptop is intended for, why someone would buy one etc have been raised.

Weight and portability are vital features for me, the lighter the laptop the more likely I am to actually carry it with me, since I walk many miles every day (and spend the rest of the day using public transit where as often as not I am standing) the weight of my bag is very important to me, a lighter laptop thus has a great deal of impact on my daily life and comfort. Years ago I swore to never again buy a laptop which weighed more than 5lbs and quite truthfully that was a major reason I did not buy a MacBook or MacBook Pro the last time I shopped for a laptop (about a year ago). I also travel frequently, spending a week or more each month away from San Francisco, again a lighter laptop makes business travel that much nicer.

Between the ability to use software such as VM Fusion or Parallels of Apple’s own BootCamp I also know that should I need to use Windows only software modern a Mac can handle it (and really there are now very very few occasions when this is the case) plus as this year’s MacWorld shows there are many exciting companies developing great software for the Mac platform – and even more developing software for the web which is agnostic about the OS you are running.

So in short the MacBook Air offers a truly beautiful laptop, with a weight & performance point that is ideal for my primary uses of a laptop (i.e. not video editing or complex graphic design but lots of web work, writing, entertainment, and presentations). When I do need to shop for a new laptop, I fully expect to seriously consider the MacBook Air – while also hoping that some of the many innovations embedded inside of it have made their way to the rest of the Mac laptop line.

Shannon Clark is a founding partner at Nearness Function, a new ad network for the publishers of dynamic content. He is the organizer of MeshForum – an annual conference on the study of networks and the one day MeshWalk series of walking conferences. He has been blogging for many years at Searching for the Moon where he covers technology, economics, food, and the life of an entrepreneur.