Apple MacBook Air

If you're of the belief that you don't have to be thin to be gorgeous, then the MacBook Air, will do nothing to help your case. It's super model good looking and, as Apple's marketing machine makes perfectly clear, it's the world's thinnest notebook, coming in at only 19.4mm at its thickest point, slimmer than most laptops at their thinnest. It looks, quite literally, cutting edge.

This uber svelteness, helps the MacBook weigh in at no more than 1.36Kg. I'll say at this point that this is a huge factor in the Air's appeal. The day before I got this review sample I had to take my standard issue work laptop home with me, and at 2.4Kg, it certainly made its presence felt. Doing the same journey the next day with the MacBook Air was a literal relief for my shoulder. It's so light you hardly notice it, and it doesn't cause your notebook bag to bulge.

However, to get to this, Apple has been forced to make several omissions. First of all, there is no integrated optical drive, which places it at a disadvantage to the likes of the SonyVaio SZ series, which manages to fit in an optical drive and at 1.24Kg actually weighs less than the Air.

Moving a step back, even the design of the packaging is a typically special Apple experience, and once you've freed it from its deliberately snug box, you'll find a thin slab of anodized with a surface that's completely smooth save for the white Apple logo in the middle. There's no clip to attach the lid to the base, it's all newfangled magnetic, and thanks to the smooth featureless surface I've even seen a couple of people try to open it the wrong way round.

Once you do manage to scythe it open you'll find that remarkable the lid is about the same thickness as the base, which when you think about the components that are packed in is quite amazing.

Naturally, the design abounds with stylish touches. When you close the lid MacOS X instantly goes into standby in a way that still seems to elude Windows. To indicate this you get a tiny glowing oblong along the front edge. Apple introduced its MagSafe power plug with the MacBooks and it's present again here, only with an even tinier connector. It's designed to come away easily so the notebook doesn't get wrenched, though sometimes it disconnects too easily.

Inside you'll find something that you won't find on most of the ultra portable's out there - a nearly full sized keyboard and a large 13.3in display. This is down to the simple fact that the MacBook Air might be thin and light, but it's not small. Its dimensions; 12.74in wide and 8.9in deep, give it enough scope to avoid cramped keys and having to squint at a small screen - no bad thing. It also means it nestles nicely on the lap, especially as it's not heavy. In that sense it's possibly the most appropriately named laptop computer ever.

Beneath the display is the fetching MacBookAir logo, while above this is a tiny iSight camera - Apple's name for its webcam and a small green light illuminates when it's active. Despite it size, it gave acceptable results in PhotoBooth and Skype.

Considering the need to keep the screen thin, there's no surprise that the display employs an LED backlight, and at maximum levels it's way too bright. However, once you tone it down a few notches it's perfectly usable with none of the patchiness that plagues some screens. The native resolution is a rather modest 1,280 x 800, merely the same as that on the smaller 11in display of the Sony TZ series.

The keyboard is essentially the same one you'll find on the regular MacBook. The keys have a fairly short amount of travel to them, and as long as you don't bash away it's a fine keyboard. Access to the F-keys is only via the Function key as by default they are mapped to shortcut functions, such as brightness, volume and iTunes control. One is also mapped to the excellent Expose, which lets you see all your open windows at once. One of these keys is mapped to the eject key, even though there is no integrated optical drive.

A great touch is the keyboard backlighting. This is tied to an ambient light sensor that controls the level of illumination. It's a great feature that not only makes it easier to type in dimly lit surroundings, but also looks very cool.

As there's no integrated optical drive Apple has optional external USB DVD burner available for the Air. I say custom, as the drive cannot be used with any other Mac, only with the Air, which seems a rather odd restriction. The Air Superdrive is as slick looking as you would imagine, but if you don't want to pay the £65 for one, Apple has come up with a neat alternative - Remote Disc. This involves making use of the optical drive of another machine, either PC or Mac. It involves installing some supplied software first, and on a Windows Vista machine it worked smoothly.

This makes it suitable for installing software or copying over medium sized files but copying speeds will depend on how fast your Wi-Fi connection is. That's because Wi-Fi is the only means of networking from the Air (unless you count the integrated Bluetooth). In its quest for miniaturisation, Apple omitted any kind of Ethernet port. The wireless supports the b/g and draft-n standards, but there will certainly be times when you're going to miss the security and reliability of a wired connection. There are many businesses who will not want to entrust their sensitive data even over a secured wireless connection.

Naturally, Apple has another accessory to get around this little problem, a USB to Ethernet adaptor, which it will sell you for another £19.

This however, brings you straight into another issue - the MacBook Air only has one, yes that's one, USB port. In a very neat bit of design, the ports for the Air are all hidden under a small, perfectly discreet, drop down flap on the right hand side. This contains a headphone socket, a single USB port, and a small socket for attaching the supplied VGA and DVI dongles. These are close together, so if you've got a USB key plugged in, it blocks access to the headphone port. Fancy listening to music while you've got your new Vodafone HSDPA USB modem plugged in? Well, it ain't gonna happen.

The single USB port then will require some juggling around. If you've got your data on a USB key, and you need to work with a 3G/HSDPA modem, or Ethernet (via the adaptor) you're going to have to transfer is across first, rather than working off it, and then plug what you need in.

Naturally, you could buy an external USB hub, but then along with your external DVD drive, your bag is starting to clutter up.

This scenario also highlights the fact that the MacBook Air fails to include an integrated slot for 3G/HSDPA SIM cards, something that the likes of the Sony TZ and the forthcoming Lenovo X300 Thinkpad do.

Yet another omission is FireWire, a standard that Apple helped to establish, but now appears to have been abandoned. So if the idea of capturing DV footage and editing it on a super light computer appeals, you'll be disappointed.

The single USB port also limits your ability to plug in an external mouse. Apple is probably counting on the fact that you would not want to, due to the latest gizmo it offers - a multi-touch trackpad, importing some of the iPhone's trickery into a notebook. With this you can swipe sideways to move through pictures, or even rotate them - it really doesn't get whizzier than this. To accommodate this, the trackpad is unusually large, while the mouse button is thin, which took getting used to.

What the Air needs then is an external docking solution, but Apple hasn't created one, and that as much as the other issues, will prevent it from being an option for corporate use.

In terms of specifications, the Air features a 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo, an Intel L7500 integrated into a custom miniature package for Intel by Apple, running on an 800MHz front-side bus, and is backed with a remarkably generous 2GB of 667MHz RAM. I suspect that this is due to the lack of upgradeability and supplying less would have been asking for trouble.

You can pick up a 1.8GHz version too and this comes as standard if you choose to go for the version with a 64GB SSD drive. This however, takes the price from £1,199 to an eye watering £2,028 so if value for money is of any concern whatsoever, this option can be discounted. The standard hard disk is merely 80GB, which isn't large at all by today's notebook standards.

What the standard spec gives is only average performance. Our sister title PC Pro benchmarked the Air, using its custom benchmark suite, under Windows Vista, installed using the supplied Boot Camp software. It obtained a score of 0.69 - faster than ultra portables such as the Sony TZ series and Toshiba Portege R500, but a long way behind a regular MacBook, or MacBook Pro. It also felt a little sluggish in use and for anything but light work, you might start to notice.

Even more of a concern though will be the battery life. Apple claims five hours, but in real world use, with Wi-Fi enabled or a HSDPA USB modem plugged in, I got nowhere near that - and subjectively speaking, after a few days use, I found it was closer to three hours. Significantly, like an iPod, the battery is sealed in, giving no scope for swapping out on the road.

The MacBook Air then is more for the pose warrior, than the road warrior. If you can rely on not being too far away from a power socket, such as in business class, then you'll be fine, though it did get rather warm on the left, when plugged in after prolonged use.

The MacBook Air then is as you would expect from Apple a fine achievement in many respects and often wonderful to use, but its flaws are myriad and as such it's limited to a niche audience.

On the downside, it's paucity of connections, specifically the single USB port and lack of integrated HSDPA mean that's it's a missed opportunity for serious use on the road.

On the positive side though, its weight, its high impact style and the quick start nature and slickness of MacOS X, will still make the Air a highly appealing business tool for some. It will certainly appear in corporate settings, even if the likely route will be via executive charge cards rather than being issued by the IT department.

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