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The Macbook Air: Super-thin, but no wired Lan or removeable battery

AirfrontApple has announced a raft of new products at Macworld in San Francisco, and the one that got the audience whooping and cheering the most was the Macbook Air, which Apple claims is the world's thinnest notebook at just 1.94cm tall (0.4cm at its thinnest point). It also comes with a 13.3in screen and a choice of 1.6GHz or 1.8GHz Core 2 Duo processors.

We can't deny it's a splendid-looking piece of kit, but the ultra-thin design means it lacks what we consider to be essentials, such as an Ethernet port. Relying on wireless (even if it is 802.11n) isn't the most sensible decision - only last night my wireless network went down, leaving me to hook up to the router via an Ethernet cable to sort things out.

As with Apple's iPods, the Macbook Air features a non-removable battery, which isn't much good for those who like to carry a second battery on long journeys. And if you do suffer battery problems outside of the one-year warranty period, which isn't unrealistic when it comes to notebooks, you'll have to send the Macbook Air back to Apple, who will replace the battery for a pretty steep fee of £139.

The 1.6GHz edition comes in at £1,199 while the 1.8GHz version, complete with a 64GB solid state drive, costs a whopping £2,028 - an indication of just how expensive these solid state drives are.

We'll have a full review of the Macbook Air soon...

Airside

Posted by Will Stapley on January 16, 2008 | Permalink

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