The Macbook Air Reviews are in...And the Verdict Is?

Well, the only specs and quality of this laptop that we've been able to get are the people who went to MacWorld 2008. But now, we have the reviews of 3 well-known journalists. These reviews come from USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and Newsweek.

WSJ: Walt Mossberg from the Wall Street Journal was surprised at how the machine felt in hand, saying words could not describe. He also said the keyboard and screen were "a pleasure to use." He also noted how speedy it was. His battery tests gave him 3 hrs and 24 minutes having WIFI turned on and music playing non-stop.

Newsweek: Steven Levy of Newsweek wrote in a third of his review how thin it is. He then compared it to a circumcision. He noted that to ensure an easy connection, you must turn Firewall setting to it's lowest, making the machine even more prone to attacks.

USA Today: Ed Baig of USA Today reviewed the Macbook Air as a machine not meant to be alone, saying that there are tons of features missing and that to only purchase this if you travel a lot with your laptop. He explained Intel's new Core 2 Duo that Intel re-made just for the Macbook Air, going on to say that it is definately the slowest Intel Core 2 Duo chips on the Mac line-up (OUCH!). Surfing the Web, he got 3 hrs and 40 minutes. When watching a movie, 2 hrs and 40 minute (uhhh...my Zune lasts longer than that).

iPhone Apps now on iPod Touch ($20?!?!?!)

When CEO Steve Jobs of Apple gave his keynote during MWSF earlier this month, he announced that Mail, Stock, Notes, Weather, and Google Maps would be available for the iPod Touch, along with the ability to customize your home-screen and add bookmark icons to your home-screen as well. iPod Touch buyers were pleased to here that, considering they were available on the iPhone from Day 1 and after all, the iPod Touch is just the iPhone without the phone, right? Well, apparently, you'll have to hand over $20 in order to obtain these apps and new features (that are and have been available to Jailbroken iPod Touch users for quite some time now). I thought Apple wanted us to update our ipod's because they don't agree with the whole jailbreaking method.
Well, the 1.1.3 firmware update for iPod Touch's doesn't include any new functionality, so why iPod Touch users would wanted to compromise with Apple with this lame firmware update. All they had to do was charge just a dollar or two for the upgrade and I bet nearly everyone would've gave in to Apple. But now, due to Apple's, one of many, attempts at making a profit, people who already have these apps and plenty more aren't going to be in compromising mood. After all, who would give up hundreds of amazing, free apps for an extra 5? And let's not forget, something that should've been on the iPod Touch from Day 1, the ability to display lyrics during a song (just like they did with the Video iPod).

Macbook Air Review

There are plenty of other lightweight laptopss that are MUCH, MUCH lighter than the Macbook Air. Without an included optical drive with it's ridiculous $1700 price tag for the bare minimum, this is a laptop you need to think twice about buying. After all, the purpose of an ultra-portable laptop is to be, well....ultra-portable. Just thinning down the Macbook Pro and removing most of it's common day necessities such as an internal optical drive, more storage, and multiple USB ports, does not make it much more portable than the Macbook Pro. The Macbook Air at it's bare minimum features a 80GB 4200RPM HDD. With only having 80GB of storage, I expect it to be at least 5400RPM, which is much faster than a 4200RPM drive. The "X" and "Y" dimensions are more important in the menaing of the term "ultra-portable" than the "Z" dimension (a.k.a. it's thickness). The Macbook Air doesn't set any new standard in the ultra-portable laptop world. It's a thin, sleek laptop, but it's just not the kind of laptop to have around for typical Macintosh users.

Of course, you will have people buying it just for it's sleek, sharp look, which Apple will be happy about, that someone is buying it, But I'm sure that most people you buy it don't know what they are missing in comparison to their current laptop.

(Updated): Apple will soon be announcing a refresh of it's popular Macbook Pro. It will feature the same multi-touch trackpad as the recently announced (piece of crap) Macbook Air.