Apple makes the MacBook Air both smaller and less expensive, creating an excellent ultraportable, but leaving out a few features along the way. The new 11.6-inch version of the MacBook Air kills both birds with one stone, as the smallest current Apple laptop (there were 12-inch PowerBook models as recently as five years ago), and also lowering the entry price to $999, coincidentally, the same as the white basic 13-inch MacBook.
The all-metal construction keeps it from feeling too fragile, often an issue for ultrathin systems. The body is tapered toward the front, creating an optical illusion of even more thinness (although it's still only 0.68 inch thick at the rear). The large keyboard and trackpad (which is the same glass version found on other MacBooks) both work well, although the function keys at the very top are very small. The F5 key is the only one missing an alternate function; on other MacBooks, it's for the keyboard backlight.
Powering the MacBook Air 11-inch is an older generation Intel Core 2 Duo processor running at 1.4GHz. This is fairly anemic compared to the newer Core i series processors but Apple had to go with this processor because of the thermal and power requirements. The base model also comes with just 2GB of DDR3 memory. While this is fully functional for the Mac OS X operating system, it does cause some degraded performance for intensive applications such as desktop video. Be warned that the memory is soldered into the system and not upgradeable. Users must order it with the upgraded memory at time of purchase.
The base 11-inch model comes equipped with a 64GB solid state drive. This means that the system has much less storage space making it less useful as a primary PC. What the solid state drive does do is make the system feel extremely fast in booting and application loading which mitigates the slower Core 2 Duo processor. There is no optical drive at all and the system does not feature a SD card slot like other Mac laptops. For system recovery, Apple does include a USB memory stick with the required software.
Apple's battery life for its laptops have been incredible considering their size. Much of this is attributed to their use of lithium polymer molded into the available space. The 11-inch MacBook air has a relatively small 35WHr battery but with the extremely power conservative it still manages to do a pretty good job.
Service and support from Apple is always a dual-edged sword. Apple includes a one-year parts and labor warranty, but only 90 days of telephone support. Upgrading to a full three-year plan under AppleCare will cost an extra $249 and is pretty much a must-buy, considering the proprietary nature of Apple products. Support is also accessible through a well-stocked online knowledge base, video tutorials, and e-mail with customer service, or through in-person visits to Apple's retail store Genius Bars, which, in our experience, have always been fairly frustration-free encounters.
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