Slide Show: The MacBook Air in Perspective
Apple's ultrathin MacBook Air refocuses attention on ultraportable laptops. How does it stack up against the competing Fujitsu's LifeBook P8010 and Toshiba's Portege R500?
Melissa J. Perenson, PC World
Portege R500: Awash in Inputs
Whereas the MacBook Air has just a small port for power on its right-hand side, the Toshiba R500 (like the Fujitsu P8010), packs in the ports. Shown here from left to right (top): power, VGA port, USB port, and 4-pin FireWire 400, USB port, microphone and headphone jacks, and volume dial. The right side of the unit integrates an 8X multiformat DVD burner (bottom). Sharing portions of the space occupied by the optical drive: An SD Card slot (upper left of the optical drive; supports SDIO cards, too) and a PC Card slot (lower right). Also on this side of the notebook: a slider switch for enabling/disabling the integrated 802.11a/g/n and Bluetooth wireless, one of the laptop's three USB ports, and the gigabit ethernet port. With the MacBook Air, you'll be out of luck if you need to use USB and ethernet: The Air lacks a dedicated ethernet port, and requires you to use its sole USB port for a USB-to-ethernet dongle. That translates into no CD, DVD, or flash media card access while you're on a connected network.
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