Compromises Limit Appeal of Apple's MacBook Air Laptop

Macworld's Buying Advice

If the story of the MacBook Air is a story about compromise, the decision about whether the MacBook Air is a product worth having can be answered by one question: How much are you willing to compromise?

The MacBook Air is the slowest Mac in Apple's current product line, though its Intel Core 2 Duo processor is fast enough for general use. Its hard drive capacity is limited to 80GB, and on a slow drive at that. It's got no internal optical drive. It's got no FireWire port and only a single USB port, limiting its external connectivity. It's more expensive than the MacBook, which bests it on almost every tech-spec measurement.

That's one side of the equation. On the other side are two features that many computer users would never think of as reasonable ways to judge a computer, features measured in pounds and inches instead of gigahertz and gigabytes: The MacBook Air weighs three pounds and is three-quarters of an inch thick at its thickest point.

Judged merely on the cold technological specifications, the MacBook Air can't measure up to Apple's other laptops. For those to whom the tech specs matter above all else, the MacBook Air can't be seen as much more than an overpriced, underpowered toy.

But for those who factor size, weight, and--yes, I'll admit it--style into the equation, the MacBook Air begins to make more sense. Up until now, Mac users who craved the smallest Mac laptop possible have made their own compromise, using the lower-powered MacBook (or clinging desperately to the even lower-powered 12-inch PowerBook G4).

Is losing several hundred megahertz, dozens of gigabytes of hard-drive space, an internal optical drive, and FireWire connectivity worth losing two pounds? (Those are the differences between the MacBook Air and the MacBook--if you're considering a switch from the MacBook Pro, the differences are even starker in both directions.) Each laptop user will have to answer that question for themselves.

As a longtime fan of small laptops, I embraced the MacBook Air with some trepidation. But once I slipped that three-pound laptop into my backpack and threw the bag over my shoulders, I realized that sacrificing some storage space and some processor power was ultimately worth it for me.

(Jason Snell is Macworld's editorial director.)