30 Seconds With The New MacBook Air

This blogger spent 30 seconds in Best Buy looking at the new MacBook Air 11 and 13 inch models. Let’s just say there’s a reason I don’t trust myself with a credit card. Here’s a few quick hands-on impressions…

The new MacBook Airs — whether you love or hate Apple — are really quite a work of art. And while the 13 inch model is pretty, it’s not nearly as stellar as the 11 inch.

It’s hard to describe what it’s like holding the 11 inch model, but if you’re at all familiar with Apple’s aluminum wireless bluetooth keyboard, simply imagine there’s a screen attached to the end of it. That’s roughly the size, shape and feel of the Air. But even that doesn’t do it justice.

The edges are crisp, the build quality is strong. It feels good in your hands. The screen opens and closes — like on the commercials — with a single finger, a testament to the engineering that goes into device so the bottom of the laptop doesn’t ‘jump’ off the table.

It’s also tiny, but attractively so. Apple shrunk the command keys and F-keys in an effort to retain the full-sized letter keys, but still managed a mini-DisplayPort, and two USB ports.

I can’t report back on any real computing benchmarks, but it was snappy loading a few apps, and the nVidia graphics inside make all of OS X’s eye candy animations smooth. I think this is truly Apple’s approach to a ‘netbook’ and plays into the Apple mantra of ‘we don’t know how to sell X for Y dollars.’ Apple doesn’t know how to make a good $300 netbook, but they know how to make an incredible $999 netbook that isn’t disposable.

With my mid-2007 MacBook starting to show signs of its age — especially with a dated Intel graphics card — this blogger already has found his replacement.

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