Hands-on with the MacBook Air

First Impressions

It's really, really thin. Like nano thin. And yet the Macbook AIr packs in a full size keyboard and one of the biggest and most versatile touchpads we've ever used. We spent a few minutes with the thinnest notebook on earth and came away mighty impressed with its design and snappy performance. You do make a few trade-offs for the size, but we imagine most prospective buyers won't care.

The MacBook Air is Lighter Than
The aluminum body feels rock solid and yet super light. there's a lot of computer inside this 3-pound chassis. And the keyboard has plenty of depth despite the system's 0.76-inch profile.

Vibrant Display
The13.3- inch LED display is positively brilliant. The viewing angles were superb, and photos looked very crisp. Another nice touch is the ambient light sensor, which adjust the backlight both on the keyboard and the display .Air 5.

MacBook Air Specifications
In terms of specs, the Macbook Air is certainly no slouch. The base $1,799 model ships with a 1.6-GHz processor. 2GB of RAM. and a 1.8-inch 80GB hard drive. The 64GB solid drive is $999 just by itself, so you'll want to think twice before plunking down the extra cash. We'll be asking Apple if its 5-hour battery life claim is for the SSD model only or the hard drive model, too.

The top-of-the-line configuration features a 1.8-GHz processor and the 64GB SSD. That brings the total to a whopping $3,098. That's basically executives-only territory, but certainly in line with other lightweight machines with similar specs.

price: $1,799
info: www.apple.com