Apple's MacBook Air is available for pre-order

If you're the type who just has to be the first to have everything, then don't waste any time and rush over to Apple.com to pre-order your MacBook Air. Aside from the regular list of MacBook accessories, you'll have to decide if it's worth $300 to go from a 1.6Ghz Core 2 Duo to a 1.8Ghz. The only other choice to ponder is if your also the SSD type. Sure, SSDs are faster and use less power than their spinning brothers, but at $999 -- and 16GBs less capacity -- it's a hard pill to swallow. Of course you can get the ultimate MacBook Air for $3,098 and while you're at it, go ahead and get an all but useless optical drive for $99 and what is almost sure to be a required accessory on any first gen product; AppleCare at $249.

[nebulus @ Jan 15th 2008 2:27PM]

Comes with a polishing cloth get yours now!

[Colin @ Jan 15th 2008 2:28PM]

I know they're all for being wireless but did they really not include a LAN port? I know there are times when there is no wireless to use and LAN is the only option.

[DT @ Jan 15th 2008 2:38PM]

USB ethernet dongle is available. Don't know how much, because I can't get into the store.

[Sasha Jevtic @ Jan 16th 2008 1:04AM]

Form before function is hardly a new paradigm at Apple, but the MacBook Air really raises the bar.

Colin is right: perhaps the most egregious of the system's omissions and limitations is the lack of a wired Ethernet port. To be honest, it's the one peripheral I use on my laptop *every* single day. Why do I use it? Well, in some places wireless just isn't available or reliable; that includes places where wireless is nominally available, but is rendered unusable for technical or bureaucratic reasons (think: heavy-handed IT departments). And then there are those times when I have so much data to transfer that a real 100 Mbit connection really is the way to go. And finally, I'll usually grab a wired connection if one is available just to enjoy the battery savings associated with having my wireless transceiver turned off.

A lot of the MacBook Air's other pieces of missing or fixed internal hardware are excusable to varying degrees. No optical drive? So what. I've been using the same dual-bay laptop for over five years, and most of the time my optical drives don't even make it to my laptop bag, not to mention a drive bay. 2 GB of fixed RAM? It will likely be enough for general purpose computing over the useful life of the machine. Fixed battery? That's a bit less reasonable. I just got the fourth set of batteries for my aforementioned laptop this week, and a service call or laptop disassembly project wouldn't have been welcome. But no wired Ethernet? Simply unreal. Megahertz (which was eventually acquired by 3Com) figured out how to stash an RJ-45 jack into a space no taller than a Type II PC card over fifteen years ago with their XJACK connector; surely Apple could have found room for something like this.

The MacBook Air is clearly intended for a particular market segment that I'm not a part of, and I realize that sleek, lightweight and chic are all major selling points among that demographic. But, rather than approaching the balance of form and function as an optimization problem, they chose to completely favor form over function and old-fashioned good design. And that's hard to respect.

[Brooks @ Jan 15th 2008 2:28PM]

Nice job linking "Macbook Air" to another Engadget story, and not even having the decency to link "Apple.com" to the actual Apple store. You guys are getting cheesier and cheesier with the search engine poisoning, and it's making the site materially less useful.

[Ryan Hammer @ Jan 15th 2008 2:33PM]

Yeah seriously...thanks for posting something i've already read...5 times now.

[Paul @ Jan 15th 2008 3:35PM]

Um... the "Read" links directly to the apple store. Complain much about a free service?

[Raheem @ Jan 15th 2008 2:28PM]

From £1,119 in the UK.

[Raheem @ Jan 15th 2008 2:29PM]

Which is about $2,400 for the cheapest option.

[cenetti @ Jan 15th 2008 2:30PM]

first of all, I cant run a damn thing on this baby...1.6/4200rpm...2gb max!!
also I travel overseas alot...and they dont have WIFI everywhere...

and all this for $1800?...oh but it weights 2lb less than macBpro so it must be good right?.....

I'll pass thank you...

[gregor @ Jan 15th 2008 3:36PM]

Does anyone know if it's possible to upgrade to 4gb of ram?
It would be a major show stopper for me if 2gb is max.

[John @ Jan 15th 2008 2:33PM]

do they mail it in a manila envelope?

[sean @ Jan 15th 2008 2:35PM]

but no word on how much extra for the editor that knows the difference between "your" and "you're."

[MearWolf @ Jan 15th 2008 2:40PM]

ha ha you can get the price up to $5,436.90 if you get everythin. do i win? ha ha

[johnzilla @ Jan 15th 2008 3:28PM]

This thing is very very cool. I applaud Apple for pushing the envelope (pun intended) with this new product.

Unfortunately, lack of an ExpressCard slot, Ethernet port, and only one USB port kills it for me. To me, the weight savings isn't worth the connectivity tradeoffs.

But, if I was Joe Executive with an assistant, or my work only involved making phone calls, answering email, and updating documents, getting one of these would be a no-brainer.

[johnzilla @ Jan 15th 2008 3:28PM]

I can't wait to see all the Apple-hater posts claiming that Apple hardware is overpriced and that you can get the better/faster hardware from Dell for cheaper.

C'mon, Apple-haters...let's see the price comparisons between this and a Dell product. Oh wait, Dell has nothing even close unless all you care about is processor speed and screen size. Too bad.

[Kamokazi @ Jan 15th 2008 3:41PM]

Actually the m1330 is pretty damn close. It's only about a pound heavier, and obviously is thicker, but packs a lot more performance and options for the price. Oh, and you can do other revolutionary things with it like REMOVE THE BATTERY.

[SteveMB @ Jan 15th 2008 4:59PM]

Looks like the Apple lovers, like you, have come out. This new MacBook looks like an OK product, but no removable battery. For the price of this, I would expect better specs and a removable battery. Well I guess since it has an Apple on it, it will sell.

[johnzilla @ Jan 15th 2008 5:26PM]

@SteveMB: I'm not an Apple lover, but I am an engineer. You can't deny that from an engineering standpoint, Apple has released a pretty remarkable product. Thinner, lighter, environmentally friendly, etc. I won't be buying one, but I can still look at it and appreciate the effort and elegance in its design without being an "Apple lover".

Their new product is targeted at a specific market, one where weight and portability is of utmost concern. That isn't my market, and maybe it isn't yours. That's no justification for trashing the product, though.

@Kamokazi:

"It's only about a pound heavier". Ah, you mean 33% heavier than the Macbook Air. I guess 33% is not remarkable to you...how about you tell your boss you're willing to work for 33% less pay since 33% isn't a big deal?

re: m1330...when it first came out last year, I did a comparison of the m1330 against the Macbook (13" black version). On 25 comparison points, the m1330 "won" 5, the Macbook "won" 5, and they were dead even on the other 15. And the Macbook was $100 cheaper. Now, the m1330 may be have different specs now, but at the time it wasn't any better than the Macbook (which had been out for quite awhile by then in laptop time) and it certainly wasn't any cheaper.

Like I said, from a purely engineering and design standpoint, appreciate the Macbook Air for what it is whether you like Apple or not, or whether you plan on buying one or not. Can't anyone do that? Is anyone who *can* do that automatically an "Apple lover"?

[mike @ Jan 15th 2008 5:49PM]

for your information, it does compare very well to the m1330.

And to the person who said it's 33% heavier, I've just taken my m1330 of the scale at the post office, and it's 3.8 pounds. That's REAL WORLD wieght, not SPEC weight.
Now for that 3.8 pounds, i also get a *gasp* dvd-rom drive, express card slot, another USB port, a TRUE HDMI port, a bluetooth remote, biometric fingerprint reader, and a LAN port.
All of that and .8 pounds heavier? Damn, who did the better engineering?
The thickness is also a product of the optical drive, that more than anything controls the overall thickness of the computer. Not the "engineering ability" of the manufacturer (or should we really say assembler).

I can also remove the battery and replace it with a second one if the first runs out of juice, which is HIGHLY important to people who want ultra-portable laptops like me.

Now, I also just configured one to see how it compared on price to my recently purchased m1330.
If you compare retail to retail for what i CAN get from Apple with what i DID get from Dell, the price is actually fairly close.

Of course, I didn't pay anything near list for the m1330.
And i got the best of everything in it. T7500 Proc at 2.2Ghz, 64gb SSD drive, 4gb RAM, LED screen, M8400GS video card, 3 year warranty, etc.
So actually i got more ram, and a faster processor plus some ports that i consider much more necessary (LAN, second USB) and all of this for a mere $2k.

yes that was with coupons, but so what, you can still get he same deal today through the EPP site.
It's not a big secret.
I applaud Apple for trying hard here, but the product really isn't all that inspiring as it misses out on what I would consider NECESSARY items, like an optical drive and LAN and second USB port.

If I just wanted the lightest and smallest COMPUTER, I would just go out an EEE.

And yes, I have computers with all different OS's on them, including OSX, Ubuntu, Fedora, XP, Vista, and even FreeBSD.

[timothy @ Jan 15th 2008 9:29PM]

It's a pretty unfair comparison, Dell VS Apple. Dell is always massively overpriced.

[SteveMB @ Jan 15th 2008 10:18PM]

Yes, there is justification for thrashing this product. The Dell XPS doe all that the MacBook Air does and a lot more, and it weighs .97lbs more. It has more than 1 USB port, the battery is removable and the price is not this ridiculous.

[jake @ Jan 15th 2008 11:50PM]

Sony did a product like this FIVE years ago. Read that, FIVE. Toshiba did a similar product THREE years ago. Look it up. I can't believe no one brought this point up.

[Eric M. @ Jan 15th 2008 3:29PM]

As a consumer it just sickens me to see Apple rip out its consumer base.

As a Marketing/Management major, it brings a tear to my eye at how Apple is full of marketing geniuses.

As a person who loves someone, er, something slick and with a lot of curves I just have to admire this gadget p0rn. ;)

[Basman @ Jan 15th 2008 4:22PM]

If I want a small laptop with limited connectivity that looks sexy, I'd get an Asus Eee. This is overpriced.

[Andrew @ Jan 15th 2008 4:23PM]

Well, regarding that extra warranty... I ordered Air instantly, then decided to cancel due to various reasons. But while I managed to cancel the laptop and a few accessories, I wasn't able to cancel the extended warranty - it claims the delivery is already "completed". I wonder if I will have to call them on the phone to get this sorted out? It's very disconcerting.

[Kamokazi @ Jan 15th 2008 5:18PM]

Never, ever, buy extended warranties on consumer electronics. I worked at a major retailer for over two years that sold their own as well as AppleCare. That is one of the biggest ways for them to increase their profit margin (at least they seemed to think so as much as they pushed us to sell them).

Yes, I know you may have had one save your butt this one time your motherboard died, or your camcorder met an untimely accident, etc. But it's just gambling, and just like in Vegas, the odds are always in the house's favor. The stores calculate a margin on the extended warranties usually ranging anywhere from 40-95% margin depending on cost and device type(in comparison, most consumer electronics are usually quite a bit less than 10% margin, some only 1-2%).

AppleCare for iPods was about 38% margin IIRC for the retailer I worked for at Apple's standard MSRP (Other Apple merchandise was usually about 2%, even accessories). Mac Applecare was a similar margin. And since their in-store rep pushed it so much even at reduced margin for them, I would imagine they were making at least another 20% off of it, probably more (.mac was their other favorite profit pony, FYI).

(Yes, AppleCare is a lot better than other extended warranties with better service and support, but it's still the same thing, just fancied up a bit.)

So the point is, these are calculated to be a loss for the consumer and a gain for the retailer/manufacturer. Save your money. If you really feel compelled to spend on the extended warranty, then open a little savings account and put all the money you would spend on those extended warranties in there, and by the time you need to use it, you will more than likely have enough to cover it and then some.

[Andrew @ Jan 15th 2008 5:30PM]

I know, and I usually don't buy extended warranties - except in special cases. For laptops, my experience is that you WILL need to use the warranty and it should be at least 3 years long (for a high end laptop). I took my R100 to shop twice - once for LCD replacement, once for HDD replacement. Luckily 3 years is a standard warranty for Toshiba so no loss there. But 1 year doesn't cut it.

On the other hand, 2 extra years for $300 doesn't sound very cheap and it might be cheaper to just pay for repairs once you need them (as you certainly will within 3 years, those 1.8" hard drives don't last long under heavy use such as in a laptop).

I paid that much for my TV extended warranty and TV cost almost double that - and that warranty is redeemable to store credit if not used (main reason I got it). So perhaps $300 is a too much. Well, I canceled it anyway (or did I? They won't let me)

[johnzilla @ Jan 15th 2008 5:36PM]

@Kamokazi:

Let's see...$349 for AppleCare for a $3,000 laptop. Someone sits on said laptop in airport, or laptop otherwise breaks for whatever reason. Laptop replaced free ($3,000 value). At $30 a month, you'd have to save up for 100 months, or a little over 8 years.

Yeah, I'm going to save my pennies for 8.3 years so I can replace my laptop if something goes wrong. That makes no sense whatsoever.

And if you can afford to save more than $30 a month and you can afford a $2000-$3000 laptop, you can certainly afford $349 for three years of coverage. Or in other words, only $9.69 a month. But you're right, it makes much more sense to save up $30 a month for 8.3 years (or $83.30 a month for 3 yrs) rather than spend $9.69 a month for 3 years for the insurance.

[Kamokazi @ Jan 15th 2008 10:02PM]

Andrew-Laptops do have the misfortune of being really expensive if you get unlucky enough for them to break, and a lot of that is inflated too since many laptop parts are proprietary, also complicated by how some people treat them vs others. Hard drives are fairly cheap and easy to replace though (not screens). The place that gives you money back on the unused warranty is cool though...they bank on the people that never redeem the store credit...your gain. The only times I felt like the warranty might be a decent deal is on companies that I know overcharge for service (Sony, Apple, HP on specific product lines oddly, some others) and we could wiggle them into a cheaper tier of coverage by modifying the laptop price a bit. (i.e. the $99 plan for $600-899 notebooks instead of $149 for $900-1299 notebooks by making the price $899 instead of $949)

John, the whole point is, Apple has calculated the statistical probability of someone sitting on your laptop (or something comparable,) based on thousands of replacements over the years, and tacked on a nice 60%+ margin for themselves. Yes, it seems like a good value, but that is why they sell. Statistically, the odds are not in your favor (except for rare cases like I mentioned above-Apple's Applecare does not work like that however, while overpriced, their prices arent that high...1 in 4 MacBooks would have to have a mobo failure for it to be worthwhile).

Also the other thing-homeowners/renters insurance. A halfway decent insurance policy will cover laptops from accidents and theft (not hardware breakdowns though, just stuff they would classify as a total loss).

And what I was saying is is stick the initial $249 in a savings account. Then when you buy an iPod, stick $59 for its Applecare into the account. Then you buy a LCD TV, stick $100 or whatever in the same account. That's what I meant, not sticking a set amount in every month.

[youknowit @ Jan 15th 2008 4:28PM]

this is an UMPC kinda because it is not really for the office crowd, more for the web surfers, student note takers...there are two ports WTF...why would I pay shit load just for something skinny.. i don't get it....the only difference with this and the Foleo is that this runs a full OS...you can't remove the battery, use dvds or cds..

This MACworld is all about the investors...pay for a cd drive (so 1990s), usb to Ethernet (wtf) 80gb HDD???, and...sexiness? thats is not gonna cut it for me. Apple is Nickel and dimeing us and we applaud. Movie rentals are cool but super expensive, still no 3g, iphone and touch - the hackers have already done it Apple should not meet their standards but beat them, time capsule - zzzzzzzzzzzzz, and take 2 kinda got it right but only for making more money on something they should have gotten right the first time

[HunterXI @ Jan 15th 2008 5:01PM]

My enthusiasm lasted all of 3 minutes. This thing is marginally smaller and lighter than a Macbook and even less powerful; no discrete video card like people seemed to be asking for (I thought the idea was a more powerful Macbook in the same size enclosure?), no ethernet, no expresscard, no CD drive (though that's excusable), no *nothing*. Honestly, no reason to go for a less powerful Macbook for almost as much as a Macbook Pro.

I know they were going for the whole UPMC thing here, but I honestly can see no real niche for this thing, let alone a reason to own one, especially given the incredible portability already offered by both the MB and MBP.

[johnzilla @ Jan 15th 2008 5:42PM]

Except for, you know, all the people buying ultra low-weight laptops from the likes of Sony, Panasonic, etc.

[GrossGreg @ Jan 15th 2008 8:49PM]

I'd have to agree with you...although it is lighter, I wouldn't even put this in the same category as the UMPC. It's footprint is essentially the same as the MacBook. It's a beautiful machine, but I feel like Apple has truly been missing its mark since the release of the iPhone with products that most users appreciate but aren't willing to spend money on until future revisions.

[ozzielad @ Jan 15th 2008 11:31PM]

Man, the upgrade version is pre-selling here in Australia for $4,338.00!!! That's a real premium - even including an inflated exchange rate with the USD. :(

I won't be coughing up that much dough...

KN

[Jack @ Jan 17th 2008 8:55AM]

does anyone know whether the first batch of MBA will be going out for preorder online sales or do you think the actual Apple Store will be getting inventory first? Buddy lives right next door to the store - no sense paying shipping if the store will have inventory before UPS delivers

[Tommy @ Mar 18th 2008 9:28PM]

Apple should put an Express Card Slot in Time Capsule