The MacBook Air is Apple’s Race Car

While the laptop introduced at MacWorld on January 15, 2008 as the worlds thinnest notebook is certainly not as fast as the MacBook Pro or even the MacBook I still call it Apple’s Race Car. The MacBook Air was a great decision by Apple regardless of how low sales and profits may or may not be for it; It’s a perfect test bed for ideas before pushing them on the pro and home users. The thing is no larger than .76 inches tall and gets as thin as .16 inches in the front. Why is it a race car if it can’t beat the rest of the fleet? Simple: Debut of LED screen as standard in an Apple notebook, as well as many other debuts including the keyboard, track pad, and specific processor. When you compare the dual core 1.6ghz or 1.8ghz in the MacBook Air which weighs 3lbs to the MacBook Pro with a dual core 2.5ghz weighing 5.5lbs and standing tall at .95 inches you could say that the MacBook Air packs more punch into a smaller and lighter package than available before. All of the technology from the MacBook Air has trickled down into the rest of the products (including some refreshes not provided in the Air yet) like the trackpad/button. The problem I see here is that Apple should have tested at least the button on the Air first, but that brings me to another problem. The Air doesn’t really sell out, and for good reason, but it needs to get out to the track somehow and that brings me to my proposal: Give the thing away to the right crowds with the understanding that it’ll be road tested in public. Give one to Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht as long as they use it on Diggnation, or give them to the lead authorized service providers for bench testing, inventory, sales, and on-site work. Let the best drivers get behind the wheel and see how far down the track it gets them, then use that information to develop new ideas and decide which old ideas are ready for the Pro. While I’m giving away ideas, Apple should continue to make the MacBook White and continue to lower the cost under the current price of $999.

Even at 1.6ghz a dual core with 3MB of shared L2 cache we meet the MacBook Pro’s current configuration (dual core 2.8mb with 6MB shared L2) by doubling. The weight is just slightly more, as is the height, RAM ammounts and everything are fairly matched, which I think is saying a lot for both laptops.

Right now I’m a MacBook white user, and I plan on upgrading only to another MacBook eventually. I almost chose to go with a MacBook Pro to get FireWire back but honestly I don’t need it. What I do want is a bigger screen, for around the same price as a 17″ MacBook you can get a new Cinema Display and standard keyboard with mouse. The new Cinema comes with speakers, a mic and an iSight camera too and really helps out by providing a magsafe connector; Plug in Mini DisplayPort, USB, and MagSafe and the laptop never has to open on the desk. 23″ for $899, coming out later this month.

I wouldn’t say that any one choice is better than any other, if given the choice I would have one or more of each, including servers. The MacBook I have now works great and I’m still rocking on 2GB so I can’t wait to see how more CPU speed with more L2 cache and double the RAM will be especially with the brighter and more efficient screen and faster GPU. I am still curious to know how sturdy the aluminum body is, my white plastic has stood up to my usually high amounts of abuse, also I wonder how bad the aluminum will block Wireless signals…