Two more pounds with my MacBook and I have all the components in one package. Works for me I'd say. The battery is supposed to be unscrew back and remove.

The MacBook Air might work in some places where you just want people to surf the net or some other intranet.

That's my take on it too. The intro price of $1799 for something I'd use to browse, make presentations on and take on the go with wi-fi in mind is just not for me. Hopefully the improvements in construction and eco-friendly materials will trickle down to other Macs in the future. Hope there's not a backlash from the misinformed when they get their hands on it.

"Led Zepplin didn't write music everyone loved, they left that to the BeeGees." Wayne's World

I suspect a few people will buy this notebook and end up returning it, since it does represent some serious design compromises. But if you have a good desktop machine and perhaps get the new Time Capsule, and buy/rent your movies from iTunes (or other download sources), I think you will appreciate this machine for what it is. And I suspect there are enough of those people out there to make a profit or even expand marketshare.

People do seem to like making sweeping statements. Obviously I am not excluded from that group, but some don't seem to see the obvious omissions of this. This machine is not a secondary machine for everyone. It's far too powerful to be a web browser (please let someone run some benchmarks against an iBook G4 and 12" PowerBook G4 which plenty of people are still using as their main machines in many, many industries).

This is a machine which will appeal to many different people, in many different ways, for many different uses. Some people being happy to get all the features they use regularly and not worrying about being 2 or more pounds heavier doesn't mean that this machine is a compromise in those areas. Granted the hard drive speed is a compromise no matter how you play it, but that's the state of technology today, it may change and prices certainly will.

Many of the comments I've been reading about the MacBook Air would be relevant if 1) the person making the comment was in the target market for the MacBook Air or 2) Apple had cancelled all its other laptops.

The MacBook Air is not aimed primarily at current MacBook or MacBook Pro users but at people who use the current lightweight laptops (some of which also don't have built-in optical drives); frequent travelers who value light weight and the fact that it will fit into an attache case or briefcase so easily; people for whom fashion and comfort are critical; and so forth. It's certainly not aimed at "power users" (graphic artists, photographers, video producers, etc.); those folks can get the MacBook Pro. Some college students will buy it, too, because of the weight. Most of them can easily do with the "limitations."

As Walt said, Apple has entered a market it wasn't in before. Considering what it has done to other markets--music players, phones and laptops--other manufacturers would be right to be concerned about the competition.

The price of the MacBook Air is actually quite competitive with other lightweight laptops. I've seen some people comparing it to either an El Cheapo laptop or the Asus EEPC. Those folks just don't get it.

As for some of Walt's comments (and Walt is my #1 favorite tech columnist, even ahead of David Pogue):

- The screen is probably not too tall for an airline seat because of the way it is hinged. Lots of people use the MacBook on aircraft and the MacBook Air has essentially the same footprint.

- If you want to watch a DVD, load it on the HD. That will use a LOT less energy, as well. Whenever I travel, I load at least one DVD on my 12" PowerBook G4's 60GB HD. I even did it on my ancient iBook's 20GB HD. Another solution is to buy the movie from the iTunes Store or watch a whole week's worth of The Daily Show.

Last: when considering the "limitations" of the MacBook Air, think about the lightest Mac laptop on the market only a few years ago, the 12" PowerBook G4. It was slower, came with less RAM (256MB), had less-capable graphics, a smaller display and actually more expensive when you added a 1GB DIMM. You could also go back a bit further, to my first laptop--and first Mac, the PowerBook 100: 16mHz 68000, 640 x 400 1-bit display, 20 MB HD (I replaced mine with an 80 MB HD), 2 MB RAM (max 8 MB), no built-in floppy, no modem (I added a 14.4K modem), battery life maybe 1.5 hours on heavy lead-acid batteries--all for $2,500 in 1992. The "lightweight" laptops were the PowerBook Duos: 25 mHz 68030, 4 MB RAM, 80 MB HD, 4-bit 640x400 LCD, no floppy--for $2,250 in 1993. Funny thing was, I didn't consider my PowerBook 100's "limitations," but what it allowed me to do. (It was not the most capable laptop at the time, but it was one of the least expensive and smallest.)

IMHO, the biggest limitation to the MacBook Air is Apple's failure to include an internal imbedded wireless WWAN module that would enable it to go on-line anywhere there is a cell phone signal. In a sense, the $400 iPhone, which has this feature, has more on-line access capability than the $1,800 MacBook Air, which forces a user to go seek a wireless hotspot, subscribe and pay fees, etc. while the iPhone user has constant internet access from almost anywhere. Is this a smart idea for an ultralight laptop aimed at traveling "road warriors"? No... it is a really dumb idea.

This imbedded wireless WWAN capability is already available built into notebooks from HP, Lenovo ThinkPad, Toshiba, Panasonic and others. Lack of this capability in the MacBook Air was the absolute "deal killer" for me as there isn't even the availability of an "ExpressCard 34" slot on the "Air" to plug in an external cellular WWAN module.

And which provider do you wish to be tied to with that built-in card? ATT? T-Mobile?

You have to make that commitment every time you buy an iPhone, and people are buying those by the millions. To me, that doesn't appear to be an impediment. The convenience of being able to get on-line while riding in a taxi, train, sitting in a gas station or wherever far outweighs the "hassle" of having to commit to one provider or another. Give me an iPhone any day.

You watch, version II of the MacBook Air will include a WWAN module, and then it will sell like hotcakes, not before.