Finally got my hands on a MacBook Air. Very light. It feels pretty strong when the cover is closed, but I'd probably still be worried carrying it in a bag, as I've had an iBook warp so badly I had to return it and it felt pretty tough too.

Still, the Air is feather light, even compared to my 12" iBook G4. I can see how someone might want to use it as their office-to-office machine to look especially k3wl. There is an impression factor there that's hard to resist.

When I played around with the apps. though, I didn't get knocked out of my socks the way I recall being even using a G5. Safari started up almost instantly, but iPhoto, even with just over a thousand photos on the test model, wasn't quite so quickly. Alt-tabbing around felt kind of slow as well, which is surprising seeing how I'm using two G4s at home with 10.4. It's a good thing Snow Leopard is concentrating on getting the OS solid and fast; it needs it. When I was setting up an Xserve G5, I remember being absolutely blown away. Same with some Intel iMacs running 10.4, truth be told. The Air didn't do it. I wonder if the mini Core Duo isn't simply underclocked, relatively speaking. It's only 1.6 to 1.8 GHz.

(As an aside, this makes me even more sure of my decision to wait on going Mactel until the Mini's updated, if it's ever updated. 1.83-2.0 GHz is too slow to spring now.)

Still, the Air is a very nice shape, and aside from the processor speed, doesn't seem to make any compromises where it counts. The screen was pretty nice and the keyboard/trackpad were absolutely excellent. And the weight was a bigger plus than I would have expected. If I were, say, an author or recreational user with too much money to spend, I'd be all over it.

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