X-bit labs

Unconventional Review of Apple MacBook Air Notebook

Category: Mobile

by Ilya Gavrichenkov

[ 03/19/2008 | 07:47 PM ]

Are you looking for thin and light notebook? Check out MacBook Air. And don’t be afraid of the Mac OS X, you can easily get rid of it if you like, which we are going to do within our today’s review.

Table of contents:

• First Look
  
• Hardware Components
  
• Detailed Specifications
  
• MacBook Air and Windows Vista
  
• Practical Experience
  
• Conclusion
  

Apple Company managed to become quite successful in 2007. One of the most convincing arguments in favor of this statement is the fact that their sales volumes increased by 40% over the past year alone. It has evidently happened due to correct strategic decision Apple made: to transfer their PCs to Intel hardware platform. This measure gave them the opportunity to finally get beyond the market niche they have been occupying for a long time and attract new user groups. The inability to use the familiar operating system and software applications has discouraged numerous users for years from working with solutions bearing an Apple logo on them, because they didn’t feel like learning to work with the Mac OS. Now this problem no longer exists: the standard x86 platform makes Mac computers fully compatible with Windows OS, and Apple software developers even offer special applications that allow using Mac OS X and Windows on the same system.

In fact, the new Mac owners may simply give up the brand name operating system completely. As we have already told you in our previous article called Madman Diaries: Apple MacBook Pro and Microsoft Windows Vista, contemporary Apple computers allow “wiping clean” all references to Mac OS X and install Windows Vista so that the member of this different civilization will turn into a typical Wintel platform.

After our article on MacBook Pro with Windows Vista we received a lot of feedback from our readers indicating clearly that although this whole idea may seem pretty strange at first, it aroused huge interest in the user community. The thing is that Apple notebooks, just like the legendary ThinkPad mobile systems, boast a lot of unique features that you can hardly find in the solutions offered by other manufacturers. For example, the MacBook Pro family we have discussed earlier boasts sophisticated exterior design, good performance, high-quality display with LED backlighting, convenient keyboards and touchpad, practical dimensions and relatively light weight. There are a lot of potential notebook users out there, who wouldn’t mind getting a full package like that in one. However, most of them do not even consider purchasing an Apple system, because there is not enough info on how well it operates with Microsoft operating systems. That is why we decided to continue our series of experiments involving “blasphemous” replacement of the original OS on Apple platforms. And what solution do you think we picked to become our next victim?

Yes! It is Apple’s pride and beauty, the most exciting newcomer of the early 2008, MacBook Air. We managed to get our hands on one of the first production samples of this device and we couldn’t help checking it out in our unconventional experiments. That is why if you have come to our site to find just another typical review of a new ultra-portable mobile computer from Apple, you will hardly like this article. In this case, don’t waste your time and look for these reviews somewhere else, especially since there are quite a few available online already. As for us, we are going to first of all target those Windows fans, who are not planning to convert into an alternative religion and are just looking for a new portable computer. Since Apple MacBook Air is a truly remarkable choice from the mobility standpoint.  Apple’s powerful marketing campaign stresses that it is the thinnest and lightest solution out there, and it is absolutely true: this solution has no competitors. At first glance, MacBook Air is an excellent mobile companion, in the full meaning of the word “mobile”. However, will those users who prefer Windows OS be happy with it? Let’s discuss this matter now.