 Apple CEO Steve Jobs today unveiled a new, smaller MacBook at Macworld Conference & Expo during his keynote speech called the MacBook Air. The world's thinnest notebook, according to Jobs, weighs just 3-pounds, is 0.8-1.2-inches thin, and features a 13.3-inch LED-backlit widescreen display. The MacBook Air features a 1.67GHz or 1.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of memory standard, an 80GB hard drive, and is small enough to fit inside a manila envelope. The MacBook Air is priced at $1,800, and will begin shipping in just two weeks. Apple is already taking pre-orders for the device. [photo courtesy of Engadget] (updated)The MacBook Air also features a built-in iSight camera, and includes a full-sized backlit keyboard with a trackpad that includes multi-touch gesture support.
Users can turn on different types of gestures in the MacBook Air's settings, and the notebook features Apple's patented flip-down door with a USB 2 port as well as micro-DVI connectivity and a headphone jack. The MacBook Air features 802.11n Wi-Fi as well as Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR wireless functionality, and does not include an optical drive as some rumors had suggested. Separate USB-powered optical SuperDrives made specifically for the MacBook Air are available for $100.
The MacBook Air's new CPU is as wide as a dime, and as thick as a nickel. Apple commissioned Intel to produce a shrunken version of its Core 2 Duo processor that is 60 percent smaller, and the company came through.
Jobs touts five hours of battery life using the MacBook Air with Wi-Fi enabled while browsing the Web, and the tiny notebook 'borrows' disc drives from other computers via Wireless networking when the optional optical drive is unavailable.
Jobs says the MacBook Air's packaging has 56 percent less volume than the standard MacBook, and the device features an aluminum case with a mercury-free and arsenic-free glass display. The laptop's circuit boards are also BFR- and PVC-free, as promised by Jobs after environmental issues crept into the news late last year.
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