Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Wednesday, 16 January 2008 03:43
Opinion and Analysis
Page 2 of 3
I’m not done with the MacBook Air yet. First up, it ships with one – count it – one USB port. Couldn’t at least two USB ports have been squeezed in? There’s also a Mini-DVI port, and thankfully there’s a mini-DVI to VGA cable in the box.
There’s also a single audio-out port – if you have an older headset microphone with twin 3.5mm sockets, one for headphones, one for the microphone – you can’t use the microphone portion anymore and will need to buy a new USB headset.
Sure, there’s an inbuilt microphone so you can make ‘speakerphone’ voice and video calls through programs such as iChat or Skype, but this is not very useful if you’re in a coffee shop, at work in an open plan office or anywhere where you might want some simple privacy when communicating with others.
The lack of ports might make the machine sleek, but for some, it’s torture. And the 5 hour battery life? Apple used to have double or triple the battery life of PC notebooks. Now Apple’s 5 hour battery life seems short compared to competing PC/Windows models that promise hours more, albeit in thicker packaging.
Then there’s the multi-touch glidepad. Ok, so this is nice – Apple says the multi-touch gesture support lets users can pinch, rotate and swipe.
But given that existing MacBooks and MacBook Pros have a multi-touch glidepads, letting you place two fingers on the touch pad to scroll through long documents or websites, or to activate the right click menu, the big question for me is – will existing MacBook owners be able to download an update that allows them to enjoy the multi-touch goodness?
Or is it something that only MacBook Air owners will get to enjoy?
What else did Apple launch today, and why is some of it likewise less than impressive? Please read onto the conclusion on page 3....
