MacBook Air: Beautiful, Compromised

If thin is in, Apple’s new Air should be the hottest fashion this season. The new subnotebook weighs under 3 pounds and is three-quarters of an inch thick—at its deepest. Like all things Apple, Air’s beautiful, simple, and evokes technolust among geeks and non-geeks alike. But, say reviewers who have had their hands on the machines, it’s not for everyone, especially at its base price of $1,799.

With only 80GBs of storage, no optical drive, and one USB port, Air can seem a lightweight. The omissions, says Newsweek's Steven Levy, "are troubling—especially to someone in a down-turning economy deciding whether to spend a premium sum for a computer with subpremium storage." Despite its drawbacks, though, with the Leopard OS, full keyboard, and a beautiful LCD screen, the Air was "a pleasure to use," says the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg. (More Apple stories.)