MacBook Air and WiMAX

IanFogg | January 21, 2008, 11:23 AM

The Air is an astoundingly thin PC. Steve Jobs introduced the MacBook Air by saying that Apple had made no compromises, unlike other manufacturers. This is great spin but is not quite correct. Apple did make trade-offs in the design, but just not the same ones as everyone else. Apple thought differently, again. (How many times have I written that here?)

Apple have delivered an ultrathin laptop, with an absolutely wonderful screen, a full size keyboard, a reasonably fast processor, and complete with the latest WiFi standard.

Despite the rumours ahead of the launch, Apple chose to leave out WiMAX support. This was absolutely the right thing to do in such a tightly miniaturised device. Today, WiMAX is nascent. There are very few WiMAX networks operating, let alone active WiMAX users. If Apple had increased the weight, size, or price of the MacBook Air by one iota to fit WiMAX capability inside the case then the effort would have been a waste.

Other trade-offs that Apple made are more interesting and perhaps controversial:

• Speed. The hard drive is both slow and small, unless a buyer opts for the (extremely) expensive SSD model. The processor is faster than competitors in the same size/weight category, but it appears to be a low voltage version rather than the full fat cpu used on (heavier) competitor laptops such as Dell's M1330. For a light laptop focused on office apps, email and browsing the Air is easily fast enough.


• Connections. There's only one USB port and no ethernet. Result: a business traveller will need to carry dongles to use a wired network, or use more than one USB device (e.g. iPod + mouse; mouse + ethernet; etc). This is an irritation rather than a major issue. The Air also has a non-standard monitor socket which needs an adaptor to plug into a projector


• A sealed in battery. If the MacBook Air delivers on its five hour promise this will affect few people.
  

The MacBook Air result remains very impressive. Apple has made smart trade-offs. Whether the compromises prove significant will depend on the individual and on the experiences of real world use.

I believe the MacBook Air will do very well indeed.