Product Reviews

Manufacturers often have to sacrifice features, such as a spacious keyboard and screen, to make an ultra-portable laptop weigh significantly less than 2kg. Apple's MacBook Air has a comfortable keyboard and a 13.3in widescreen display, yet weighs only 1.4kg.

We were dazzled by the brightness of the screen. The 1,280x800-pixel resolution is spacious for a lightweight laptop and provides plenty of space in which to work. The glossy finish reflects light from overhead sources such as fluorescent office lighting, but the resulting glare isn't as distracting as other glossy screens we've seen.

The keyboard is responsive and comfortable to use, and the keys automatically illuminate depending on the darkness of your surroundings. The touch pad is accurate, but its large size means the single button is very wide but not deep enough to use comfortably. The touch pad, like the iPhone and the iPod touch, can recognise gestures. For example, you can rotate or zoom in and out of photos using simple finger swipes. This works smoothly, but currently only in a handful of Mac OS X applications such as Safari and iPhoto.

The power supply's magnetic connector disconnects harmlessly if you trip over it, instead of dragging the laptop to the floor.

As well as being very light, the MacBook Air is also strikingly thin. Even at its thickest

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point - which is only 19mm - it's not much bulkier than a DVD case. Despite its slenderness, the aluminium case feels sturdy and rigid with almost no flexing.

Unfortunately, several components have been jettisoned to achieve this slenderness. There's no DVD writer, FireWire socket, Ethernet port or memory card reader. There's no built-in mobile broadband modem either, or a CardBus or ExpressCard slot to accommodate one. The single USB2 port, headphone socket and monitor connector are the only ports present and are tucked away in a hard-to-reach, flip-down drawer. The lone USB2 port is a limitation if you need to connect multiple peripherals.

The thin chassis also limits the Air to a low-capacity 1.8in 80GB 4,200rpm hard disk, similar to those found in the iPod Classic. It's fine for storing Office documents but isn't ideal for those with large music libraries, or if you want to install Windows alongside Mac OS X. If you need an optical drive, Apple's USB DVD writer is sold separately for £65, although you may not need it thanks to a clever software substitute.

Unsurprisingly, the Air's low-voltage Core 2 Duo processor isn't powerful enough for demanding video- and photo-editing work, but it's fast enough for internet browsing, email and office applications. The maximum 2GB of RAM is already fitted. This will be fine for most uses, but may not be enough if you want to run MacOS and Windows simultaneously using virtualisation software. The Air lasted a respectable three hours and 45 minutes in our light-use battery test, but we expected longer from a laptop using a low-voltage processor.

The MacBook Air is undoubtedly a desirable laptop, but the compromises limit its usefulness for all but the most undemanding users. Unless you must have Mac OS, the Toshiba R500 is 400g lighter, £100 cheaper and has a built-in DVD writer and far longer battery life at five hours and six minutes.