MacBook Air or MacBook Pro?

Sexy shots of the MacBook Air

I’ve been waiting for some reviews for the MacBook Air, and unless you read some of the fanboy gushes that I’ve seen, the MacBook Air is an interesting product, but pretty much underpowered. It’s nowhere near a desktop replacement laptop, and even though the booting times are fast thanks to the flash-based SSD storage, it doesn’t make up for some of the shortcomings, including a slow processor, lackluster battery autonomy (~5 hours), and not enough RAM.

The fact remains that the MacBook Air is a sexy beast. Heck, I want one, but I won’t pay $1,800 USD for one, which is what the souped-up model costs. That includes 256GB of storage and 4GB or RAM, putting it at the same price as the 15-inch MacBook Pro, which is considerably faster and is a desktop replacement machine. That’s kind of insane.

This also makes me believe that Apple is about to change their MacBook Pro line in the spring. They’ll probably have top of the line models working with their new flash-based storage. Now those puppies will be blindingly fast and I most probably will delay buying a MacBook until then.

No matter what people say, the MacBook Air 11.6″ is basically a netbook. Fanboys will protest, but yep, that’s a netbook. A really sexy one, but still a netbook. When you can buy the same specs in a netbook for about $300, that’s a problem. It costs Apple $718 to make the 11.6″ MacBook Air, so Apple will be raking in the dough when they sell these.

Still, it’s a great mobile machine, if you’re in the market for an ultraportable.