Ten Essential Things to Know Before Buying A MacBook Air

Business travelers know that there are two essential factors that need to be considered whenever one is purchasing an ultraportable laptop. The first is that an ultraportable laptop should be small enough to carry around whenever one is traveling, and it should be light enough not to cause physical pain at the end of the day. The second consideration is functionality. Most ultraportable laptops get stripped down to the minimum features as a sacrifice to size and weight, but they should nonetheless help the business traveler work whenever he or she is mobile.

Of all the Apple MacBooks available in the market today, there is no doubt that MacBook Air is the thinnest, sleekest and lightest laptop they have at the moment. Any Apple MacBook enthusiast would find the MacBook Air tempting enough at first glance to shell out a couple of thousand dollars. But if you are thinking of getting yourself one, consider reading first the list below of the ten essential things you need to know before you buy a MacBook Air.

First five on the list are the pros of the MacBook Air.

Core 2 Duo processor. The MacBook Air comes with a repackaged 1.6 GHz Core 2 Duo processor specially made by Intel for the MacBook. Sure, it is visibly slower than most desktops, but it is fast enough to satisfy and it will not cause the MacBook Air to burn your lap.

Backlit LED screen. The MacBook Air may be slim, but you would not have any problems with the width of its LED screen. At 13 inches, this screen is bigger than those of most ultraportable laptops.

Full-sized keyboard. Many laptops have keyboards that are too small to be used. This ultrathin Apple MacBook thankfully did not sacrifice the pleasure of typing on a full-sized keyboard just to shave off a few inches in size.

Fast wireless access. With a good router, the MacBook Air can transfer up to 4 MBps of data, enough to satisfy even speed crunchers.

The Leopard OS. The Apple Macbook's Leopard OS is considered to be a breakthrough by MacBook users, especially since it supports multi-finger gestures on the touchpad.

Now, for the cons.

Ports. The MacBook Air has only three ports - a USB 2.0 port, a micro-DVI and an input for the headphone.

Battery. The MacBook Air does not have a user-replaceable battery, which could be a problem if the user has no access to a main power source. With minimum use, the battery life of this Apple MacBook is only less than three hours.

Disk drive. The disc drive is a slow 80 GB 1.8 inch unit. You can upgrade it to a 64 GB SSD one, though.

Remote Disk. This MacBook does have a Remote Disk to replace an actually drive, but it is only good for installing software, downloading data and reinstalling the OS in case of problems.

Separate SuperDrive. The MacBook Air does have its very own optical USB SuperDrive, but it is sold separately.

Considering buying a MacBook Air? Think on these ten things first before you do and decide for yourself if this Apple Macbook is indeed a good buy.

This Article is written by James Kara Murat, the contributor of Printer Ink Related Articles. More information on the subject is at Ten Essential Things to Know Before Buying A MacBook Air, and related resources can be found at PrintCountry FAQ.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=James_Kara_Murat

MacBook Air Vs ThinkPad X300

Apple's MacBook Air introduced the world to the thinnest notebook to date. Released in January of 2008, it is known as "ultrathin, ultraportable, and ultra unlike anything else." With the recent announcement of the new ThinkPad X300 from Lenovo, analysts are predicting that the ThinkPad will give Apple a run for it's money. The following is a brief review of each.

MacBook Air

The new Apple MacBook Air comes in a bit thinner than the Lenovo ThinkPad X300, measuring only 0.16 inches at its thinnest point. Steve Jobs actually introduced the new laptop to a crowd of onlookers at the Macworld Conference in San Francisco, by pulling the ultra thin notebook out of an office envelope. With a price tag of just under $2000, this notebook is a bargain in a class of laptops that are usually a bit more pricey.

Because the MacBook Air is so thin, the battery must be built in. Early tests are reporting about two to three hour battery life between charges. Other drawbacks include no built in GPRS/Edge etc, no optical drive, one USB port, and no choice of pointing device. Though it was designed for an SSD flash drive, it can also be purchased with an iPod drive, and Apple is expected to upgrade the drive by the end of the year. Despite some of these early drawbacks regarding features, overall this is a beautiful looking and very durable laptop, which Apple should improve upon over the upcoming year.

ThinkPad X300

Though not as sexy as the MacBook Air, the ThinkPad is built with the business user in mind. While the MacBook air is a consumer machine, this laptop is built more to be a business tool. The ThinkPad has a replaceable battery, replaceable optical drive, and three USB ports, compared to only one on the MacBook Air. The ThinkPad keyboard includes both Touchpoint and Touchpad pointing devices, a very durable / industrial strength built frame, a full set of management tools, and a more advanced flash drive. The ThinkPad also complies with EPEAT Gold, meaning it is one of the most "green", eco-friendly laptops on the market.

Which one is better?

Along with all of the executive minded features of the ThinkPad, comes an executive level price tag. The ThinkPad X300 will be initially made available for around $2,799. So if cost if your main bargaining point, then the sub $2000 MacBook Air is your best bet. Otherwise, your decision should be based on needs. The ThinkPad is designed for the top executive that is always on the run. ThnkPads have never really been known for being "sexy" products, but they have always been thin, while still being reliable. But if you are looking for something ultra thin and ultra cool, at a great price, and you don't need all of the high end business type features of the ThinkPad, then the MacBook Air may be your best bet.

Only time will tell which one comes out on top, but these are both great, innovative products that should spur the ultra thin laptop market for years to come.

Mike Martin is a computer programmer and website designer. http://www.flatlaptops.com Purchase discount laptops, including the MacBook Air and new ThinkPad X300.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mike_T_Martin

Mac Mini Spesification with Intel Core 2 Duo

Mac mini at a Glance

• 1.83GHz or 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
• Apple Remote with Front Row
• Up to 2GB memory⁴
• Intel GMA 950 graphics processor
• DVI connector, VGA adapter
• Slot-loading optical drive
• Up to 160GB hard drive⁴
• Built-in Gigabit Ethernet
• Analog and digital audio
• Expansion via USB and FireWire
• iLife ’08, Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger

Intel Core 2 Duo on Mac Mini

Based on Intel’s next-generation Core microarchitecture, the Intel Core 2 Duo offers a second-generation chip born of Intel’s new 65-nanometer process. That process lets Intel create incredibly small transistors — small enough, in fact, to fit a hundred inside a single human cell. With two powerful processors designed to share resources and circuitry so unimaginably small, Intel Core 2 Duo achieves far higher levels of performance while actually consuming less power.

64-bit.

With its 64-bit processor architecture, the Intel Core 2 Duo can manipulate data and execute instructions in chunks that are twice as large (64 bits versus 32 bits), delivering advanced computational power to Mac mini. That adds up to exceptional speed and agility, improved performance you’ll notice when working with photos in iPhoto or Aperture, creating Keynote presentations, editing video in iMovie, or playing Doom.

Speedy system architecture.

Augmenting the advanced Core 2 Duo processor is an equally advanced system architecture. It includes, for example, up to 4MB of shared L2 cache.² That’s double the amount previously available, and it really lets Mac mini fire on all cylinders. With such substantial L2 cache, data instructions can be kept close to those two processor cores, greatly increasing performance and allowing the entire system to work more efficiently. And because the processors share the L2 cache, either of the processor cores can use the entire amount if the other core happens to be idle.

And let’s not forget the enhanced, 128-bit SSE3 vector engine that the Intel Core 2 Duo processor introduces to the Mac mini family. Able to handle 128-bit computations in a single clock cycle, the SSE3 vector engine accelerates data manipulation by simultaneously applying a single instruction to multiple data. That means you can get more done in less time. So, the next time you use iMovie or Final Cut Express to render effects, you can thank the SSE3 vector engine for the snappier performance.