Macbook Air Ultra-Thin Laptop Introduced at MacWorld

The Consumer electronics Show just wrapped up in Las Vegas, but the real show started today when Apple's Steve Jobs stepped onto the stage at MacWorld and introduced the Macbook Air, the thinnest laptop ever. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Air promises to be to the laptop what the iPhone is to the cell phone market. A 13.3 inch screen and a full sized keyboard is folded into a package that about 3.4 of an inch thick and will weigh just three pounds. The Macbook Air boasts an 80 GB hard drive and a built-in webcam. Of course, as is the case with all of Apple's "I want that!" items, innovation doesn't come cheap. The Macbook Air will retail for a whopping $1800 when it hits stores in two weeks.

While the Macbook Air will definitely turn the heads of early adopters, it probably won't fly out of the doors the way the iPhone did last year. The high price and the relatively small hard drive will put off technophiles who could double the hard drive space for a little more weight and half the money of a Macbook Air. The Macbook Air's impact will most likely be felt in the copycat devices that follow, putting smaller, lighter notebooks in the hands of those who are willing to wait on the rest of the computer world to catch up with Jobs. Job's speech is likely to fuel buzz for a few days, but it will hardly have the earth-shattering impact of the iPhone announcement.

Jobs also unveiled the much-anticipated iTunes movie rental service. For $3.99, customers can rent movies for 30 days and watch them on iPhones, iPods and computers. Disney, Warner Brothers, MGM and New Line Cinema have all agreed to take part in the new service. The new service has already had an impact as DVD shipper Netflix announced Monday that customers could stream an unlimited amount of movies with an subscription plan. The Netflix plan will become more attractive when LG's Netflix Box hits stores in the fall.

Source: Wall Street Journal