Recently I’ve been thinking about the newest laptop from Mac, The Macbook Air. I watched the keynote with Steve Jobs, and the unveiling of the MBA. I admit I was impressed by the size of the laptop but the most impressive thing was the technology behind it and the specs, the fact the 1.6GHz/1.8Ghz Dual Core CPU chip is 60% smaller than a usual CPU chip and the motherboard is no bigger than a wooden pencil with 2GB of RAM. However the were several cutbacks on this laptop, and that is that there isn’t many USB Ports or anything and as expected there is no Optical Drive.
About two days after I had watched all of this I noticed an article on the internet that a member of Digg had posted. And that was that Sony is not even impressed by the MBA. So I decided to read on in the article, turns out in 2004 they released a laptop the Vaio X505 that at the thinnest point of it was 0.3 Inches, where Apple is boasting it’s 0.16 Inches. This means about 4 years ago Sony were already ahead of Apple with the thinnest laptop until now. However the only downside of the X505 is that the specs are far worse than that of the MBA, but that was because the technology and the size of the components aren’t at what today’s standards are. Sony also cutback on the Optical Drive back in 2004 just like Apple have done now but the difference is that in 2004 it wasn’t what the consumers wanted. Now because of USB keys and wireless it’s not as necessary, I’m just starting to wonder when CD’s will be taken out of the picture all together and that all PC Games, Software and Music will be sold on USB keys. I’m also wondering if this is the way gaming consoles are going to go as well.

Another laptop that seems to be making an impact on size and weight is Intel’s Metro, although I have been having difficulty to find it on the the specs of it and how much and when it will be available as it is only a concept at this point. The only information that I know is that it’s got a Core Duo inside it, it’s 1KG in weight and the thinnest point is 0.7 Inches, the wireless notebook also has a feature in which the user can switch between WI-FI, Bluetooth and WiMax with in aerial. The idea behind it is that it is completely wireless for the user, and there is one nice feature of the notebook and that is, even when the laptop is switched off there is a screen on the outside that stays on that lets you check your e-mails, news etc very quickly without having to boot up.
So in the end I’m not convinced by the WBA as of yet seeing as Sony already made a laptop back in 2004 close enough to it’s size but I am convinced by the technology inside it so we’ll just have to wait to see what happens within the next line of laptops from other company’s if they can get their hands on the technology.