Anandtech did a thorough review of the MacBook Air and found it on the bleeding edge of ultra portable technology. The only problem is that it’s so thin it does not fit into any laptop bag currently available in the market. We’re not talking about fancy Manila envelope sleeves here (AirMail, InterofficMac) or this Studio Leung  conversation piece but a serious carrying case that can safely fit the MBA and its accessories. My own opinion? Make a MacBook Air sleeve so thick it’ll fit the Air comfortably in a regular laptop bag for 13-inch notebooks.
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The good: Incredibly thin yet surprisingly sturdy; new trackpad gesture controls are very useful; remote optical drive makes living without a built-in drive much easier.

The bad: Very limited connectivity; slower than other MacBooks; SSD hard-drive option is ridiculously expensive and standard hard drive is small; battery is not user replaceable.

The bottom line: The design is revolutionary, but Apple’s MacBook Air will appeal to a smaller, more specialized audience than the standard MacBook, thanks to a stripped-down set of connections and features.

Engadget just published their much anticipated review of the MacBook Air. I think they are straining a bit giving Apple’s sub-notebook a good review…

Good points: Screen is great, keyboard is full-size for an ultraportable

I won’t mention the bad points as these have been extravagantly covered everywhere including this blog. Engadget wraps up thus:

Given its stripped down, one-piece design, some are calling the Air the iPod of laptops. The point is debatable as to whether this machine could have the same appeal to computer users, but if there is one clear upshot to the Air, it’s that Apple’s learned to take the next step in miniaturizing their portable computers. While not all Mac users are going to stand in line to get this latest machine, Apple is doubtless welcomed back into the ultraportable laptop market by the technology world. Perhaps the largest side-effect of the Air won’t be ditching optical drives, though; for the rest of Apple’s consumer base it’s now just a matter of time before other Mac laptop lines benefit from the technical and engineering advances that made this thing so thin and light. Give us the lovechild of the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro, and it’s all over.

The last sentence is not even the worst of it. This is: “The Air is a tough call. On the one hand it proposes to be a no-compromises ultraportable, but on the other hand it compromises many (but not all) the things road warriors want.”

Ouch! Worse yet are the comments from Engadget readers. The predominant view is that MBA, though light and very thin will not be very useful. It’s a fashion laptop, not a business laptop, not a laptop for road warriors. We should see Paris Hilton and Olsen twins lugging one some time soon. At least the folks at the Today Show like it:

Stephen Levy of Newsweek says that McBook Air is a circumcised laptop.

Walt Mossberg for the Wall Street Journal repeats that MacBook Air is very thin and pretty , but hates the MacBook Air battery because it is non-removable, the single USB port of the MacBook and the lack of an optical drive.

It’s practically unanimous: MacBook Air sucks. Apple hasn’t sucked in a long time but it sucks now, resoundingly. Steven Levy’s review for Newsweek is the nail in MBA’s coffin: “These omissions are troubling–especially to someone in a down-turning economy deciding whether to spend a premium sum for a computer with subpremium storage. Still, simply using the MacBook Air, as I’m doing right now in writing this review, is rather copasetic.” Anyone know what copasetic means?

Mossberg’s video review of the MacBook Air, from AllThingsD.

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Some describe it as ethereal, so thin it fits in a Manila envelope. Encased in aluminum, Apple’s MacBook Air has been struggling keeping Apple fans from considering other light-weight notebooks. Is buying an ultraportable laptop from a different manufacturer to avoid the crippled hardware of MBA really worth abandoning OS X? This isn’t an easy question to answer.

Realistically, I see only two competitions for Apple’s sub-notebook from those already mentioned by other sites (Gizmodo’s MBA killers are here). The Portege R500 is, strictly, for business users only, boasting a low 1.2 GHz Core 2 Duo processor and only 1GB of RAM, which should be enough for the monster that is Vista (though Toshiba also ships them with Windows XP Pro or Business). The Sony Vaio TZ150N is even more underpowered with 1.06GHz Core 2 Duo. The Fujitsu LifeBook S2210 has a laughable Turion processor. That leaves us with the Dell XPS M1330 and the new kid on the block, Lenovo’s X300.

First comes the laptop I almost bought for myself a few months ago. Dell XPS M1330. If you’re not so averse towards Vista, the XPS M1330 offers a 13.3-inch LED screen, similar form factor as the MBA (thicker) but a higher processing power and dedicated NVIDIA graphics. Fr the price, this is the best light-weight laptop out there. Battery will only give you three hours but you have the option of bringing along a secondary battery. It’s crazily cheap with the specs that it has, especially when compared with MBA.

Even lighter and with even more impressive specs, The Lenovo X300 doesn’t look all that different from other Lenovo laptops. The X300, though, is extremely lightweight. It’s a little different from the other ultraportables in that it uses a standard screen (13-inch LED with 1440 x 900-pixel resolution) not a widescreen. It weights all of two-and-a-half pounds. Most interesting is the 2.0 GHz Intel Merom Santa Rosa Dual Core Hybrid LV. Wow! I only understood two words there, “Santa Rosa” but I’m already very impressed. The X300 also has an ultra-thin DVD burner (an optical drive!), which is just great to hear after MacWorld 2008. There is a 3 USBs, VGA out and PCexpress Card 34 slot and room for 4GB of RAM. Cellular 3G and HSDPA are also optional.

Need I say more? I’m not sure the X300 will come cheap, since it’s going to have a standard 64GB SSD, but even with Vista inside I’m not sure I’m going to look at the MacBook Air with anything but pity.

I find it curious that most if not all of the “advance” reviews of the MBA lay a lot of emphasis on the MacBook’s weight, belaboring the fact that the MacBook Air is not the lightest book out there. The Toshiba Portege R500 and the Sony VAIO VGN-TZ150N are two of the often cited ultraportables that are lighter than MBA.

1. PCMag review of MacBook Air: perhaps the most positive and pro-Apple review, yet, of the new ultraportable Mac.

The MacBook Air weighs in at 3 pounds and includes features that the rumor sites had long been predicting, including a 13-inch LED screen and an optional SSD drive. It lacks an internal optical drive, and the (very) limited number of connectivity ports will raise eyebrows, but the $1,799 starting price, standard-voltage processing parts, and full-size keyboard make up for its few limitations.

A statement that flies in the face of disillusioned Apple fanboys expecting a 12 or 13-inch MacBook Pro but got a notebook that fits in a Manila folder instead.

2. The USAToday points out the marketing problem of MBA. It agrees with PCMag that the larger-than-usual screen on the MBA for an ultra-portable is a plus but points out the new thing would be a tough sell to the core market of ultra-portables: business users.

3. ZDNET – Russel Shaw saying there’s no point to a light Mac.

4. Danny Dumas of Wired reiterates the key issue for me: an under-powered MacBook is such an odd-thing.

5. CNET says the MacBook Air makes no compromises. Really? What about that wash out screen (see pic above)?