MacWorld has a section on the various analysts take on the Macbook Air, and as I am looking for a new laptop (as I am changing jobs I will have to hand back my MacBook Pro to my current employer), I will give my take on this as well.

Steve Jobs had Macworld attendees salivating over the uber-thin Macbook Air on Tuesday, but once the reality distortion field went down and people actually started looking closely at the specs, that drool began to congeal.

Some critics are already less than impressed by the laptop's sealed case and the absence of features offered by other traditional notebooks, like an optical drive, replaceable battery and a firewire port. That $1800 price tag isn't winning over many people, either.

Yet such things don't seem to worry those who make a living out of covering Apple. Every analyst we spoke to today said they expect the addition to Apple's notebook lineup to do big things in the coming year.

"It definitely breaks new group and is clearly the thinnest laptop ever released," said Creative Strategies Tim Bajarin.

"What's more, Apple's clearly responding to what is an actual real trend right now: the popularity of the ultra-light laptop," he continued. Barajin predicts that ultra light laptops will grow to 20 percent (of the laptop market) in the next three years and that the Macbook Air will play a major role in that growth.

(Follow the link below for the rest of the article)

[From Macworld: Analysts Weight the 'Air']

My current MacBook Pro has 2 Gb or RAM and a 120 Gb harddisk - and the harddisk is full, and the RAM is currently more than maxed out, so on the surface the Macbook Air should not be suitable for me. But as I am going to travel more in my new job (I was in Amsterdam yesterday) it will fir very well into my backpack, and save a lot of weight. When it additionally can run for 5 hours between charges....

I will need the USB<->Ethernet and external monitor cable, plus a portable harddisk, which will also function as a backup target for Time Machine, so I will need to carry a USB hub...

All in all I will get a desktop machine in the office, and a MacBook Air to take with me when I travel, so I will need the new functionality to sync desktops...

I'll have to order one soon...

From a purely electronics engineering point of view the Macbook Air could be a lot more reliable than the normal Macbook - as most problems historically occur with the removable devices, i.e. batteries, RAM etc, plus of course the problem with tethered devices such as the Ethernet port - as in pulling the machine off a table....

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