One of the World’s Best-Selling Laptop - MacBook Air

Author: Jenny Jonson

Marketed as the world’s thinnest notebook, Apple’s MacBook Air is one of the world’s best-selling laptops. It was introduced in the beginning of 2008 and following are some points that illustrates the timeline and also the achievements of the products.

  • The laptop was introduced by Steve Jobs, the then CEO of Apple on January 15, 2008 in Boston, USA.
  • It was marked as the thinnest laptop in the world. The thickness of the laptop was 0.16" minimum and 0.76" maximum.
  • It was the lightest laptop compared to all of its opponents. The weight of the laptop was just 1.36 kg.
  • The first MacBook Air was a 13.3" model. It housed an Intel Merom CPU and later was introduced to an upgrade to a faster Penryn CPU.
  • A redesigned MacBook Air was introduced in October 2010. The performance of the 13.3" model was improved, however, the major surge was that an 11.6" model was unveiled. This model was lighter and cheaper. The performance and battery life was reduced compared to the 13.3" model but it was far better than any other typical netbook of that time.
  • Major updates were made to both MacBook Air variants in mid-2011. Some of them are changing the processor to Sandy Bridge, the keyboard was backlit, introduction of Face Time camera, availability of two USB and upgrades of Bluetooth and display ports. The flash memory was upgraded to 512GB.
  • Next major upgrade was released in June 2012. Both the variants were powered by Ivy Bridge processors. The RAM and SSD speeds were doubled and had USB 3 ports (instead of USB 2).
  • The latest update, released in mid-2013, had better performing RAM and SSD along with improved versions of display, battery and the processors.

There are a few notable elements in the design of the MacBook. They prove to be very important because the laptop’s main attraction is to be light and thin. Some of the design features are as follows:

  • It features an LED backlit display. It helps in reducing the size but they consume more power.
  • It has a full sized keyboard and multi-touch capable trackpad.
  • It has the usual features like microphone, headphone jack, USB connections and features a 720p Face Time camera.
  • It is the first Apple computer to encompass an SSD.
  • The entire body of the laptop officially has no user-replaceable parts. The battery is accessible and can be replaced but it is unclear whether that voids the warranty or not.
  • The entire product is environment friendly and meets the Version 5 requirements of Energy Star.
  • In order to make the device thin and light, some features were excluded in the design. There is no removable media drive in the laptop. It doesn’t have FireWire or Ethernet port, neither does it have a Kensington Security Slot.
  • The biggest drawback of this device is the lack of optical driver. In order to use a CD or DVD, an external USB SuperDrive. Remote installation of software can also be performed using the Remote Disc software but the other device need to have this software installed.

In Kuwait, online shopping is on rise. The online sales of MacBook Air is steadily rising. It not only implies that online shopping is not only the future but the present as well, it also justifies the fact that MacBook is leading the laptop industry and will continue to do so in the near future as well.