Apple didn’t exactly surprise the tech world with a MacBook Air update at its Back To The Mac event a couple weeks ago. The infamously-thin notebook hadn’t been updated in over 500 days, and there were more rumors and leaks on the unannounced product than we could shake a stick at. When the new Air was finally revealed, we got a look at some decent to very-good specifications, an even better and thinner design, and a more functional and useful product; that’s not to mention the device’s 11-inch baby brother which retails for only $999. We did our hands on thing with the 11-inch unit, but, in our eyes, it proved to be too small for daily use, so we’ve gone ahead and reviewed the 13-inch model. Read on for our thoughts!For starters, the new MacBook Air, even though it’s not drastically externally-different from the first one, seems like a completely new product — especially since we only used the first, first generation laptop. The two USB ports, something that should have been standard all along, have finally appeared and — thankfully — on opposite sides of the notebook. This way, you can plug in multiple USB devices without having to worry about them knocking into each other and making only one of them usable at a time. There’s an SD card slot on the right side of the device, a mini display port just next to it, and a headphone jack and a mic on the left.

It feels like Apple has evolved the MacBook Air into a new class of notebooks — one based solely around solid-state parts to give users an “instant” experience — much like how an iPad operates. There is no user-accessible anything on this computer, no hard drive access, RAM access, nothing. This allows the computer to literally boot in around 15 seconds from a powered-down state, wake almost instantly from sleep, and also enter into what Apple calls a “deep sleep.” This new mode will allow the computer to practically stay in suspended animation for up to 30 days. This is also in addition to around 7 hours of “real world usage” battery life, which we can confirm is reasonably accurate.

Now, what have we missed since we switched from a 15-inch Core i5 8GB RAM 256GB SSD MacBook Pro? Honestly, you’re going to laugh, but not much. Sure incredibly intensive tasks take longer on the MacBook Air, but realistically we haven’t noticed a day to day difference in 95% of the work we do. Even something as complex as importing 1GB of HD video into iMovie ’11, editing the footage, and exporting and uploading a movie trailer creation was effortless. It took us around 7 minutes to export and upload a high quality movie trailer.

Aperture also functions very swiftly on the 1.86GHz machine with 2GB RAM that we’re using, and Photoshop — in our normal usage — hasn’t bogged down or hampered our workflow once.

We’re always carrying a notebook to and from the office, covering events in real time, and working from the car. The sacrifice in raw horsepower from switching from a MacBook Pro is dwarfed by the amazingly light and sufficiently speedy Air. We can’t even look at the 15-inch MacBook Pro the same, and this is what the future of all Apple notebooks will be someday. The MacBook Air barely has heated up on us, and we have barely heard the one singular fan within humming away — a real testament to how perfectly engineered the notebook is. We have no doubt that Apple will slowly transition even the MacBook Pro into a much thinner, portable product. If we had to bet, we’d be willing to say that the MacBook Air will replace the MacBook category, be called simply a MacBook, and the MacBook Pro will be left at the top, though slimmed down a bit.

For all our praises, there are definitely a couple things that bugged us about the new unit, though obviously nothing big enough to deter us from making it our main machine. We’re not thrilled with the visibility of the caps lock key — of all things — it’s a very faint green and it’s difficult to see when it’s active or not. It also requires more pressure than the rest of the keyboard, at least on our unit.

We miss the backlit keyboard which existed on the first generation MacBook Air and we miss the ambient light sensor even though we basically would fight it on all occasions. Not having an ethernet port is also a slight bummer, but we understand the port physically wouldn’t fit height wise with the notebook’s design. Still, we’ll have to carry a USB ethernet adapter at all times in the event Wi-Fi isn’t available, and it will take up one of the USB ports.

All things considered, what the new MacBook Air is, is an advancement of the laptop in ways that no other manufacturer has come close to touching. It’s not the least expensive option out there, though we wouldn’t necessarily call the most expensive option either. What the MacBook Air has done, is slowly start to transform the laptop industry much like the iPad and iOS have started to transform the mobile industry. Soon, all laptops will not require moving parts, they will also offer almost instant boot times, run cool, run fast, and they’ll be thin. Because thin is in.

We just scored a brand new Apple MacBook Air 11″ laptop at the 5th Ave store, and well, how could we not report back what we think of it? For starters, and this has probably been said already, but you really need to see this in person to appreciate how absolutely slim and compact this thing is. Our major concern has to be the processor, as this wasn’t a built-to-order unit it’s only rockin’ a 1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 2GB of RAM — not the slowest thing out there, but obviously on the slower end of the spectrum. We’re happy to say in our very limited use of the computer so far, we haven’t been frustrated or annoyed by the speed. There will most likely be a different story to be told after we push it to the limits, but for a computer that’s not meant to be subjected to torture every second of the day, we could see ourselves carrying this and not our 15″ MacBook Pro. In terms of the 11.6″ display, we have to say that we’re loving it. So far. We have some great photos of the new MacBook Air in our gallery, and have some comparison photos to the 13″ previous generation Air as well as our 15″ MacBook Pro.

Click on over to our MacBook Air hands on gallery!

As iPhone 4 pre-orders kicked off, visitors to Apple’s website were greeted with a teensy surprise this morning, as the Mac mini has received its long-rumored long-efresh. Milled out of a solid chunk of aluminum, $699 base model comes with an 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM, 320GB HDD, and a NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics card. As expected, HDMI has replaced the DVI port (the Mini DisplayPort is still there) and a SD card reader now joins the four USB 2.0 ports and sole FireWire 800 port. If there’s no need for an optical drive in your life or if you just want something in the way of a compact server, there’s also the option of scraping it entirely and a nabbing a unit with a 2.6GHz processor, dual 500GB HDDs and 4GB of RAM for $999.

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That MacBook leak was the real deal, folks. Today, right on cue, Apple announced it had refreshed its popular, low-end MacBook unit. Now offering a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics card and non-user replaceable battery rated for 10 hours of battery life (up from a previous 7), the new $999 MacBook is perfect for hipsters on a dime. Of course $200 more will bump you into MacBook Pro line, but we know you’re style conscious and fully aware that only the white polycarbonate frame of the MacBook matches your painfully ironic K-Swiss kicks.

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Vietnam is turning into the place to be for Apple prototype leaks. Earlier this week, Vietnamese blog Tinhte posted up images of a 4th generation iPhone prototype and, today, the same blog is showing off what they claim is the next generation 13″ MacBook. The leaked model reportedly features a 13.3 inch LED-backlit glossy display, a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM, 250GB hard drive and a NVIDIA 320M graphics card with 256MB of shared SDRAM. Supply chain rumors suggest this new MacBook and its larger siblings may launch in the upcoming weeks, even possibly Tuesday. For those that want a closer look at what Apple may have in store for its next generation consumer notebook, hit the jump for a few snapshots of the machine and Tinhte’s hands-on video.

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We’re not exactly sure why “WIDEBOOK” has to be in all caps, but LG just took the wraps off its latest line of niche notebooks. Comprised of five models in total, LG’s WIDEBOOKS all feature LED-backlit displays with a 16:9 aspect ratio that LG has dubbed “cinematic”. Mmm hmm. Starting at the bottom we have the R380, a 13-incher that can boot in five seconds with “Smart On”. In the middle of the pack, the R460 and R560 tout 14 and 15.6-inch displays respectively, and then up at the top we have the like-sized R480 and the R580. The entire range sports Windows Vista or 7, Core 2 Duo processors, between 2GB and 4GB of RAM, NVIDIA GeForce graphics chips with up to 1GB of graphics memory, and display resolutions of either 1600 x 900 or 1368 x 768 pixels. The R580 also packs a Blu-ray drive to make that “cinematic experience” complete. Pricing isn’t yet available but the wait won’t be long — LG’s WIDEBOOKS will roll out this month in Turkey, Dubai and Saudi Arabia, followed by other countries in Asia, Europe, Latin America and last but not least, North America.

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Lovers of all things tech and trim, rejoice as Apple has updated its svelte MacBook Air. A $300 price drop puts the new budget model MacBook Air at $1,499 while still coming in with a relatively impressive 1.86GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB DDR3 RAM, 9400M graphics card and 120GB HDD. Also new is a more “high end” MBA which starts off with the same amount of RAM and graphics card except the processor clocks in at 2.13GHz and in lieu of spinning hard-disk drive you get a 128GB SSD. It will retail for $1,799. Yeah you read right; that’s a $700 drop in price. Congrats to Apple on maintaining that ridiculous margin for as long as it did.

If you’re a tablet PC fan that’s a bit overwhelmed by the day’s iPhone madness, this one should brighten things up a bit. Details of Lenovo’s new X200 tablet PC have leaked out, and the specs are pretty impressive. The new machines will feature Intel Core 2 Duo chips running at up to 2.4 Ghz, 12″ display,  optional WiMAX, WWAN, GPS, WiFi, UWB, and Bluetooth, a 1.3 megapixel webcam, a Blu-ray drive option, and a whole lot more. All of this connectivity clocks in at a reasonable 2.93lbs, and the battery should give you upwards of 9 Hrs of operating time. Impressed yet? Yeah, we thought you might be. No word on pricing or availability, but we’re hoping this bad boy drops sooner rather than later. 

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