Apple Introduces MacBook Air, Movie Rental Service (
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Apple CEO Steve Jobs touts the MacBook Air as the world’s thinnest notebook.
SAN FRANCISCO—Apple
CEO Steve Jobs kicked off Macworld Expo at the
Moscone
Center here with a series of
major
new product introductions, including an ultrathin MacBook, a new
wireless router and backup device, and a new movie rental services.
Jobs described the MacBook Air notebook as the world’s thinnest notebook,
with its thickness ranging from 0.76 inch to 0.16 inch at its thinnest part.
This makes the MacBook Air thinner than Sony’s most compact notebook model,
Jobs said.
It has an aluminum case with an exterior that resembles the iPhone. But it
has a full-size backlit keyboard and a full-size 13.3-inch, widescreen LED
backlit display and a large trackpad with multitouch gestures like the iPhone.
The MacBook Air will cost $1,799 for a 1.6 GHz processor with 2GB of
RAM
and an 80GB hard drive. Apple is also offering a 64GB solid-state hard drive.
Is the MacBook Air as thin as Apple claims? Check out these images.
As part of the design effort for the MacBook Air, Apple worked with Intel to
redesign the Core 2 Duo processor into a 60 percent smaller package. It’s not
clear whether this design is exclusive to Apple or will be offered to other
notebook manufacturers.
However, there is no optical drive built into the notebook. An external
USB
2.0 optical drive is available for $99.
The Remote Disc feature will enable remote installation of software off any Mac or PC on a
wireless network using Apple’s data transfer software.
Desktops & Notebooks 
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