MacBook Air hands on #1, originally uploaded by Dan_H.

The new MacBook Air, announced at the 2008 MacWorld keynote last Tuesday the fifteenth, is, in short, pretty awesome (and really pretty).

I’ll now go over a few things I deem more important and relevant (especially with respect to my white MacBook) than other things about this. I’m not going to talk in detail about the illuminated keyboard, for example, because even though it’s really cool (and I’ve always wanted a keyboard like that), it doesn’t “make or break” the Air. If you want to know more, though, I recommend and encourage you to check out John Gruber’s fairly thorough and decent review.

So without further ado, here are its dimensions:

• Height: 0.16-0.76 inch (0.4-1.94 cm)
• Width: 12.8 inches (32.5 cm)
• Depth: 8.94 inches (22.7 cm)
• Weight: 3.0 pounds (1.36 kg)

This is already pretty impressive. My white MacBook weighs five pounds, so a decrease to only three is actually really good. Mine is also one inch thick (”thin”), but the new Air is only .76 inch at its thinnest.

As for the screen, it’s 13.3″ widescreen just like all white or black MacBooks. I find this is a really good size for a portable. It’s enough to handle everything you need (especially with Exposé), and it’s not oversized by any means.

With the design of the Air, Apple decided to save some space with some fairly wise decisions. There is no DVD or CD drive, and there is only one USB port. (There is also no Firewire port, but I’ve never had to use the one on my MacBook.) As an alternative to a built-in DVD drive, Apple now offers a slim USB SuperDrive (DVD writer) as well as an easy way to map a DVD drive on another computer (an iMac, for example) as a bootable network drive. The latter of the two, however, is not really a viable option for watching DVDs, since wireless now is not that fast. I would opt for carrying around a USB SuperDrive. It’s not that big, and it’s not like I actually use my MacBook’s DVD drive most of the time anyway. In any case, I find that, overall, the space-saving design here is great.

The MacBook Air is cool, no doubt.

The real question lies, for me, with whether or not I want to deal with a little extra hassle—limited ports and a loose SuperDrive to carry around when I think I might need it (which, I admit, is not very much of the time). For now, I think I find my white 2.0 GHz Core Duo MacBook sufficient and practical. The built-in ports and DVD drive are almost always fine; I never really have to worry in any way about them. Sure, the standard MacBook is not as light and thin as the new Air, but it’s already pretty thin (one inch!) and not heavy at all. So, for now, I think I’ll stick with the MacBook where I’ve already put my money. In the future though, the new Air is definitely an option (a really cool one), especially if its price drops, which I’m pretty sure it will.