By Alex Villafania
INQUIRER.net
THE APPLE MacBook Air is now in the Philippines and the distributor says the first batch of the latest MacBook incarnation has already sold out.
Already, MSI-ECS is preparing to get another batch of MacBook Airs to be distributed in the Philippines.
The MacBook Air had a small launch with Filipino reporters at the MSI-ECS office in Libis, Quezon City. MSI-ECS Apple product manager Cheche David said the demand is so high that they had closed the pre-order selling during the first batch. Those hoping to buy the device would have to go to an Apple store to order their units.
Here’s a video I took of David demonstrating some of the features of the MacBook Air.
“It’s really one of our biggest launches ever and we hope to keep up with demand,” David said, stating that the company is planning to have a major consumer launch of the MacBook Air soon.
David said the suggested retail pric of the MacBook Air is P94,500 in the Philippines.
The MacBook Air was launched at the Macworld Conference on Jan. 15 this year. It is touted as the world’s thinnest notebook at only 0.7 inches at its thickest and 0.16 inches at its thinnest. It is also the lightest in its size class (13.3-inch LCD size) at only 3 pounds.
Check out this video of the MacBook family: the MacBook Pro, MacBook and MacBook Air.
Due to its thinness the MacBook Air does not have an integrated optical drive, but the user can get an external USB SuperDrive.
It is powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo 1.6 Gigahertz processor, two gigabytes of internal memory, and an Intel GMA X3100 graphics card. It also comes with an 80GB hard disk drive but the device can also use the new 64GB solid state drive (SSD). The SSD is sold separately and is priced at around P20,000
The MacBook Air only has a one USB 2.0 port, one micro-DVI port and an audio jack. Its wireless connections include a built-in Bluetooth antenna and integrated wifi function called AirPort Extreme.
According to David, Apple has already resolved the alleged overheating problem with a new patch for the Mac OS X Leopard, which lessens the Intel processor’s power consumption depending on usage.
One unique feature of the MacBook Air is the trackpad that makes use of the same multi-touch technology of the iPhone, allowing users to manipulate webpages, photos and other documents with just a flick of their fingers.
April 10th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
94k pesos and 20k for ssd? you must be joking!
Editor’s note: Comment edited.
April 11th, 2008 at 10:04 am
Major downside: Irreplaceable battery!
July 13th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
What?! Php 94,500 and you got only ONE usb slot? Is Apple just joking or is it just really immmpractical to buy that? I can accept that it does not have an optical drive. But why the heck does it have ONLY ONE USB SLOT? My windows 98 laptop has three!