Apple unveils 'world's thinnest notebook'

Apple unveiled its ultra-portable MacBook Air, the world's thinnest notebook according to CEO Steve Jobs, during his keynote speech at Macworld 2008.

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When closed, the MacBook Air measures 4mm at its thinnest point and 19mm at the thickest part. It features a 13.3-inch LED-backlit display, 2GB of memory, a 1.8-inch 80GB HDD and a 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor.

During the keynote speech, Jobs touted Apple's environmentally-friendly efforts, claiming its MacBook Air contains mercury- and arsenic-free glass, BFR and PVC-free boards and 50 per cent smaller packaging than previous MacBooks.

Jobs also thanked Intel for its part in creating a 60 per cent smaller processor the MacBook Air.

Jobs said: "Intel invested a lot of engineering to create this for us." During the MacBook Air demonstration, Jobs invited Intel CEO Paul Otellini to join him on stage.

Otellini said: "About a year ago you challenged us to get this processor into this impossibly thin machine." Options include a 64GB solid-state drive (SSD) and a 1.8GHz processor version, which will include a 64GB SSD in its default configuration.

Like its MacBook brethren, the Air includes an iSight camera on top of the screen. It also supports 802.11n wi-fi and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR.

Apple has added multi-touch gesture functionality to the MacBook Air's trackpad, in which users can zoom by pinching in or out, rotate images by spinning two fingers, flick through items by wiping left or right and move windows in a new way.

The MacBook Air weighs 1.36 kilograms, which Jobs said is on par with others in the ultra-portable category.

Before unwrapping the MacBook Air from an A3-sized US envelope, Jobs compared the size of the notebook with the Sony TZ series.

Jobs said: "The thickest part of the Macbook Air is still thinner than the thinnest side of the Sony TZ."

Original article: Apple unveils MacBook Air: "world's thinnest notebook" from ZDNet Australia