Apple

Advertisement Processor pace is another decision - there’s the option of either a 1.6 or 1.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo on a slick 800MHz front-side bus with 2GB of 667MHz of DDR2 RAM for fuel and a 4MB Level 2 cache. The machine received from Apple for this review was fitted with the 1.6 Core Duo, 2GB of RAM and a 80GB Samsung drive.

In real world terms, there’s more than enough grunt to run demanding graphics packages like Adobe Creative Suite, and even quickly editing video is possible, although Final Cut Studio won’t play with the Air’s integrated Intel graphics processors. If it’s every day software like Mac Office 2008 you want to run, it’s extremely effective.

Apple software bundled with the Air includes iLife 08 plus extras Photo Booth and Front Row, which, along with standard apps like Mail and Safari, will cover most users. Dumping Safari for Mozilla Firefox is recommended.

For streaming web video Air can’t be outdone by any broadband service available in the go-slow zone that is New Zealand, and it coped ably when streaming movies from another machine’s hard drive over 802.11g Wi-Fi - but will run over the draft 802.11n standard if your router is capable. So the Air can do the business, and it does so in a trim form factor that, until the Jobs MacWorld reveal, seemed at least a couple of years of laptop engineering away.