Apple Air laptop's shortcomings are easy to forgive

The one-month loan is nearly over, and I'll soon have to pack up a borrowed MacBook Air laptop and ship it back to Apple Inc. It will hurt. Apple's vaunted ultrathin computer is the most attractive laptop ever.

Not the best, though. The Air's elegant form sacrifices a lot of functions found on even the cheapest laptops, not to mention its closest, thinnest rival, the ThinkPad X300 from Chinese laptop maker Lenovo. Instead, Apple offers gleaming aluminum, and assurances that nobody will mind the missing features.

And for the most part, I didn't.

Both of these impressive machines underscore the surging demand for laptops. Many of us now use them as our primary computers, instead of big, bulky desktop machines. The market research firm IDC Corp. says 34 percent of all personal computers sold in the United States in 2005 were laptops. Last year, that number had shot up to 47 percent, and it's likely that Americans will buy more laptops than desktops this year.

Laptops usually boast fewer features than desktops, but few consumers seem to care. Apple is betting buyers will shrug at the MacBook Air's absent features.

So the Air has no Ethernet port for plugging into a data network? Use Wi-Fi wireless networking instead.

No VGA port for video projectors? I never liked PowerPoint slide shows, anyway.

No DVD drive? People watch too many movies.

A built-in battery that can't be replaced by the user? Never mind; those rechargeables last for years.

For every missing feature, there's a plausible justification.

Besides, you barely notice what isn't there once you flip open the Air. With its sensuous shape and satiny aluminum skin, this laptop feels lighter than its 3 pounds. The 13-inch monitor screen is exceptional, with rich, warm color rendering. The keyboard, despite its thinness, has a solid, serious feel. The touchpad mouse incorporates the new "multitouch" technology found in Apple's iPhone. Open a Web page in the Safari browser, for instance, and you can expand or contract the images with a pinching motion of thumb and forefinger.

Apple also provides workarounds for some missing items. There's a micro-DVI port for external video, and an included adapter cable for connecting analog monitors and projectors.

And the lack of a DVD drive won't keep you from installing software. There's an optional external drive that connects to the laptop's single USB port.

Or use Remote Disc, a program that lets the Air "borrow" the optical drive of another computer on your network. It was easy to install Microsoft Office for the Mac by putting the disk in the drive of a Windows machine and launching Remote Disc.

Still, absent features and sketchy workarounds don't jibe well with the Air's $1,800 price tag. That's enough to buy two better-equipped Windows laptops. But not nearly enough for the Lenovo ThinkPad X300, which carries a $3,000 starting price. It's rare to find a Windows-based computer that's more costly than a Mac. But the X300 is a Cadillac with a keyboard.

At 3 pounds, the X300 weighs the same as the Air, though it's a little thicker. Lenovo boasted that its case, made of magnesium and carbon fiber, can easily withstand the weight of a grown man, and sure enough, it barely budged beneath my size-13 oxfords.

Inside, the X300 features pretty much everything. A solid-state, flash-memory drive in place of the traditional hard drive is a $900 option on the MacBook Air, but it's on the X300. So is a removable battery and a DVD-burner drive.

There's a port for every storm - three USBs to the MacBook's one, an Ethernet connection, a VGA connector, and a place to plug in a microphone. The X300 has stereo speakers; the MacBook offers mono.

Also, the Lenovo has almost enough radio gear to communicate with life in other worlds. Like the MacBook, it has built-in wireless networking on the new Wi-Fi-N standard, which delivers longer range and faster data transmission. Both machines also have Bluetooth, for use with wireless accessories like mice and keyboards.

But the X300 also can transmit over local cellphone networks. Our review unit had a wireless module that connected to Verizon Wireless's data network. Capable of megabit-per-second downloads, it's a great Wi-Fi substitute for travelers who don't mind paying $40 a month or more for access.

Forget about getting lost - there's a built-in GPS unit, with software that links it to the Google Maps website. There's still another radio chip for connecting with devices that use the new Wireless USB standard.

Then there's WiMax, the new long-range, wireless-networking standard that Sprint Nextel Corp. plans to deploy in major cities. Lenovo says it will offer a WiMax chip module that can be plugged into a slot under the keyboard.

So Lenovo provides more options than most of us need, while Apple delivers fewer than we usually want. For most users, destined to do little more than surf the Web and check e-mails, Apple's approach makes more sense. But it doesn't go far enough. The success of $400 laptops from Taiwanese vendor Asus shows the true wave of the future - simple machines with lightweight price tags. Demand for a mini-MacBook Air with a sub-$1,000 price might be high enough to drive up the price of aluminum.

Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com.