The iPhone it’s not… but at least it’s light.

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! Well, actually, no, it’s just another MacBook iteration.

I have to say, I was excited about this product when I first heard about it in a Macworld report. In fact, I thought it was such a great announcement that it was on par with the iPhone.

I was wrong. Very wrong. In fact, to be honest, I don’t even want one. And for a new Apple product, that’s a bad thing. Mind you, it’s not the aesthetics that are wrong with the new MacBook Air. Instead, for the first time since the G4 Cube, Apple may have made a bad decision: form over function.

Skinny? Yes. Light? Yes, at least relatively so (3.0lbs). In fact, there are a lot of things done right on this new notebook, but as I take you on a tour through MacBook Air, be on the look out for certain features that can only be described as… lacking.

• Dimensions

This is an area (and one of the few, unfortunately) where MacBook Air really shines. At its slimmest point, it’s only .17 inches thick! At it’s thickest, it’s still only .75 inches: very slim by notebook standards, Mac or PC.

It’s also worth noting that the body of MacBook Air is made from aluminum, so it should prove to be very durable.

• Screen and Keyboard

There are a couple interesting items of note concerning the screen and the keyboard. Apple claims in their MacBook Air tour video that the “keyboard and the screen are the two places most companies skimp on when making a notebook computer.” Luckily, Apple hasn’t skimped on either.

Firstly, the screen is Apple’s popular glossy LCD, which means it’s light, bright, and crisp. The size, 13.3 inches, is small by some standards, but nice for people who want a computer with a lot of battery life. Moreover, the backlight consists purely of LEDs, meaning the screen will instantly start up at full brightness, and it consumes less power than a standard laptop screen… again, increasing battery life.

The keyboard is nearly identical to that of the MacBook Pro, including a backlight and light sensor.

The trackpad is also oversized, allowing users to take advantage of newly designed gestures ripped straight from the iPod Touch. Need to rotate a photo? Touch the trackpad with two fingers and rotate one around the other. Need to zoom in? Touch the pad with two fingers and spread them apart (or move them together to zoom out). Swipe the pad with three fingers to page down in any application.

• Ports

There is one exciting thing going on with MacBook Air’s ports, and it’s the Micro DVI port.

The Micro DVI port allows interfacing to a DVI monitor, obviously, but it does oh-so-much more. You can connect to a VGA port as well, but that’s not too astounding: you can do that with any DVI port with an adapter. However, with Micro DVI you can also connect to S-Video or even Composite output, meaning MacBook Air will interface nicely with virtually any television, allowing you to watch those iTunes movies on something larger than 13.3 inches.

However, it is also with the ports that MacBook Air’s first real problem shows its teeth: the USB port. Notice I used “port” in the singular. Yup. She’s only got one.

Granted, USB ports can be extended with hubs, but really: it’s a laptop! Apple could have at least fitted it with two USB ports, like on the old iBook, or maybe one USB and one FireWire… but no. One USB port. No exceptions.

Don’t worry. It gets worse.

• Remote Disc

To be honest, it’s a pretty neat feature. Remote Disc allows MacBook Air to connect wirelessly to any PC or Mac and essentially control that computers CD or DVD drive. Discs in those drives mount right onto the desktop, and they can even be mounted to perform subsystem tasks (such as installing the OS) as if they were inserted into MacBook Air’s own optical drive. Notice how I wrote that: “MacBook Air’s own optical drive.”

Ha ha! Got you! It doesn’t have it’s own. Unless, of course, you want to pay $100 more, and get this:

That’s right. An external optical drive, just like I had ten years ago on my Toshiba PC laptop. It’s alright, though: that single USB port will come in handy, for plugging in your external drive.

• Hard Disk

I know what you’re thinking: oh please, oh please, let there be good news here! Well, you might be happy to hear that MacBook Air is available with a 64GB Solid State Hard Drive. Yes. Solid State. That means no moving parts, and better battery life, too.

But don’t confuse this with good news: the 64GB Solid State drive is $999 extra, making the base price nearly $3,000.

Luckily, you can order yours with an old-school 80GB hard drive… and when I say old-school, I mean it. Instead of being 5,200 RPM, like most laptop drives, the one in the MacBook Air is a pitiful 4,800 RPM. Really now. That about does it.

MacBook Air seems amazing the first time you see it. But when you check out its tech specs, you soon find that MacBook Air leaves much to be desired.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not hating on Apple. Please, by all means, buy a Mac (and expand your horizons!), just don’t buy this Mac. Go with the standard MacBook: it’s $700 bucks cheaper and 700 times better.