Why Thinness Beats Weight
My conclusion with the Macbook Air is that it’s simply easier to advertise thin than it is light.
Saying that you have the lightest notebook ever made is difficult, because you’d have to define what you could class as a notebook. But when it comes to thinness, well it doesn’t matter how you class it, they really are the thinnest one ever made. And being thin has an advantage over being light when it comes to advertising - you can show it. How exactly do you photograph something that’s light? There’s no immediate visual impact there.
The truth of the matter is that they simply wanted to create a really light laptop, a super portable, without sacrificing things like screen and keyboard size that are usually the first to go when it comes to that class of product. As a side effect, because they’re so design concious, along came the opportunity to make it super thin in the process. And when you’re Apple, that’s exactly the kind of feature you jump upon, because it’s a design feature, rather than a practical one.
