At Macworld 2008 Steve Jobs took the stage at the Moscone West in San Francisco and gave us a mass of new goodies to drool over, of particular interest was an expansion of Apple’s notebook lineup. The addition marks the first serious foray into a new form-factor of notebook for several years, and particular sought after since the demise of the 12-inch PowerBook in 2006.

The MacBook Air was long rumoured prior to its release to be an “ultra-portable”, but when Jobs finally showed off the Air at Macworld it became clear that Apple avoided the niche market of ultra-portables and instead headed for the ultra-thin notebook market. The Air lacks the power of the MacBook, has no optical drive and doesn’t contain a removable battery but instead is incredibly thin, features long battery life and has a full-size keyboard.

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