Earlier this week Apple announced its MacBook Air, and within hours we had the mystery of its "60% smaller" CPU uncovered. Or at least we thought.

It turns out there's even more depth to the CPU in the MacBook Air, it's even less conventional than we originally thought. Here's what happened over the past couple of days.

When Apple first made the announcement, we sent an email off to Intel to see exactly what CPU was used in the MacBook Air. As is usually the case with companies that work closely with Apple, including Intel, we got the usual "you have to ask Apple PR" response.

Intel, surely responding to tons of similar requests, put out the following official response:

"Intel provides its customers with a range of technology choices. If a customer requires a different technology feature-set, then where possible, Intel will work with them to develop a solution to meet their respective market needs, as we have done in this case."

But by then we'd already pieced together the puzzle and published our article.

Due to its ultra-thin profile, Apple's new MacBook Air was designed with an integrated 37-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery that is not user-replaceable. Though this has caused some initial concern amongst potential adopters, AppleInsider has learned that the replacement process is quite trivial.

According to people familiar with the new-generation notebook, there are no special tools or knowledge required to swap out the MacBook Air's battery, which Apple has billed its "thinnest ever" in a product. Instead, the process requires a single size-0 type philips screwdriver and some diligence.

Ever since the MacBook and MacBook Pro arrived in 2006 and brought about the end of the cult-favorite 12-inch PowerBook G4 model, fans of small, light laptops have been hoping that Apple would come out with a Mac that was smaller than the 13-inch MacBook. With the introduction of the MacBook Air, Mac users now have a three-pound laptop to call their own.

But in making this three-pound, .16-to-.76-inch-thick laptop, Apple had to make compromises. For the reduction in size and weight, many small PC laptops trade off such attributes as the size of the display and keyboard, processor speed, battery life, and included features. Most also cost more than a comparably-featured larger model. The MacBook Air is no exception. What makes the MacBook Air different is that, in typical fashion, Apple has chosen to make different compromises than those found in most other subnotebooks.

You likely have questions about this latest laptop from Apple. Here's what we've been able to find out about the MacBook Air while waiting for our models to arrive.

The MacBook Air's form factor may be what's drawing oohs and aahs, but software and firmware innovations that Apple developed for the machine are the real attention grabbers.

As previously confirmed with Apple, the MacBook Air is the first Mac to support wireless network booting (netboot). This functionality works in conjunction with the "Remote Disc" feature, allowing the MacBook Air to boot from, for instance, Mac OS X Install discs that are inserted in other computers' optical drives......

Fujitsu rules the subnotebook category with an entire field of entries, coming in every size and shape from true UMPC and up. It's also the first to announce a new model since Apple stormed along with the MacBook Air. The Fujistsu P1620 is lighter, cheaper, and packed with features the Air doesn't have - while lacking some of those it does.

Who else but Apple could launch a product like the MacBook Air? With its focus on form over function, it is destined for the niche of early Apple adopters, sure to get burned on price and features when Apple upgrades to at least include a bigger hard drive than 80GB, ethernet, Firewire and a user-replaceable battery.

I say let early adopters get burned. This product begs a bigger question of Apple: When will you stop holding back the Mac OS and start licensing the OS?

Apple's monopoly power over the Mac OS is holding back better software. If you want Mac OS, Apple says, love it or leave it. Apple fanboys and girls are always ready to point this out, saying you don't have to buy it if you don't like it.

But defending this monopoly is holding back personal computing. I like the Mac OS (which is more advanced than Windows), and I love the idea of being able to have a dual boot Windows machine. I am not in the market for an ultraportable, but Apple doesn't offer one laptop I would buy.

Steve Jobs wowed the Macworld audience when he unveiled the slim, ultraportable MacBook Air notebook, but users and analysts say its lack of some important features may make it unattractive to buyers....

The MacBook Air is a mismatch with Apple's price-sensitive customers, such as educators and those who do creative work and require significant storage for music, photos and video, Citigroup said in a research note on Wednesday. Moreover, ultraportable-laptop users are generally Windows-based PC users, not Mac users, Citigroup said.

While the product could be a long-term success, Apple will produce the laptop in small volumes until more features are added, Citigroup said.

If the MacBook Air does not feature an integrated optical drive, it can access those plugged to another Mac or PC via the Airport. One can then load an installation CD/DVD in a wireless-enable Mac, and get the MacBook Air connect to it via Airport as confirmed by MacFixit.
This computer is not alone in the dark as some people heavily claim it, one could even think of having a compact flash-based USB disk as an emergency disc.

We had a few minutes to play with Apple's new, sexy notebook computer at Macworld Expo. It looks like a machine for people willing to pay a premium for style, and who don't care that much about computing power.

The remarkable thing about the MacBook Air is how unremarkable it is. If you've used notebook computers, you won't find much different here; it's got a full-sized wide-screen display, full-sized keyboard, and nice, big trackpad. It's a complete, full-sized notebook computer - but a relatively lightweight one.

And it's razor-thin and looks great. Don't forget that. Apple is going to sell a gazillion of them. It will sell them to people for whom light weight and good looks are a priority in choosing a notebook.
The rest of us, however, will find the MacBook Air is underpowered and high-priced, with limited expandability.

The room service menu in my hotel, the San Francisco Marriott Courtyard, is the size and weight of Apple's new commercial notebook, MacBook Air. MacBook Air, Apple's newest, thinnest, lightest, simplest notebook in Apple history weighs three pounds. It's 3/4s of an inch at the display hinge (closed), sloping down aerodynamically to a much narrower snout. You have to hold it and tumble MacBook Air to experience what a three pound, aerodynamically inspired notebook feels like, because it'll be a first for you. You have to imagine carrying MacBook Air everywhere in a slipcase, being able to whip it out, open it and have it ready for note taking, research, order entry, voice recording, podcasting, writing or what-have-you faster than you can jot your first word with that legal pad and pen in your bag.

You can't argue that the MacBook Air is a superthin laptop or with Apple's claims that it is the thinnest laptop on the planet. It measures just 0.16 in. at one side and 0.76 in. at the other, but the pictures floating around the Web don't do justice to how thin and light Apple has made this machine. Even Apple's current line of superthin USB and Bluetooth keyboards look fat by comparison, and lifting a MacBook Air with one hand makes you realize that it weighs about as much as a small stack of paper plates.....

But it does rely on slower processor options than the current generation of Apple laptops. In fact, it sports chips similar in speed to the original MacBook Pro configuration introduced two years ago.

But MacBook Air buyers aren't likely looking for speed alone, and it still packs more power than many other subnotebooks by using processors custom-designed for Apple by Intel Corp. Those chips - 1.6 GHz in stock configuration, 1.83 GHz on the top end - are fine for the most common tasks that users wanting an ultraportable Mac are likely to need.

Blogs worldwide are moaning about the MacBook Air's deficiencies, ranging from its slow processor, its lack of an optical drive and wired Ethernet, its lack of a user-replaceable battery, and of course, its high price. All we need now is someone predicting that it will be the death of Apple and the second coming of Microsoft, and the moaning will be complete.

Frankly, it strikes me that these people who about the feature set are a bit like the thsose who complain that Ferraris don't have enough trunk space. Apple's going to sell if not a gazillion, at least a few million MacBook Airs in its first year. Why? Because Apple has identified an untapped and very profitable market niche for the MacBook Air that will expand its market share: fashion designers and luxury hospitality companies.

I'm not one to immediately write off any product as horrible without considering what it can do, but in all honesty, I think the MacBook Air is a misplaced product.

The whole point of an ultra portable is to be just that: easy to carry and easy to use. Many companies have tried and actually pulled off some amazing designs without losing functionality or making up for it by targeting a different demographic. The MacBook Air is just really, really thin. How thin you say? Thin enough to fit in a manila folder while retaining the MacBook's form factor and shaving off 2 pounds. Essentially the scarred child of the MacBook and MacBook Pro that had a bad case of bulimia.

But what does the whole package get you? A usable Mac, one a road warrior who relies on the Internet more than local apps might fall in love with. Besides it being so thin (did I mention it was thin?), you have to make some serious compromises. Only 1 USB port, no Firewire, no Optical Drive, and worst of all, no user replaceable battery.

Apple's new MacBook Air may be just what I have been waiting for! I'm thinking hard about getting one.

.....While the MacBook Air initially knocked my socks off and I almost ordered one immediately, it actually has some serious compromises that need to be carefully explored. I started writing this article Tuesday evening to try to convince myself one way or the other.

....I currently have a Mac Pro, which is the first top-of-the-line Mac I've ever owned (at least it was when four cores were cutting edge), and I only use a laptop as a second computer. In my work, I'm sedentary, so I don't need a laptop, but I do need a second Mac for writing, testing, etc. And it's nice to have a laptop to work in areas other than my desk. My current laptop is an iBook G4 933 MHz, a tad slow for using Leopard, and limited in RAM (it only holds 640 MB). However, it does run Mac OS 9....

But I've decided to buy a MacBook Air, in part because I think this Mac is going to mark history as a landmark computer...... The MacBook Air is, in my opinion, tomorrow's computer today.

The recently unveiled Macbook Air lacks durability and certain features that business users look for, but industry experts predict it'll sell like hotcakes within the market segment for which it appears to be intended.

Simply put, the MacBook Air will attract a completely different type of customer than the typical business user....

The MacBook Air reminds me an awful lot of the original iMac. A lot of the criticism is the same. It is about connectivity. How can they drop the Ethernet port, the optical drive and just have a single USB port? It is the same sort of gamble Apple made with the iMac which had no floppy drive and no legacy serial port. The mistake came when the company embraced DVD and spurned CD-R and then RW. Apple got burned, so to speak, until combo drives appeared. That miscalculation killed the Cube outright.

The day is coming when Apple learns that creating a big splash with new product is not entirely about surprising your prospective customer base. Wowing people is a good thing. But making a product they can live with is what it's about.

Over the years, Steve Jobs and Apple's various design and engineering teams have shown a willingness to compromise the full breadth of its users' needs to make a point. Perhaps no product exemplifies that better than the MacBook Air.

How could you not applaud the guts it took to deliver a subnotebook this impossibly thin? No other subnotebook comes close. And while many reviewers and analysts are dismissing the MacBook Air as being a nearly unusable piece of art, I can't agree with that. Someday we will have the technology to make a subnotebook this thin work for most people. And it will be good. Very good. I can't blame Apple for pushing the envelope.

But that doesn't mean that Apple has succeeded in making a good product in the MacBook Air......

It's only been "available" for a little over 100 hours, and already one of the biggest teeth-gnashing side stories surrounding the MacBook Air is its built-in, non-replaceable battery.....

As it happens, this may all be a moot point, if a report from AppleInsider is to be believed. Citing "people familiar with the new-generation notebook," AI claims that the MacBook Air's battery is in fact easily replaced with nothing more than a screwdriver and the will to use it. Apparently, once overturned, the battery cover unscrews and the battery unit itself unplugs from the main board, in much the same fashion as the one in the eMate did all those years ago. (I do not have nostalgia issues.)

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