More details on the MacBook Air

What's tiny, silver and covered in hype? Why, the MacBook Air, of course! Just yesterday you saw it in the flesh for the first time. Today, we've got a few more details on the little unit for you--some of which are good and some of which are bad.

• It's sealed like an iPhone: Anyone who's tried to replace a hard drive in a MacBook Pro before knows that Apple's laptops are generally sealed up pretty tight. But the MacBook Air takes this idea to an iPod/iPhone-like extreme: the MacBook Air is completely sealed and none of its components are user replaceable or upgradeable. That means you can't add more RAM. You can't swap in a new hard drive. You can't even replace the battery yourself. Believe it or not, you'll have to pay Apple $129 for a battery replacement once your battery dies (though installation is free).
• The MacBook Air peripherals, the $99 external SuperDrive and $29 USB Ethernet adaptor, will ship in 2-3 weeks, just like the machine itself.
• The MacBook Air is tiny: Seriously, this thing is nearly half the thickness of the Eee PC. Yikes!
• Remote Disk, the optical drive-sharing applet, will require you to pop a DVD into the machine with the host drive prior to use. 

For more on the MacBook Air:
- see this Gizmodo hands-on
- this article on peripherals
- these size comparisons
- and this Engadget article on the battery replacement program