Stevenote absorbed, specs examined, and prices boggled at, and I’m thinking that a MacBook Air is not likely to be on my shopping list in the near future.

I don’t deny it looks wonderful, and I applaud Apple for having the courage to ditch the optical drive - something I’ve been hoping they’d do for years. I’m also very excited about the multi-touch trackpad, a feature I expect to see on future MacBooks and MacBook Pros too. I always suspected that multi-touch was too good to restrict to iPods and iPhones, and like a lot of others I thought it would appear on notebook machines in this form. I’d love to have a play with it. Likewise the Remote Disc technology, which is a stroke of genius.

But there’s a lot I’m not keen on. One USB port, for starters. I know they want to keep things small, but when you need to plug shit in, you often need to plug more than one thing in at once. The Micro-DVI port handles a lot of outputs, but will require yet another adapter to make it talk to all your existing, hopelessly old-fashioned, peripherals.

Most of all, I’m offended by the tightly sealed aluminium enclosure. It looks great, but it’s sealed and you can’t get inside it. Apple generously offers the chance to use solid state storage, but not via a slot into which you stick the card of your choice, the one you can afford. Either you shell out 600 pounds for Apple’s 64GB SSD card, or you don’t; that’s the sum of choice available to you. I’m not kidding about the 600 pounds. It’s 639, to be precise.

I think, on current evidence, I’d prefer an Eee. It’s smaller, lighter, more flexible and adaptable, and better value. It’s happy for you to use whatever solid state storage takes your fancy, USB stick or SD card, at capacities and prices that suit you.