Now, first off, I'd like to say I'm not a hater of Apple products (I've owned many iPods). However, when it comes to the Apple MacBook Air, I have to say my piece. The MacBook Air itself is a wonderful machine, and a marvel of modern laptop design and engineering. However, for the mass consumer, I'd say there's a couple of good reasons why you don't want the MacBook Air as your laptop. This article explains this in more detail.

Reason 1: Only 1 USB Port
The first gripe comes from the fact that the MacBook Air has only one USB port. These days, two USB ports are the minimum for any laptop. Many laptops have three ports. Hence, in my opinion, the lack of sufficient USB ports seriously undermines the chances of the MacBook Air taking over laptop sales by a large margin.

Reason 2: It Lacks An Optical Drive
The lack of an optical drive might be a problem for some users. The optical drive is now standard in most laptops - most come with a DVD writer. Although the MacBook Air does provide the option of hooking to a shard optical drive on another machine, we feel it doesn't fully make up for the lack of the drive.

Reason 3: Price, Price, Price
And as usual, price is always a limiting factor. Considering the specifications of the Apple MacBook Air, the street price of about $1800 is way above many folks' budgets. Granted, Apple does deserve a premium in price due to the marvelous design and sleekness of the MacBook Air, but we still feel it is a tad too much in terms of price.

Reason 4: No ExpressCard Slot or Card Reader
The lack of an ExpressCard slot or card reader would deter many digital photography enthusiasts. Many laptops these days come with card readers integrated into the machine. I guess a workaround here is to capture images from your SD card via an external USB card reader, but to have that integrated would have been nice.

Reason 5: Low Battery Life
The Apple MacBook Air has been reported to run for only about 3 hours when using Windows Vista. Now that is pretty short. It'd cause problems for business travelers who need constant access to their files via the laptop. We suspect many of these folks would prefer the Lenovo ThinkPad X61 instead.

Conclusion
And there you have it. 5 reasons why one would not want to buy the Apple MacBook Air. I guess it comes down to personal choice - I mean, the MacBook Air has its merits. For example it is the thinnest laptop, has gorgeous looks, a gesture -enabled touchpad and a full-sized keyboard. In the end, what matters is the stuff you consider important in a laptop and your purchase decision will ultimately depend on that. So until next time, happy computing!