The MacBook Air: Thoroughly Reviewed

Installing Mac OS X

With no built in optical drive you have to rely on the network for all CD/DVD based application and OS installs, or spend the $100 on an external drive.

With the version of OS X that ships on the MacBook Air, Apple has enabled the first unbelievably seamless network boot function I've used on a computer. Just hold down the option key when starting up and you'll get a drop down of available wireless networks. Select the one you want to join and any shared OS X discs will appear in your boot menu above.

In order to share an OS X disc for installation you need to install some software on your Mac or PC. The Remote OS X Installation software allows your Air to see and boot from a OS X install disc over the network - you can choose whether wireless or wired if you have the Air's Ethernet dongle.

Installing OS X on the MacBook Air already takes around two hours thanks to the incredibly slow disk drive, but it's even longer if you do it remotely. Over 802.11n it took around 2.5 hours for a complete install of Leopard.

Application installs work similarly; just install the remote disc software on the machine whose optical drive you're going to be leeching and the Air will handle the rest. Obviously encrypted content won't work remotely, so no store-bought DVDs will play over the network. Thankfully most OS X applications can install by simply copying over the .app container, making a network install pretty easy.

Getting video on the Air all but requires you have unencrypted content so, um, XviD rips for all. It's almost as if Apple is encouraging piracy by not including an external optical drive with the MacBook Air. Be warned however, the argument that Apple made you download a rip of Superbad probably won't hold up in your court case against the MPAA.

The remote disc stuff works fine but it's not so useful if you're on the road, which means the $100 external optical drive is probably a good investment. I've owned enough ultra portables without integrated optical drives to know that even when you think you hardly use one, you'll be frustrated by all the times you need one but don't have it.