Forget the "computer expert" designation so many people have hung on me over the years. I recently blew my reputation to bits the first time I tried to open Apple's MacBook Air. Not having touched a Mac in years, I actually spent several minutes trying to open the lid -- tugging open the hinged edge instead of the free edge. (The hinges are hidden.) A Mac user opened it for me in milliseconds.

Once past my initial embarrassment, though, I could appreciate the MacBook Air -- its fine product design; its smooth software/user experience; and the attention to detail that went into every aspect of the product.

The MacBook Air is Apple's thin, lightweight laptop computer that should impact the PC world in the same way the iPhone has impacted the cellular world. It has even picked up some of the innovations Apple initially invented for the iPhone.

With a maximum width of three-quarters of an inch (only 0.16 inch at its edges), the MacBook slipped easily into my briefcase -- even with another laptop computer already in that briefcase. Weighing in at only 3 pounds, it's a breeze to carry -- easier than any other laptop computer I have ever used, making it a road warrior's dream. But the benefits go beyond extreme portability.

In most cases, computers pay the price for portability; but Apple has done a fine job of keeping the MacBook Air portable and useful. It has a full size keyboard and bright 13- inch monitor. And the real design coup was getting the power to last a long time without adding the weight of heavy batteries. Here Apple has gone to the extreme. The model that I've been carrying uses a solid state disk instead of a hard disk drive, which keeps down the weight and the power consumption. Although 64 GBytes wouldn't hold your entire music, photo and movie collection, it should be plenty big for a business person who needs to have handy his important business documents and presentations -- and perhaps even store a subset of his favorite music and a movie or two to watch on the road.

Power consumption also is kept down by backlighting the display with LEDs (light emitting diodes), which help make the screen very bright. LEDs are among the most efficient energy consumers of any lighting source, and they're much brighter than typical LED screens, making the MacBook Air experience more friendly. Even the keyboard lights up, but only when the lights in the room are dark.

Like other vendors do with their laptops, Apple has made the CD/DVD drive an external option, which lightens the load. But the MacBook Air has an additional unique capability. It can be connected to another PC to use the CD/DVD drive on that other system, allowing you to install software and files or access data without lugging around your external drive.

The case is made of a strong aluminum, which combined with the optional solid state disk makes this model very rugged (because solid state disks are less prone to damage if dropped than standard hard disk drives). The solid state disk combined with Apple's OS X operating system also means the system can wake up quickly from sleep mode.

Windows users may have some initial troubles getting used to the Apple interface, especially the standard one-button pointing device and difference in keyboard keys. But you can load Windows on the system if you need it to feel at home.

I have put together some tips and tricks for the MacBook Air and for moving from Windows to Mac, which you can find at my Web site.