New MacBook Air Has USB Recovery Drive

Apple provides OSX and iLife recovery DVDs on most Macs, but doesn’t do so on the new MacBook Air since it doesn’t come with an internal DVD drive. Instead, Apple is bundling an 8GB flash drive with the software loaded on them should you need to re-install the software or run into system issues.

Both the 11.6″ and 13.3″ MacBook Air models come with the USB recovery drive.

Many notebook users rarely, if ever, use the DVD drives that come in most PCs and Macs. However, many are reluctant to give it up just in case they need to install software or watch a movie on DVD. The USB thumb drive solution is much more elegant than attaching an external DVD drive and digging up the recovery DVDs. As you can see in the above photo, it’s tiny enough to stow in your MacBook Air’s carrying case.

Some PC manufacturers no longer provide recovery media of any kind. Instead, they ask consumers to create their own discs and/or use a recovery partition on their hard drives. Asking consumers to burn their own recovery discs  does not provide the best out of box experience, but it does save a few bucks, a necessity in the competitive Windows notebook market.

The attention to detail is yet another example of how Apple pays attention to detail and how the company’s customers are willing to pay for it.

Announced on Wednseday, the new Apple MacBook Air starts at $999, matching the price of the entry-level white MacBook. The 11.6″ MacBook Air comes with 2GB of RAM, NVIDIA 320M graphics, The 13.3″ model tops out at about $1,799 with 4GB of RAM, 256GB of flash storage and a 2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor.

Apple originally introduced the MacBook Air at Macworld 2008. At the time, it was the thinnest laptop produced and the first MacBook to feature Apple’s aluminum uni-body construction.

via Engadget