This is the MacBook Air, the latest laptop computer from Apple announced today at Macworld 2008 in San Francisco.

You can read the full specifications list for information about processor, memory, storage, graphics, networking, etc.

But take a moment to gaze upon a computing device that is the apogee of form and function, something that makes you covet the gizmo with unbridled desire, even if all you have to go on are some gorgeous photos and a pretty good video walkthrough.

What you can’t get from this static photo is the sense of amazement at a device so thin.

I thought my Sony Vaio was thin, but this is what thin means.

Now this is what could make me a Mac convert. Well, a Mac user at least.

Yes, a thing of beauty indeed.

I’ve acquired these phones over the past four months. From left - Nokia N95 8GB; 3 Skypephone; O2 Cocoon; Cubic Telecom Personal.

The odd one out is the Nokia - that’s my primary phone, the one that comes with my Vodafone deal. I have the other three on loan in order to play with them and perhaps write about them.

I’ve written about the O2 Cocoon but from a design and branding perspective, not a user review.

The phone I’ve written the most about is the 3 Skypephone - actual reviews.

I’ve not yet written a word about the Cubic Telecom phone, received when in Ireland last September, other than referenced in an FIR Interview with Conor O’Neill. I’m still having trouble figuring this phone out in terms of how to properly set it up. It can’t be that difficult really, but it certainly tests my patience.

As for the Nokia, I know more about this phone than any of the others simply because it’s the one I use intensively every day. The only post I’ve written so far is about connecting the phone to a TV to watch a movie. Oh, and updating the firmware.

So I’m wondering when I will write more about these devices. Maybe better still, when I can persuade someone else in the UK to be a guest reviewer and write a review that I’ll post here.

I can take of the Nokia. Any offers on any of the other three, especially the O2 Cocoon and Cubic Telecom? No payment but you’ll be bathed in reviewer glory

I said at the time that this little gadget was great, just what I needed. Unfortunately, the reality turned out quite different.

I have no complaints with the AudioDream from a recording quality point of view - it is terrific. But what a performance to actually make a recording! It really is very small and very light, and I kept dropping it. Mainly, though, setting it up to do a recording was just a major pain. Plugging in the microphone, cables everywhere, tiny buttons on the gadget… it just wasn’t worth the headaches.

So last week on a trip to London, I bought an iRiver IFP-790 in the duty-free shop at Schiphol airport. On half price offer so how could I resist Main reason, though, was that this was the brand I wanted to get in the first place but could not find an iRiver anywhere at the time.

Now this is the gadget for easy mobile voice recording, without question. While this particular iRiver model doesn’t have the flash memory storage capacity of the Packard Bell - 256Mb versus 1Gb - it’s ample for what I need. It doesn’t have a rechargable li-ion battery like the AudioDream - it takes a single AA battery which seems to last forever.

Using it is simplicity itself - you just turn it on and start speaking, that’s it. It’s built-in microphone is amazing for the quality of recording you can do. You can also connect an external microphone if you wish. I’m especially impressed with the options you can choose for setting up your MP3 recording - selecting bit rate, sample rate, automatic gain control, etc (see the full specifications). And unlike the AudioDream, the iRiver records directly in real-time MP3 format which is what you want for podcasts. It can also record in OGG Vorbis and WMA.

It has other superb features, too, like a built-in FM radio. I’m just using it for voice recording at the moment. One other thing - it supports ID3 tags, crucial for podcasts. It comes with software for Windows that makes it so easy to transfer recordings to your PC. And its firmware is upgradeable.

Now I can fully understand why nearly every other podcaster I know has an iRiver.

While Packard Bell is not a brand I have a load of confidence in, to be frank (a view based on very poor experiences some years ago with a desktop PC), they have a potential winner with this little gadget.

The impressive spec includes 1Gb of flash memory, rechargeable lithium-ion battery, colour LCD display, plays WMA and MP3 files, supports ID3 tags, has voice recording capability in WAV file format and a line-in socket for a microphone. The whole thing is about a third smaller in size than a credit card (thicker, of course: it’s about a quarter-inch thick) and weighs just 30 grams.

What I wanted such a device for was to record conversations for the podcasts Shel and I do in For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report. There are a few conferences coming up during the next few months that I’ll be presenting at or otherwise participating in, with opportunities for conversations with some interesting people.

Today, I bought an external microphone, and a very neat one at that. It’s an Eagle G157B clip-on (or desktop standing) stereo mike that comes with a powered sound amplifier (which is actually bigger than the AudioDream), that uses one AA battery, to help capture the best-quality sound. I think it does that - check the short test recording I made (MP3, 03:33, 1.5Mb). Note: this isn’t a podcast, just an MP3 file. It would be a podcast if it were available via RSS, but it’s not.

Now, voice recording on the AudioDream is in WAV format only, so how did I get an MP3 file? Quite easy, actually, using a method that’s simple and straightforward.

Once I’d done the test recording, I connected the AudioDream to the PC via the supplied USB cable to copy the WAV file to the PC. Then I opened that file in Audacity, the free cross-platform sound editor (I have the Windows version) which enables me to save the WAV file in MP3 format.

I could also have manipulated the WAV file if I’d wanted to. Perhaps enhance the quality, or strip out any extraneous noise, add a fade, etc. But for this test, I just saved it as an MP3.

While this certainly isn’t a studio-quality or professional sound recording, I think this set up will do just fine for recording conversations for our podcasts.

Incidentally, the AudioDream makes an excellent backup device for files. It’s one-gig capacity is pretty huge, really. It’s by no means the simplest device to use for managing music files - no simple synchronization here with iTunes, for example, which automatically updates a device as it does with an iPod.

No, with the AudioDream, you get the device and a USB cable (plus headphones, carry case, etc). When you connect it to your PC, Windows see it straightaway as an external drive. So you’d access it to copy and delete files just as you would with any drive. Getting music on to it means manually copying the music files.

I’ll likely be using it more for file storage. I don’t need this to play music as I have my iPod Mini!

Keeping up with what’s going on isn’t too difficult.

There’s CeBIT News, the show’s official daily newspaper. Gizmodo is a good place to frequently check on new gadgets, mostly mobile devices. They are blogging commentaries from the show. Plenty of ongoing media reporting.

There’s a great pre-show summary from eWeek on some of the product announcements expected at the show. Some highlights (see the eWeek story for additional show commentary):

• Three new DVD recorders from Hitachi with up to 250GB capacity and circuitry that can recognize (and skip) commercials.
• From Intel, “the world’s smallest PC,” designed to fit into a car radio slot, able to function as your car’s navigation, communication, entertainment and switching center
• NEC is bringing the first HD-DVD drive, with capacities of up to 60GB, and a prototype of “the world’s first PC drive for playing back HD-DVDs, DVDs and CDs.”
• Panasonic will show what it says is the world’s largest mass-produced plasma display (about 65-inches diagonally) and a compact digital camcorder with 30x optical zoom. Sharp will have an LCD TV of similar size, which Sharp says is the world’s biggest LCD television, along with its BD-HD100, the first Blu-ray disc recorder with hard drive and DVD.
• In the headset arena, Plantronics’s new CS60-USB is, according to Plantronics, the world’s first wireless USB headset; the DECT technology has a roaming range of up to 300 feet from the user’s computer, and the rechargeable battery should be good for up to nine hours of talk time. Siemens says it’s got the first VOIP cordless DECT telephone; using Skype software, it supports several of the latest Siemens Gigaset cordless phones, and you can even listen to Internet radio using it.
• A wireless mobile hard drive, with battery, from Data Storage Institute.
• A combo VOIP phone and USB flash drive (64MB-4GB) from Inter-Active Media Pte. Ltd.
• The PCMCIA (trade association for PC cards) has a new tech standard “designed to be faster and cheaper than its predecessors,” intended as a replacement for CardBus, to become the preferred solution for users of add-ins.
• Burn DVDs at 16x-two hours of video written in six minutes-with Must Tech Co’s new 16x DVD+/-R.
• Watch (and record) broadcast TV on your notebook, using the TV-DVB USB stick, an external TV tuner from Avermedia Technologies

On Friday morning, Shel and I showed up at the Apple store in Walnut Creek to get one. I was after the 1-gig model.

But, out of stock. At least 4 weeks back order, the salesman told me. High demand everywhere.

So I bought a silver iPod Mini instead.

What a gorgeous gadget! About the same size as a pack of Marlboro Lights but half as thick, 4 gigs of storage on its hard drive (unlike the Shuffle which has flash memory), LCD screen with backlight, click wheel for navigation, weighs just over 100 grams (full specs).

Setting it up with a Windows PC was pretty easy, although getting it to work was quite tricky and required some fiddling which would present problems and concerns to someone who isn’t too familiar with trying out workarounds.

And one major thing - on a Windows PC, if you don’t have a Firewire port, you must have a USB 2.0 port. It will not work if you have only a USB 1.1 port. So if you don’t have a very recent desktop or laptop (built within the past six months or so) that comes with USB 2.0 ports, you’ll need either an add-in card (for desktop) or something like a USB 2.0 PC card (laptop) which I have. Works just fine connected to that.

While following the instructions in the setup guide was straightforward - install the iPod and iTunes software from the included CD and then connect the iPod - what happened was a continual warning on the iPod screen not to disconnect it. Nothing else happened: iTunes didn’t recognize it and the iPod software installer just said it couldn’t install the software as ‘another process had locked it’ (one of those really helpful Windows alert messages).

After delving into the online help on the Apple site, I finally just disconnected it (after listening carefully and not hearing any hard disk sound) and rebooted the PC. Then I visited Apple again and downloaded the latest iTunes there plus iPod Mini software, even though the iPod software I had reported it was the latest version. Reinstalled iTunes and the iPod software and went through the setup process again.

This time, the iPod software did install with the message on-screen saying I needed to connect the iPod to a power outlet so that the firmware could be upgraded. Even though I bought the device just two days ago, developments happen fast with hardware and software. So I did that and connected it to the PC again.

And this time, iTunes opened and recognized the iPod. It then proceeded to sync the music I already had on the PC plus the podcasts I had as well.

And what a listening delight! The interview podcasts Shel and I recorded in Napa with Fergus Burns and Jeremy Wright sound just perfect. Next up - setting up the ipodder software so that podcasts will automatically download and synchronize on the iPod into a playlist.

Oh, and the iPod Mini is also pretty good for listening to music
(A quick word on pricing. The price differential US/Europe is astounding. I paid $269.54 including 8.25% sales tax. Compare that to Apple’s pricing here in The Netherlands: €269.00 including 19% VAT. That’s the equivalent of $350 at the latest euro/dollar exchange rate.)

Sometimes when Skype rings we scramble to find the headset in time to answer the call. This wouldn’t happen with Actiontec’s Internet Phone Wizard. It connects a regular phone to a computer for making, and receiving calls using Skype. The box channels the sound through the phone instead of the computer speakers and mic. There’s also some echo-cancellation technology that enhances the quality of the call.

Engadget | Make Skype calls using your regular phone

Eric has a brilliant suggestion for how to use an iPod Shuffle in the podcasting context that more than balances the negative views expressed yesterday by Doc Searls and Adam Curry that I posted commentary about on my main blog - promo giveaways as part of promoting a podcast and/or evangelizing it.

Further comment on main blog later.