Karen - they also sell a USB to Ethernet adapter that you can use to plug in if you need Ethernet capability.

The lack of Firewire is strange, considering it's an Apple standard. This means that this laptop can't be placed in Target Disk mode which allows the laptop to act as an external hard drive (useful in installing OSes or copying files from one computer to another quickly). I'm assuming that the HD sizes will get bigger with time - my current Macbook uses a 80 GB HD which gets me by but I've also crammed a lot of music and photos in it. If I was downloading a lot of movie rentals from iTunes and loading them on the HD to watch on a flight, I might be running out of space quickly. Battery life is impressive (claimed 5 hours) but having to bring the laptop back to Apple to swap out the battery is not. This seems to be following in the trend of recent Apple hardware (iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch) and I think generally a bad idea.

As Gil said, there are certainly some compromises with this design. I could live without having an onboard optical drive but would need a larger HD to make up for it. Jump drives (USB drives) are cheap though and take up less room than CDs do if you're looking to have more security regarding your pictures and backing them up. :)

Masaki