I am sorely tempted to tell you to wait just because WWDC is around the corner. Not much chance that the MacBooks will be updated, but you never know..but given

I am sorely tempted to tell you to wait just because WWDC is around the corner. Not much chance that the MacBooks will be updated, but you never know..but given your timeframes it seems you don't have a choice. My two cents: black MacBook and get extra ram and battery for the same price as an air. The air is a nice machine, but if it's going to be your only computer on the trip, you might want to reconsider (taking into account your budget, length of travel, et cetera). On a sidenote, I've been sorely tempted to buy an air but I've been sidetracked by the vastly cheaper ultraportables (like the eee and hp mininote 2133) that fit in my purse. Something to go between my blackbook and my iPhone. The air doesn't quite fit that niche well and I would be pretty mad if someone stole it or I lost it, while losing an eee wouldn't be as tear-inducing. They don't run (unhacked) OS X, so I can't do some development work (iphone iphone iphone ;) ), but I could do other things on there...and they all do email and web and what have you.