A new contender in the computer featherweight division has arrived!

We got our hands on the new MacBook Air 11" Late 2010, and judging from the picture on the box, it's thinner than we expected.

Technical specs on the thinnest Apple computer to date:

• 1.4GHz or 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
• 2GB DDR3 SDRAM (build to order option of 4GB)
• 64GB or 128GB Flash Storage
• NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics processor

We think this is absolutely awesome, and a couple of MacBook Air generations overdue.

Compensating for the lack of an optical drive, the box includes a USB software reinstall drive. The drive is 8 GB total, and contains both Snow Leopard and iLife '11.

The drive is bootable by holding down the "C" key on startup, just like a normal DVD restore disc.

The USB drive appears to be read-only, but we haven't tried any serious hacking to prove otherwise.

The new MacBook Air's Magsafe power adapter has the same 45W 3.1A 14.5V rating as the old model, but at a fraction of the size.

The power button is now integrated into the keyboard, instead of it being part of the upper case.

Measuring in at 11.8" wide and 7.56" deep and tapering off from .68" to .11" in height, the new MacBook Air looks a lot like a midget among dwarves compared to the old models.

A frontal view reveals the omission of the IR sensor and sleep LED.

The flip-open port door has been scrapped, and the new model manages to fit an extra USB 2.0 port along its right edge.

Apple apparently doesn't want you inside this thing. They decided to use 5-point "Pentalobe" security screws to attach the lower case.

For this teardown, we had to file a couple of flathead screwdrivers to take out the funky screws. We have since found the correct 5-point driver to fit it.

Here's a 1366x768 wallpaper version for the new MB Air owners out there. We won't tell where you got it from.

Drumroll please!

Lifting of the lower case after much struggling with those pesky case screws, we get our first look at the innards.

The inside of the MacBook Air is dominated by six individual lithium-polymer cells making up the 35 Wh battery.

The large battery assembly is held in by five T5 Torx screws.

Apple claims that the battery will last up to five hours with active use, and up to thirty days in standby.

This battery is 35 watt-hours. Previous revisions of 13" MacBook Air machines have included 37 or 40 watt-hour battery packs. Since this Air has a smaller screen and lacks a spinning hard drive, we'd expect run time to be somewhat better than earlier Airs.

After another T5 Torx screw is removed, the 64GB flash storage board can be disconnected from the logic board. It would be easily user-replaceable if you disregard the strange 5-point Torx needed to get inside.

The Mini PCI Express form factor SSD drive is a completely custom part, and will probably only be available through Apple support services, thereby putting another nail in the coffin for user-serviceability.