Defect or not?

The best thing to do would be to either

a. Post a pic of the area bothering you
b. Take it to the store and compare it with the demo units

As for mine, I just closed my lid, and yes, the gap on the sides is ever so slightly larger than that on the front

 

It's nothing new, and yes, it's fairly 'normal'. The sides of the lid on my Air bulge slightly upwards from the body of the machine when closed. I can't say that it's bothered me any time in the last two years.

 

Absolutely normal, mine looks just like that. The gap is tiny and I only realised it was there after I read your post and checked.

Stewart

 

Yeah, it's not the kind of thing that's going to get worse over time or anything, and every Air you get will have it. So as long as it doesn't bother you, keep and enjoy the little bugger

 

hmm strange. Just checked mine out it is very flush. Does it bother you to the point where it's always on your mind though? That seems like it might even be better than being flush because it would be easier to open up, yes?

 

mine's flush - and even - all the way around

 

Keep in mind if you put any type of the plastic cover protector on your MBA, the tabs from the cover will make the Air not close by about a millimeter all the way around. I have a incase perforated only on the bottom. But the two hook tabs that hold the case on make the air an equal gap from not closing flush by a millimeter or so.

I use a bottom cover because I take mine into manufacturing shops for work and place the Air on work benches and other not so clean places.

 

Maybe you have a dud. I don't have the wi-fi issues (Lion itself has some, such as forgetting preferred networks occasionally, that are not MBA-specific). Anyway, if you don't like the screen then perhaps it isn't for you. Did you try changing the resolution down to 1280x800?

 

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

I have been previously informed that this is a 'tolerance' to protect the screen from the keyboard!

Totally normal.

 

+1
I also just checked this and never noticed.
Good eye OP, enjoy your MBA!

 

There is a fix for your wifi issues. Look at the recent post "wifi driving me up the wall". Or something like that

 

I just used a micrometer that measures spaces, not objects to measure the gap all around my MBA. I won't bother you with the size of the gap in all 40 places that I took measurement from but Ill just get to the good bits where I refer to the sizes as a percentage of the gap in the opening area at the front. The left hand size is the worst fitting on my air, it is 103% at the worst location. The right hand size is about 99% at the worst bit. So this proves 3 things-

I have far too much time on my hands
I am happy to use that time for a useless purpose
The gap between the top and bottom of a MBA should be fairly consistent.

 

some of you guys are really into your laptops. imagine if others u knew found out about this - they'd think you're a freak.