The Macbook Air is an extremely impressive machine, given that it manages such an excellent form factor without having to skimp on power. The fact that it gets the CPU up to 2.13Ghz and uses the 9400 is really fantastic. The amount of power in this tiny package is something that I haven't seen in any other notebook of its size. Yes, it needs more RAM, but with nothing else even in the same performance/size class, I would say something else is holding it back...
The Air's single USB port has to be an ethernet adapter, an external superdrive, an external hard drive, an external SD card reader, and god forbid if you need anything else. Now you can go without some of those things, but this is far from convenient. And if an ultraportable isn't convenient, what is it?
Let's compare to the Latitude Z, another ultrathin in the same ultrahigh price range. At nearly 16", it's got a lot more room to work with, but the solution for the ethernet jack is inspired. Add to that two USB ports, one of which also functions as eSATA, displayport and a headphone jack, I'd say that's a very good combination. Work in an SD card reader, and it would be perfect.
That many ports is simply inconceivable on the Macbook Air, which will be lucky to get a second USB port. In my opinion, that just doesn't cut it.
The Air's single USB port has to be an ethernet adapter, an external superdrive, an external hard drive, an external SD card reader, and god forbid if you need anything else. Now you can go without some of those things, but this is far from convenient. And if an ultraportable isn't convenient, what is it?
Let's compare to the Latitude Z, another ultrathin in the same ultrahigh price range. At nearly 16", it's got a lot more room to work with, but the solution for the ethernet jack is inspired. Add to that two USB ports, one of which also functions as eSATA, displayport and a headphone jack, I'd say that's a very good combination. Work in an SD card reader, and it would be perfect.
That many ports is simply inconceivable on the Macbook Air, which will be lucky to get a second USB port. In my opinion, that just doesn't cut it.