First Look at the MacBook Air

[ddrueckhammer]

Yep, i'm always amazed at people these days thinking wi-fi is the be all end all...

For students at most major universities, fast Wifi is almost everywhere. For business travelers it is pretty darn accessible as well.

As a student, the Macbook Air looks pretty good to me. I sold my 12" Powerbook because I never took it to any classes with me. It was as big and heavy as the other 2-3 textbooks and notebooks I carry with me on a daily basis and added a lot of bulk to my bag. This is a serious improvement in size and form factor.

I could see the MBA, a Time Capsule (for extra storage in the dorm), an iPod (lets face it 80 Gb will get filled up pretty quickly when ripping music and movies), and maybe a flash drive being a pretty good solution for a student on the go.

If you need a dedicated video card or more Ram to edit movies, photos, etc. get this in conjunction with an iMac, Mac Pro, or PC.

Finally, if you want to play games there is no ultra-portable that will work for you anyway. Get an Xbox 360 or Wii and be happy that you won't be spending endless money upgrading every six months just to play the latest FPS. Spend the savings on beer and women instead.

Cost wise, this shouldn't be a problem for the target audience, which I assume is students, sales people, and execs who aren't tied to an exchange server. Tuition at many public Tier 1 universities costs double what this costs per semester and this is a tool that many can justify purchasing. For office documents, light media, and internet on the go it is perfect. Tons of students at my school already have iPhones which costs more once the subscription fees are added in.

Personally, I'm tempted to wait until next year and see if the SSD upgrade gets a price-cut to $300-$500 more...When this thing is all solid state in 2-3 years it will be a phenomenal laptop. Hard drives are the most common thing to fail after all...

 

[Bababasjd]

This notebook is a great example to show how stupid Americans are. Everyone thinks Wal-mart is really cheap but there is hidden costs, they underpay workers, they get large subsides from government over 1 billion a year, and and this with a big asterick!! THEY USE TAX DOLLARS TO MAKE UP FOR THE CHEAP ITEM sooo...Wal-mart is not any cheaper than a regualr shop. You are like wtf are you talking about, it is just like the macbook air. Yea it is really slim and all, but it is lacking all of these features! When you realize the added weight is really the same once you tug a long all of the extra cables, carrying case (it is fragile) and DO NOT FORGET the OPTICAL DRIVE. All in all it is prbably less then a pound and when the current ASUS notebook, sell for 500 less, and have dedicated GPU, with 2.6 core 2 duo, 13.3 LED, Nice design, and dual layer dvd. Yea it is thicker, but not by that much the whole laptop is .867 inches thick. I would rather have that than a piece of garbage that is not acceptable even 7 years ago, but wait it is .1 inches thick. This wont sell, only mac fans on this forum will. You will see! It is really simple economics, well actually any high school teacher can tell you that out of the four marketing areas 1) Practical 2) Skeptics 3) Belongers 4) Strivers this macbook air does not fit any one of them. Yea IM gogin to shelve out 3 grand with a notebook with 60 hd, and 1.8 core duo ohh wait the cd rom is optional! WHAT A BARGIN!!!!!!! I WANT 5

 

[MattInOz]

So your saying this is the 30th anniversary version of the 20th anniversary Mac.

And we know how well that one sold.

The Initials say it all MBA.

 

[riverfreak]

First, to much space around screen.

Either have a bigger screen, or reduce the trimming around it to hug the 13 inch monitor. This reminds me of the 'fat' flat displays that were out in plastic version before they got a trim in the aluminum version.

People wanted a smaller footprint, and it could have happened if they just trimmed it a bit. (I am writing this on my powerbook G4 that has a nice thin trim around the monitor. I want the monitor not bulk on the side...especially if its portable.)

And how do I get my info off of my firewire DVD drive...oh, come on Apple, you pushed the fire wire standard...I wonder if its powerful enough to do any form of video editing, if so, firewire...firewire...firewire...ooops, forgot about that.

If it is truly a wireless machine that they claim it to be, they should have dumped the USB along with it.

Peace

dAlen

not to mention I dont have anything that is wireless...not even a cellphone.
So I suppose I am still waiting for the macbook pro updates.

What is the big deal about 3lbs vs. 5lbs...not that much of a difference...not really.

3lbs and 5lbs? You don't travel much, do you?

 

[NYCMacFan]

Compare Apple with a 6-7 year old Sharp and Dell D420 from 2007

Here is my old iBook G4 12inch. Its with:

An old Sharp PC-UM20 (2.89lbs with a 12inch non-widescreen - but hey its from 2002. Apple, this is all you could accomplish in 6 years!)

Also have pics of a Dell D420 (12inch widescreen and 3.1lbs, smaller footprint). This is where you can see that Apple trumps Dell's offerng (though not Panasonic or Toshiba).

 

[wnurse]

I don't know why everyone is moaning???? Apple have released a sexy ultraportable.... it may not be as powerful as an MBP but that's not the point.... it's not targeted at being a video editing powerhouse.... it's a super portable mac with enough power and battery life to do everyday stuff with. Aside from the crazy UK price, I personally think it's a good effort from Apple.

Most apple users are accustomed to bragging about the capabilities of their machines, not just looks. This is an expensive toy. A really expensive toy. There are lots of stuff that looks nice that i wouldn't buy. BTW, this this is not ultraportable. It's big (thin but big)

 

[macenforcer]

LOL. All you people arguing in favor of the mba let me put it to you this way.

If apple came out with a new bottom half section to replace your current macbooks bottom section and it cost $700 and you would have to take out your optical drive, ports, downgrade your cpu and take out one of your ram slots but it would make your macbook 1/4 " thinner would you buy it? NO. Nobody in their right mind would. So you see, the mba sucks and any argument against that fact is fanboyism.

 

[NYCMacFan]

LOL. All you people arguing in favor of the mba let me put it to you this way.

If apple came out with a new bottom half section to replace your current macbooks bottom section and it cost $700 and you would have to take out your optical drive, ports, downgrade your cpu and take out one of your ram slots but it would make your macbook 1/4 " thinner would you buy it? NO. Nobody in their right mind would. So you see, the mba sucks and any argument against that fact is fanboyism.

Well you do get 40% reduction in weight. I'd tell many to buy immediately were it 50% and it were 1/2inch to an 1inch narrower with the same screen (could have been done if you looked at the pictures).

Not sure going from 2.0htz to 1.6 or 1.8 is a real performance decrease. You tell me what the performance difference would have been...

 

[GregA]

It doesn't appeal to students because it is too pricey and no optical drive. Probably not durable enough for a student either.

It doesn't fit a majority of users who want an inexpensive laptop.

It doesn't fit a lot of business professionals because it doesn't do WAN networking through a cell phone service. Lacks HD storage and really isn't ultra-portable because of large footprint.

It doesn't fit pros because it is too underpowered and too limited.


So who does it fit.

Novice computer users with too much disposable income.
The elite fashion conscious who demand style over function and finance.
I believe that is the very small market that is left.

I have a 15" MBP and am very happy with it. I watch DVDs on it, store a lot of data, edit movies.... it's the right machine for me.

My mother has an older 15" MBP and edits movies and stores copious amounts of pictures.... it's the right machine for her.

My father is semi retired... and I'm wondering whether it's a good fit for him. He has a PowerBook 15" (60 or 80GB HD??). He rarely uses the DVD, just for backing up. He puts it onto his desk and plugs in his speakers and USB printer... and he complains his PB is a little bulky when travelling. This machine MIGHT be perfect for him.

The downsides are
1) 80GB! It's hard to live within 80GB. If he could walk into the house and have access to 500GB of photos & music etc, and sync a small subset of those to his MB-air for when he is away, that'd be fine. But he can't.
2) He's retired... he doesn't need to move his computer as much anymore.

I'll be interested to hear what he says. The computer does have a place. It's slightly cheaper than a MBP and significantly lighter... and it does have most of the speed etc of its bigger brothers. It all depends on your needs.

 

[thefourthpope]

I'll be a fanboy

cuz I think it looks freaking great!! It won't replace any of their current offerings, but the next time I get a laptop, maybe this summer, my hour commute by bicycle makes me crave this tiny thing.

 

[CaptainCaveMann]

This notebook is a great example to show how stupid Americans are. Everyone thinks Wal-mart is really cheap but there is hidden costs, they underpay workers, they get large subsides from government over 1 billion a year, and and this with a big asterick!! THEY USE TAX DOLLARS TO MAKE UP FOR THE CHEAP ITEM sooo...Wal-mart is not any cheaper than a regualr shop. You are like wtf are you talking about, it is just like the macbook air. Yea it is really slim and all, but it is lacking all of these features! When you realize the added weight is really the same once you tug a long all of the extra cables, carrying case (it is fragile) and DO NOT FORGET the OPTICAL DRIVE. All in all it is prbably less then a pound and when the current ASUS notebook, sell for 500 less, and have dedicated GPU, with 2.6 core 2 duo, 13.3 LED, Nice design, and dual layer dvd. Yea it is thicker, but not by that much the whole laptop is .867 inches thick. I would rather have that than a piece of garbage that is not acceptable even 7 years ago, but wait it is .1 inches thick. This wont sell, only mac fans on this forum will. You will see! It is really simple economics, well actually any high school teacher can tell you that out of the four marketing areas 1) Practical 2) Skeptics 3) Belongers 4) Strivers this macbook air does not fit any one of them. Yea IM gogin to shelve out 3 grand with a notebook with 60 hd, and 1.8 core duo ohh wait the cd rom is optional! WHAT A BARGIN!!!!!!! I WANT 5

Alright who let Kim Jong-il in here? Before you go attacking Americans, as we all know you love to do. Just like your father did during the Cold War, you may want to stop relating wal-mart to "you americans". Not everyone in America shops at Wal-Mart, and not everyone will buy the macbook air. Get off your high horse.

 

[willdenow]

Originally posted by Matticus008 --- The ultraportable market is a small one, so in order to be profitable, there has to be a strong Apple "fashion" angle to increase the market. The dimensions do exactly that, as do the clean lines with no hatches and panels (apart from the USB/DVI door). It's light and generated a stir of tech-lust in just a few hours...news of its release made it to people in the office that don't follow these things. They may not buy one, but it's already entered the public consciousness, very similar to the iPhone with much less hype beforehand.---


I know you're having a poke at us when you imply that Apple charges the prices it does in order to be "profitable." Apple has the highest margins of any computer retailer bar none. Apple's margins run from 40% to 65% depending on product. This is roughly twice and in some cases three times the margin of other computer resellers. Apple decided a long time ago that it wanted to be the Mercedes or BMW of computer manufactures. This is all well and good, but the high sticker price of the Macbook Air is all about maintaining high margins, not because the engineering costs so much. In fact, many of Apple's suppliers eat substantial margin just to be able to have that Apple cachet attached to their product. ASUS makes Apple's laptops at virtually profit because it attracts other laptop makers. Similarly, Intel considerable discounts the cost of processors for the privilege of being Apple's only processor customer. Intel sells the octocore Xeons at a slight loss over manufacturing because of the value of the free advertising that goes along with having Apple as its exclusive customer. Similarly, it is highly unlikely that Apple paid Intel anything more than a token amount for the redesign of the core 2 Merom chips that go in the Macbook Air.

I'm all for profit and free enterprise. Apple should make as much as people are willing to pay. It is misleading however to suggest that Apple would be unable to compete in the computer market if its margins were any lower. Apple could slash its prices across the board 20% and still bring home more profit per dollar of cost than Dell, IBM or HP.

 

[badNameErr]

So you see, the mba sucks and any argument against that fact is fanboyism.

lol. I am intrigued by your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

 

[ddrueckhammer]

1) 80GB! It's hard to live within 80GB. If he could walk into the house and have access to 500GB of photos & music etc, and sync a small subset of those to his MB-air for when he is away, that'd be fine. But he can't.

Why can't he? Just buy one of those $300 network storage drives they released today...I'm sure they can be partitioned and not just used as a backup device...802.11n should be fast enough to stream music, pictures, and movies to your laptop at home...If all of your big libraries live on shares on your network storage device, you don't use your media editing etc, and you have an iPod for on the go, why do you need a big hard drive in your laptop?

I know, its just money right... But seriously, I have a friend who just told me he was going to spend $3000 on a home theater system and in the same breath said he couldn't afford more than $600 for a computer... Personally, I would spend more on the computer as I would use it far more on a daily basis than any sound system and there are greater levels of diminishing returns on A/V equipment anyway. Still, different strokes, I guess...

 

[CaptainCaveMann]

The only thing this macbook air did for me, was make the MBP look much much better. After careful thought throughout this evening, I'm probably gonna buy a MBP on the next update. So actually, thanks Apple! You now made my decision easier due to your lackluster "ultra" portable, and outrageous price point.

 

[giganten]

Who is singing in the MB Air ad and what is the name on the song?

 

[sanford]

That's one beautiful laptop. You can't deny that....

Oh it looks cool, alright. But everybody keeps saying how small and light it is. Man, it's huge and heavy, you know, for an iPhone with more storage and no touch screen.

 

[Viper2005]

I agree with you (and Steve) that something the size of the TZ isn't the answer. I have real work to do too.

But like many of us, I simply want a modern Intel Mac laptop with a comparable footprint to our old iBooks/PB12s. Make it only slightly bigger than a full-size keyboard, and minimize the width of the bezel around the display. Job done.

Make it light too and I'll take a dozen.

The TZ is small enough to fit into most hotel room safes. Since I travel lots, often like to leave my TZ in a room safe, rather than leaving it in my bag.
I was hoping to replace my TZ with the ultrathin Macbook but this one has too big a footprint for me.

 

[shigzeo]

You know that a computer after five years no matter the starting spec will feel slow and ill-equipped. A slightly underspeced home system will sound just as good years later and even be ready for an upgrade whereas the shiny computer will be collecting complaints as fast as dust. No matter your friends take on the matter differs from yours - for him/her it is much more well worthwhile

Why can't he? Just buy one of those $300 network storage drives they released today...I'm sure they can be partitioned and not just used as a backup device...802.11n should be fast enough to stream music, pictures, and movies to your laptop at home...If all of your big libraries live on shares on your network storage device, you don't use your media editing etc, and you have an iPod for on the go, why do you need a big hard drive in your laptop?

I know, its just money right... But seriously, I have a friend who just told me he was going to spend $3000 on a home theater system and in the same breath said he couldn't afford more than $600 for a computer... Personally, I would spend more on the computer as I would use it far more on a daily basis than any sound system and there are greater levels of diminishing returns on A/V equipment anyway. Still, different strokes, I guess...

 

[dthizz]

I'm a high school senior and going to college this upcoming fall. I won't be purchasing until this summer (student discount please!), but I was wondering if i could get some input.

Do you think an MBA or MBP would fit better?

I would use it for basic school work, and would use it as my primary computer. Portability is really important to me, and I would not be using the laptop for any graphics-demanding gaming and little or no professional design work.

With the MBA I would be looking to supplement it with a new external hard drive, but would not get the external optical drive, rather hoping that my roommate would have an optical drive.

Primary concerns:
Price: Does MBA+External Hard Drive> MBP in price, or vice versa
Portability: As a student who will be carrying it everywhere, how much of a difference will it make?
Longevity: MBA's durability? and also, Will the MBA last me 4 years in college?

Thanks!
(PC user looking to make the switch)

 

[willdenow]

For students at most major universities, fast Wifi is almost everywhere. For business travelers it is pretty darn accessible as well.

As a student, the Macbook Air looks pretty good to me. I sold my 12" Powerbook because I never took it to any classes with me. It was as big and heavy as the other 2-3 textbooks and notebooks I carry with me on a daily basis and added a lot of bulk to my bag. This is a serious improvement in size and form factor.

I could see the MBA, a Time Capsule (for extra storage in the dorm), an iPod (lets face it 80 Gb will get filled up pretty quickly when ripping music and movies), and maybe a flash drive being a pretty good solution for a student on the go.

If you need a dedicated video card or more Ram to edit movies, photos, etc. get this in conjunction with an iMac, Mac Pro, or PC.

Finally, if you want to play games there is no ultra-portable that will work for you anyway. Get an Xbox 360 or Wii and be happy that you won't be spending endless money upgrading every six months just to play the latest FPS. Spend the savings on beer and women instead.

Cost wise, this shouldn't be a problem for the target audience, which I assume is students, sales people, and execs who aren't tied to an exchange server. Tuition at many public Tier 1 universities costs double what this costs per semester and this is a tool that many can justify purchasing. For office documents, light media, and internet on the go it is perfect. Tons of students at my school already have iPhones which costs more once the subscription fees are added in.

Personally, I'm tempted to wait until next year and see if the SSD upgrade gets a price-cut to $300-$500 more...When this thing is all solid state in 2-3 years it will be a phenomenal laptop. Hard drives are the most common thing to fail after all...

Cost certainly isn't a factor for corporate executives and business high muckymucks, but I wonder whether you haven't had a very sheltered existence to thin k that the cost of an MBA is reasonable in as much as you'll at least need an extra gaming console and a desktop computer of some sort. I attended the Ph.D. program at Berkeley and lived in San Francisco, so I know how much it can cost to attend a "Tier One" institution. Plenty of my students came from modest backgrounds, were on scholarship, and had to make every penny count. The 80% price deltas between a Macbook and MBA is not trivial and could represent a semester's worth of recreational expenditure. Unless you are lucky enough to grow up in Grosse Point, Sea Cliff, Brentwood, Scarsdale, Scottsdale, etc., I highly doubt many college students will be purchasing an MBA.

 

[Legacy]

The MacBook Pro entry model is only £100 more than the MacBook Air (£70 more when bought with the education discount!). The price has to come down here..it should have been priced at the old powerbook G4 which I think was £1099, bringing it under £1000 for education customers and that would work a treat for people considering to buy it. At this pricepoint its far too expensive, heck the SSD version is over 2G's!

 

[Legacy]

I'm a high school senior and going to college this upcoming fall. I won't be purchasing until this summer (student discount please!), but I was wondering if i could get some input.

Do you think an MBA or MBP would fit better?

I would use it for basic school work, and would use it as my primary computer. Portability is really important to me, and I would not be using the laptop for any graphics-demanding gaming and little or no professional design work.

With the MBA I would be looking to supplement it with a new external hard drive, but would not get the external optical drive, rather hoping that my roommate would have an optical drive.

Primary concerns:
Price: Does MBA+External Hard Drive> MBP in price, or vice versa
Portability: As a student who will be carrying it everywhere, how much of a difference will it make?
Longevity: MBA's durability? and also, Will the MBA last me 4 years in college?

Thanks!
(PC user looking to make the switch)

If portability is the most important thing to you, go for the MacBook original in white. Only consider the MacBook Air if you are going to carry it around and would appreciate the less weight it has. The MacBook is far cheaper and faster and would last you longer. IMHO forget the Air and Pro and go MacBook, its cheap, its the original iBook supercharged with Intel Core 2 Duo technology!

 

[ddrueckhammer]

You know that a computer after five years no matter the starting spec will feel slow and ill-equipped. A slightly underspeced home system will sound just as good years later and even be ready for an upgrade whereas the shiny computer will be collecting complaints as fast as dust. No matter your friends take on the matter differs from yours - for him/her it is much more well worthwhile

Yeah but $3000 is a bit excessive for a home theater system and for most people $600 is even probably overkill... The difference to me is that I use my computer to get work done which can make me money. I can't do this with a home theater system. Besides all this, I sell my Macs every 2 to 3 years and get much of their value back which I then reinvest in a new Mac. One of the best things about Macs are their high resale values. I was never so happy as to sell my 12" Powerbook for $400 less than what I paid for it almost 3 years later. (of course that was a unique situation since Apple took forever to upgrade the later 12" Powerbooks)

 

[sanford]

Did you read the post you were responding to? He pointed out, correctly, that there are many people who will highly value a 40% weight reduction. And then there's the styling. The Air, frankly, makes a MacBook (or any other laptop on earth) look dowdy.

Many people on this forum care about performance first. But the general consumer doesn't really notice. The combination of 2GB RAM and the slow disk will work fine for the target market of the $1800 Air. The (rich) geeks who want an Air will all go with the SSD version.

The general consumer, for a laptop with roughly this size display but a lot more in the feature list, spends about $800, max, at Best Buy for a Windows notebook; not $1,800. It's cool. Ugobe's Pleo is cool. But like the Pleo at $350, it has to be a little bit more than cool to justify the price tag to even spendthrift general consumers.

And if I here one more justification for dropping the internal optical drive based on the successful removal of the internal floppy in the iMac, I'm gonna scream. When Jobs insisted they take out the floppy, CD had become the standard media for distributing commercial software and, well, media -- like music. The floppy was by then just a pain; software publishers hated including 24 floppy install sets with their CD-based boxed commercial software for the very few people who didn't yet have a CD-ROM drive. Presently, the Internet and USB flash media is not even anywhere near the standard for software distribution; it's the DVD and in some cases still the CD. And for entertainment, the CD and DVD far, far surpass download as means of distribution. The external drive is a must -- installing over a network from another Mac is an incredibly pain, it's slow, and some software won't even install from a network mounted volume -- so it adds $100 to the price and now with your sleek, skinny 3 lb. MB Air, add a pound and a fair bit of brick for the USB2-port hogging optical drive.

Sorry, it's just a bad idea for a notebook computer. Period. There are plenty of little Windows notebooks that have external optical drives to reduce the size -- they do however tend to include them as part of the retail price -- but these appeal only to gadget freaks.