I never thought of the MBA as a primary machine. At home, I use a very powerful PC with tons of storage space as my primary. On the go, I use my MBA.
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Is the macbook air primary or secondary laptop?
- Thread starter dj.paterson
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iMac at home for the rare occasions I am not at work. Air does 80-90% of the work I do day to day. Runs CS3 to the extent I need without causing headaches, which helps. You don't exactly need a Mac Pro to run Coda, TextMate, or CSSEdit now do you.
I guess the short answer would be Air for work, iMac for home, both of them primary machines.
I guess the short answer would be Air for work, iMac for home, both of them primary machines.
Yeesh, I don't think of my iMac as especially old. You could get 17-inch iMacs until mid-2007.
I don't see MBA as a primary machine because of its limiting features. Yeah it is an expensive secondary machine but does anyone here remember the price for a new Toshiba laptop in 1991 with the first ever FULL COLOR display?
$9,999.00
Hope y'all feel better now.
$9,999.00 Hope y'all feel better now.
I'll consider it my primary but my fiance does have an iMac that contains all of our photos, movies, and music so I guess technically it would be a secondary???
This has always struck me as the biggest Air paradox. Power and feature wise it screams "secondary" compared with even the most basic MacBook. But price wise it really doesn't. Sure, I do believe there are people for whom the Air is really (almost) all the computer they need AND size and weight are of utmost importance AND are willing to pay the 50%+ premium compared to the basic MB for it. But I've always thought that would be a very small niche.
To me the Air would be a great product at prices comparable to the plain MB. You leave the choice between features and power (MB) or portability (MBA) to the buyer. But to add a huge price premium after sacrificing power and features for the portability is just a bit too much to ask IMO. It goes against Apple's normal product positioning, where the more expensive machine is almost always faster and can do more (or at the very least, not less) than cheaper one.
Laptops have been my primary computer for about 5 years now. Just so much advantage over a big computer and monitor. At work I hook my macbook to a dell 24'' or 20'' depending on seating, and work away.
Been thinking of buying...
...but I just cannot envision the MBA being my primary laptop for lack of HD space.
...but I just cannot envision the MBA being my primary laptop for lack of HD space.
I only see this as an issue if you just NEED to carry every movie you've ever downloaded everywhere you go. For me, most of that sits on a server at home. I have a few gigs of MP3s on my MBA... that and my iPhoto library are probably the biggest data on my MBA. I have XCode, and CS3 installed; I still have tons of space left on the 80 GB HD.
Even if you do 'NEED' 100+ Gigs of photos/videos with you, pick up a spare laptop HD and an enclosure with a USB port. I have a 40GB external drive I built that way 2 years ago for $60. I'm pretty sure you can't even buy 40GB HDs anymore... a quick check shows the cheapest drive they have is 80GB, for $40. You can get double that for twice the price, and it powers off the USB port. Weighs less than the tiny MBA power brick.
As far as being 'too expensive to not be the primary'...
My desktop gaming machine prolly cost similar, all told, but it was done a piece at a time, $300 here, $400 there.
em500 said:
The deal is, shrinking things costs more, especially initially. New tech for smaller, cooler, low-power parts is always a bit unreliable initially, so the manufacturer throws out a lot of bad parts; they make up for this cost by charging more for the ones that do work.
While price being proportional to performance is common, that is only the case within the same market; say, Desktops. Or 'desktop replacement' laptops. Or 'mobility labtops'. The MBA is competitive in that last category, on price and performance. Most of the similar-sized machines had slower processors, smaller screens, and cost as much if not more.
Comparing the price/performance of a 13" MacBook to an MBA is about as big a falacy as comparing that same MacBook to a 20" iMac.
Size/weight is a feature, just like HD space or CPU speed. Some people value it more than others, and it has a definite cost associated with it. That's all it is.
That is my point. I want to be able to carry a great deal of information with me as I travel quite a bit for work and recreation. I want all this information in one notebook without having to carry extra HD cases. The MBA is a great machine that is just not big enough in the areas where I need, i.e., HD.
I use it as a secondary unit. I could not use any laptop I've seen so far as a primary computer.
okay here is my situation. I currently have a blackbook that i got when it was first released. so it does not have the n-wireless. I really want to get a new notebook. is the air right for me. the only reason that i do not have an imac is because i am must travel over 3000miles to get to college. i don't know if i want to carry two notebooks with me when i go to school. is a mba with the external superdive enough? i really only go to class, type up docs for class, listen to music, and play some ages of empires. one of my real concerns is the hd space and price. should i take the plunge i really like the size and weight or just get a new mb or mbp. Or wait till school starts up see if apple upgrades.
does anyone out there have the old school intel core duo chips in there macbooks. does that still work for you or have you gotten a new macbook already?
does anyone out there have the old school intel core duo chips in there macbooks. does that still work for you or have you gotten a new macbook already?