Apple MacBook Air

I'd argue that at least on a mac, it's backwards. All my aunt does is go on the internet, email, use quicken, and not really much else. The only way to bog the os down is really to install a whole bunch of poorly-written apps, which somehow I've managed to do. I also have logic express, mathematica, photoshop, and some other stuff all installed, which the average user doesn't have. My experience is that macs don't get crapped up as easily as pc's, and I'm just exceptionally good at doing it (you should have seen my windows box...). But that's just my experience, maybe others would disagree.

 

As nice as it is, I can't feel excited because I wouldn't buy one. It's expensive!

If it was more around $1000, then it would sell like insane!

 

You do realise that's what they were doing, people have been asking for an ultra portable MAC laptop for awhile now.

 

That is pretty thin - although it's only about 5mm thinner than my 4yo 15" laptop (albeit the Air is a lot lighter)

The include adaptors

Processor if fine, though whether the extra small chip was just for them or not is interesting. The hard drive is only 4200rpm though, thats a bit rubbish. Anyone know if it is 1.8"?

It only has mono audio too - so much for Apple's reputation as being good for a/v people

That is a bit rubbish - once you have a mouse, you can't have a usb drive, and its not like you would want to carry around a hub

 

It's a 1.8" drive.

 

That explains the lack of SATA and the slow rotate speed. I still stand by my case that for its price, it's fairly lackluster. But it'll probably sell well being that it's super thin, pretty nice looking, and Apple.

As for the CPU - I could see Apple requesting it, but I doubt Apple would have the pull on Intel to keep it exclusive if say, Dell wanted to start using it to make their own laptops smaller.

 

I've never wanted a mac until I saw this! However, I'll wait and see what everyone else does with a vista based unit to compete. Either that or stick with the XPS1330, not quite as small or light...but more practicle and not much bigger.

 

Drop the price by 150 quid, throw in a 160gb drive and i'd have a hard time not buying one if i was looking for a new notebook

 

I think it looks crap not as good as the macbook.

Seriously... Compared to the other apple products, it really doesn't look as good. I would prefer it if they had just got a macbook and squished it flat rather than just on one edge.

 

Nope. Not interested.

Now, the ASUS Eee-PC, that's a portable computer! Oh look, it's £1,000 cheaper than the Mac and does the same thing (Interweb, email, office) What more do you want?)

Andy

/coat

 

the key tech is the CPU+Chipset combo... CPU alone is sophisticated enough, but the new chipset is something else.

There are so many angles looking at this: the design budgets - weight, features (PCB real estate), thermal (due to limited height), accoustic, performance and power is staggering!!

• the circuitry miniturization are everywhere and very impressive.

• 2GB RAM with high density and low thermal chips built onto the chipset helps miniturize things further.

• 2GB RAM also can compensate for slower HDD @ 4200RPM (low power and thermal signiture)

• 64GB SSD is impressive to have... lowering thermal and power further. thus prolonging batt life.

• the batt efficiency and reliability is higher allowing for lighter form factor.

• CPU with 4MB cache improves bus efficiency and bandwidth further from previous gen Core2.

• the illusion that it is smaller... it ain't. I just love folks at Apple for doing stuff like these: using shadows (which is FREEeee) with a disappearing horizon to create the illusion of a blade-thin notebook. there're psychology at play here.

This isn't purely a pretty looking gal here. IMHO... It's Helen of Troy meets Xena the Warrior princess.

6 months down the road we'll get even longer batt life due to a new and more efficient LCD that cost the same as the current unit. their cost/unit will be much lower by then as well....

 

It's not brilliant, but then most 1.8" drives aren't fantastic. The choice for a slower drive was most likely to keep heat down. You can get SATA 1.8" drives though, afaik... and they're lighter than the PATA equivalents (only talking a few grams, but its cumulative loss that makes things really light).

I dunno, Apple was 3rd biggest PC maker in the US last quarter, if I recall, with only Dell and HP shipping more - I think there's enough weight there.

 

it'd be pretty interesting to see how many chips intel shipped total and how many apple bought actually

had a quick google but nobody seems to list any actual numbers just % increase/decrease for quarters :\

 

First off, it is not using the 45nm chip - it has a custom small version of the 65nm Core 2.

Secondly, for a starting price of £1200, going to £2000 (!) for one with the SSD ... that's a good US$1000 more than in the US ... I don't think I could justify this if I were in the market for this kind of machine.

If I wanted a 13" laptop, it'd be hard to pass up the XPS M1330. It might not have as much battery life, but at least you could carry a spare, and it murders the Air on features.

 

my dad's M1330 lasts about 7 hours on the extended 9-cell battery

 

Yeah, you get more portability.

Don't get me wrong - it's not even close to being for everyone. I'm a fanboy who was praying for an ultraportable, and I'm severely disappointed. Like so many others, I was hoping for something closer to the 12" powerbook. But thickness isn't that important to me - I just want something tiny. This is the same footprint of the Macbook, which is a lot bigger than I want even if it was as thin as a piece of paper.

 

this has really annoyed me, i was hoping for updates on the Macbook Pro, cause ive been saving up for it, i cant buy one now because if i buy one now they'll probably upgrade them all in a month

 

Spotted this one recently: http://www5.pc.ibm.com/fi/products.nsf/$wwwPartNumLookup/_UK43KFI?OpenDocument

To me it was a bit of "check this out, it's like Air except you pay for the features instead of the design"-experience. Height ~20 mm, weight 1,24 kg, 12". There are also things like mic in and the user can upgrade the memory :O It's a bit on the pricey side, but so is Air, the point here is that the size is nothing special really.

That's hardy compensating anything as 2 GB is somewhat the minimal amount of memory on a new computer anyway.

 

I think that the Air can't really be compared to other 13" laptops. It's in the design. If you don't like it, then don't even bother, but for those who do, it's a huge factor. Apple hardware has never really known to be inexpensive. Of course you could find a laptop half the price of the Air with double its features, but that's not the point. The Air is not for power users. It probably won't do anything beyond Office and Internet very well, but that's alright since that's what most people who buy it would use it for anyways.

But I'll have to say again, this is one expensive toy. It'd be a hard pill for me to swallow if I had to buy it since for the same price point, I could get something that can actually do the things I like doing (such as edit through thousands of RAW photos and play games). However, can I get such a thin package? No!

But this is a great release. While I'm not too excited about the Air, I'm excited to see the PC response to it. Lately, Apple has been the company which takes the ideas that every normal person has and wants and makes it - helping the isolated minds in industry begin to think about why Apple's products with higher prices and usually less features sell way better.

I don't understand why most other companies don't realize that GOOD DESIGN MATTERS. That less can be more. They really need to put more money into getting quality designers. You can erect a building with only engineers, but to make it beautiful and functional, you need an architect. Same applies for consumer electronics.

 

Personally I would rather go for the Sony ultraportables ...