Air is in my future

Robert, I do understand how prices drop. I apologize for going on a very minor rant. It probably obscured my REAL two points:

(1) Ian (comment #23) just said it best. At nearly every angle even Apple – not known for retailing anything at less than premium prices – has a much better solution/product than MBA, and those better solutions cost less.

(2) This keynote rates no better than a 3 on a scale of 10. It’s what he didn’t say… no 10.5.2, nothing more than acknowledging that the iPhone SDK is coming out, nothing compelling (to me anyway) in 1.1.3 (along with apps for the iPod Touch should have been free for all), no new movie content for purchase, and no exciting and new Mac footprint.

DISCLOSURE: I’ve owned Apple stock since November 2004, currently own four Mac notebooks and one PowerMac G5, one AppleTV, and 4 iPods along with an iPhone. Oh yeah, and an Airport Extreme.

I really wanted something to buy from Apple today. This cash is burning a hole in my pocket! I’ve been known to succumb to Steve’s RDF as recently as the last MWSF (AppleTV, which I very rarely use – still, I wanted to buy the version 2).

Oddly enough, he never came CLOSE to luring me into the RDF this year.

In my opinion it is a weak laptop for the money. Get a Dell XPS M1330 for about the same money and it is only a tiny bit bigger, has an optical drive, move USB ports, etc. LED backlit screen still.

The MBA is meh in my opinion. Multitouch is the only thing it has for now that is special but that will be in all other Apple notebooks within 3-6 months.

Do yourself a favour and don’t be caught by the RDF, the MBA really isn’t worth the money for the size. There are much better systems available that are only a tiny bit ticker. The tradeoff for a few grams or mm isn’t worth it.

One final post… I mean that!

It appears that the battery is not user replacable:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1155

I don’t know about any of you, but if I’m not replacing my production and/or development laptop within 2 years, I’m most certainly finding my self needing to replace the battery.

Maybe they should have named the product the “MacBook iPod”?

One final post… I mean that!

It appears that the battery is not user replacable:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1155

I don’t know about any of you, but if I’m not replacing my production and/or development laptop within 2 years, I’m most certainly finding my self needing to replace the battery.

Maybe they should have named the product the “MacBook iPod”?

I would never buy a phone that I can’t replace my battery. Why would I buy a laptop that I can’t replace my battery in. Personally not very cost effective.

Okay, a bit more on that Sony laptop I was talking about: Sony Vaio x505: .38″ to .8″ thick — still a little bigger than the MacBook Air, but clearly smaller than the TZ that Steve Jobs was comparing the MBA to in his keynote. And the X505 shipped in 2004(!).

I’m skipping the MacBook Air. My nearly 4.5 year old JVC-7310 notebook is smaller and lighter. It also has more features. Sure its only a Pentium M 1Ghz, but it was way ahead of its time and very little exists today that would make me upgrade.

Robert, I suggest you shop around first before jumping on the Air bandwagon. Dynamism (I have no affiliation other than being a happy customer) and other retailers sell much nicer subnotebooks. Sony, Panasonic, Fujitsu and others have far more experience in this category than Apple does. I wouldn’t be surprised if most people skip this laptop.

doesn’t have 3.5G – so it can be seen as useless in good old europe. i do have wlan in my home, but not on my car or on the train or in my office.

A beautiful status symbol…but I am still thinking of the Asus Eee PC as a travel “blogging machine”.

Zoli… any relation to Paul?

Well, now that I’ve had my hands on it, I’m still going to buy one. I don’t care about the limitations brought up above (except for maybe the non-replaceable battery, although when my son’s iPhone’s battery died they simply handed him a new one). It’s a secondary computer for me, since I already have three other computers. This would be totally for traveling.

The Asus is definitely one to think about, but I want something that works the same way my other computers do (IE, MacOS).

@35. In your post you said this will be the computer to run your new venture. Wow! Where do I invest? That’s gonna be some leading edge venture!

Limited storage? No problem.

Save your files in the cloud somewhere. The MacBook Air is the first step into the computing of the future.

Bluvg, no… other than being asked all the time:-)

@35: you use IE under OS X? Gag!

@24 and others: Robert is Apple’s target market: more money than they know what to do with.

Unless Apple announces significant REAL upgrades soon this will represent a dead-end for them. It’s not significantly thinner than my several year old Powerbook which still performs well and will also fit nicely into an intra-office mailer envelope. My Asus 8G is on order.

Apple is running out of ideas.

Robert, if you have the money to burn then go for it. I would highly recommend you try other ultraportables first though. If you still go through with a MacBook Air, then more power to you.

I can’t believe I waited a year for this dud. I wanted it for traveling but there ain’t always wireless everywhere I got but there is often a cable in a the hotel room or at a friends apartment. I would also like to watch dvd’s but it defeats the purpose if I have to carry another piece of equipment. Dumb, really dumb. I was hoping they would offer something that would really stand up to the other ultraportables but a 4200 rpm drive is a yawner. And they missed the boat with 13″ screen. I know a ton of people (myself included) who loved the 12″ powerbook of yore. I could care less about the “thin” factor. I want power and utility.

Wotta dud!

The battery will be replaceable for $129. Just FYI
Reference: http://www.tuaw.com/2008/01/16/new-macbook-air-battery-129-installation-free-at-apple/

MacBook Air is thin and make it fly

The world’s thinnest laptop!!!!

Gag.

I’m a mac enthusiast but this machine is useless and the hype is offensive, carnival barker BS.

I was in Walgreens the other day and saw the WORLDS BIGGEST CALCULATOR…

Must resist greed genes. Must not go to store just to take a look…..

Fantastic. Just what I need when on the road outwith wi-fi enabled areas. Or not.

Good for the city crowd with more money than sense, rubbish for just about everyone else. Those thinking that wi-fi is the immediate future should really get out of Starbucks a little bit more. It’ll be a good while yet.

As for size, who cares how thin it is as long as it’s reasonable? Footprint and weight are the real issues here. Given that the Airbook is actually bigger than the Dell M1300 which weighs less than a pound more and has vastly better features I’m not seeing the point here.

Style over substance. Nothing more.

Dude, are you mental? After all the problems you’ve had with Apple products recently do you really want to get a toy that is obviously not going to stand up to the abuses of travel very well?

Stop messing with Steve Jobs’ toys and get a real frickin computer.