For once the rumour mill was right. "There's something in the air," said Apple CEO Steve Jobs. And then he hit us with the MacBook Air. It’s aluminium, has black keys, is super, super thin, and Steve held it easily with his fingertips.
Apple MacBook Air Thinnovation
“It’s the world’s thinnest notebook,” he went on. It has a …
"Who uses RJ45 connectors on laptops these days? Er, that's right, no-one."
Err most businesses? Then again, it's designed for home use, not serious work use (don't class luvvies as serious users).
Ok so it has one USB, but hey you can plug in a USB drive, but hold on, I need to copy this DVD up to the Network (no wireless in many offices). So copy to drive, swap over ethernet and continue copying...
Yawn...
Why didn't they just add a couple of extra USB's? Would anyone of noticed that it stayed thicker for an extra cm or two?
Modern Apple engineering, design over function.
Shame because it could've been so much better.....
I think this looks pretty nifty -- though as with most new products I'd wait for the first product refresh before buying one.
I really do fine many of the criticisms weird. People seem to be saying "How dare Apple make a product that is not all things to all people, or specifically what I want. They're clearly stupid!"
The MacBook and MacBook Pro lines have not disappeared. There was a major Mac Pro refresh just a few days ago, and product releases happen throughout the year.
The only thing that really worries me about this one is the sealed battery question -- though since it's a pretty low power consumption device, this will probably be less of an issue than it would with most laptops.
Yes, it's a niche, but it's an interesting approach to a very real niche.
Fair bit of typical Apple bashing, by largely misinformed/uneducated fools. There's also genuine criticism of the laptop by people not trying to compare it to old, slower and lesser speced PCs.
I have a Dell Latitude X300, it's got a hefty 2-3kg docking bay which is about 15cm thick, but when detached the unit weighs 1.1kg and is about 1cm thick, but it has no optical drive either but it does have more ports than this new Apple laptop.
I agree with others here that the lack of ports is a definite mistake, and not having changable batteries shooting themselves in the foot (they could have a market for spare batteries if they had allowed it to be changed). With 802.11n the lack of ethernet port is not such an issue if you have the machines within the distance people often have machines connected via ethernet, as it can theoretically reach upto 300mbit/sec for transfer rates, whilst not as good as gigabit ethernet connections, it's still quite usable..
That said, I think the specs are extremely good otherwise for a UMPC, and people are forgetting that other UMPCs on the market retail for substantially higher than their larger laptop alternatives.
To the person who was commenting on its lack of suitability for DVE, well der, no notebook is suitable for such a purpose. Higher end laptops like MacBook Pro and other PC laptops can be used for that, but i highly doubt you could find a notebook on the market which would suit such needs (with its limited bus speeds, limited expandability, etc).
Reminds me of those superduper sportcars Clarkson et al drool over on the telly. Fine for a quick spin round the test track, but completely impractical for daily use.
My grandad's ripped all his DVDs to a load of 2GB memory sticks. He says they're more convenient to carry around than DVDs. Don't ask me why he didn't rip directly into his hard drive.
Anyway, Apple should have given this thing a memory card slot and supplied the restore disks on a memory card. That would have been embracing the future of computing.
The battery is replaceable, just not by you, and it will cost you $129, which is not too unreasonable. Since I bought my MacBook, I've removed the battery precisely once to install RAM and HD upgrades. In a year and a half I've never burned a DVD, though I've read a couple - I mostly pull stuff across the network anyway as it's faster than the local drive.
My MacBook ethernet port died after a fall from a desk (magsafe lets go, RJ-45 doesn't, lesson learned) and I've survived on WiFi ever since, though I'm glad to see an Apple branded USB Ethernet dongle as nobody else makes drivers (because there hasn't been a Mac without internal ethernet for years). I have 2 USB ports, but most of the time I don't use either (and I can see the new trackpad being better than the majority of mice), though I do use the DVI port on a 24" LCD.
Greg said "wireless-N. Nice. So it's non-standard wireless". Wireless N is neither non-standard nor proprietary. It may not be carved in stone like 11g (not that that's worth much given its interoperability problems), but it does generally work pretty well, and is definitely worth having, especially since it's faster than 100-T ethernet most of the time. Micro-DVI is not non-standard either - it's just not as common as fat and crappy VGA. You'll probably be complaining it doesn't have parallel and game ports next.
All the price comparisons also fail to notice (as usual) that the US prices do not include sales tax, which varies between 0 and about 16% depending on where you are (which is why they don't quote it inclusive).
And yes you can run Windows XP and Vista on it (or linux), either with BootCamp or Parallels/Fusion.
So, missed facts aside, I don't see any great advantage of this laptop for me. If I was some executive travelling a lot with hand baggage only, I'd be grateful for the weight saving and battery life, and getting that at the same time as having a really nice screen makes it actually usable, unlike most 10" screens, especially if your eyesight isn't great.
Err, has anyone tried the Portege models from Toshiba, the on paper specs of the R500 i use are impressive, in all except the processor.... the ULV processor can just about handle running XP (let alone Vista) try and run more than Outlook and Excel and it's slower than continental drift.
This at least looks like a reasonably powerful ultraportable... i would probably rather have had a few more ports, slightly thicker version etc, but the spec doesn't put me off when i think what i actually use it for and what ports etc i use regularly.
Why the continuous comments on how thin it is? It's as thin as the thickest part given it only slims down at the edges. Apart from that it's bloody huge (same size as my macbook) with a low res screen (and if it's the same as the macbook, crap) and a slow, slow disk (I've had stinkpad X40s that used 1.8 inch drives and they're slooooow). Yawn.
I've been using skinny laptops since the Stinkpad 560 in the mid 90s, and this is close to useless. No changeable anything. No ethernet (try living in a flat in london with 30 wifi networks buzzing around).
I've currently got an X60 with slower Core 2 and that gets damn hot with proper vents .. this thing is gonna fry. His holynesses arguments over CPU speed are irrelevent here given how slow the disk is and the screen being such crap - the only people needing anything over a 1 gig Core 2 are modelling and graphics guys and they'll take one look at the screen and disk and run).
Toshiba will sell you a much smaller laptop that's half the weight and includes an optical drive.
I'm currently using a Thinkpad X32 at work. It has, wait for it, no optical drive. I use it in it's docking station when at my desk when i plug in a monitor, power, and a usb hub - because it has limited ports and i need a mouse, keyboard, usb cable to charge my blackberry, a port to plug in my usb key. I tend to install apps when i'm at my desk and rarely use my optical drive.
When I'm working on the move I don't plug anything into it except my power cable and maybe a usb key. This is apple thinking smart and asking what you actually *need* from a laptop. Few people buying a 2kusd ultrasmall laptop are not going to have some other machine they can use for the rare time they need an optical drive and many of my app installs are downloads from the net anyway. As for ethernet - how often do you move a large enough volume of files that this is going to be an issue. Copying your music collection is a one time action so it can take a while without it being a problem.
On portability it's the weight i look at - that's why i have the X32. I'm carrying a bag that's big enough to take an A4 envelope, and usually have a file or sheaf of papers with me, so something with a bigger screen at the same weight as the X32 is no more effort to carry and better to work with.
I think they've got it right. It's not the one for me as a personal machine - given I rarely carry my personal laptop anywhere outside the house it's got no advantages over a Macbook - but if my employer switched to Apple i'd take this over a macbook or macbook pro.
Sorry to let you down, but your wife is also wrong about reclaiming Canadian sales tax for overseas visitors. There *was* such a scheme, but it got cancelled from April 2007, see:
I don't know the situation for the US, perhaps your wife should check that at the same time she is looking for super-cheap flights and hotel accomodation.
Of course the Tosh is much lower spec, it was made in 2002. The point people are making is that yet again Apple have failed to be innovative but would like you to believe otherwise.
@Nick Fisher
Who uses RJ45? Everyone if they listen to my recommendation. I wouldn't dream of sending any credit card details etc over wireless because as yet there isn't a single wireless protocol that can't be broken. Wired is still far more secure.
This is yet another limited Apple product that takes away far more than it delivers and Stevie boy just laughs at you and says 'Whack an extortionate price on it, the muppets will pay it'
What is the slowest, cheapest hard drive doing in a premium product? A 4200rpm drive kills any laptop performance - upgrade any laptop to a 7200rpm and watch the overall performance double.
The problem with any laptop is all the other clutter you have to carry round with you - power supply brick, proper mouse to do something useful, cables and adaptors, etc.
Sad to see so many ill-informed comments. Makes Reg readers look thick. Bad for publicity... Just read the descriptions, and check the tech BEFORE you flame next time, please.
Obviously, this is an unusual device. Its target market is unclear, because it's somewhat radical. It's pitched at wireless use only - anything else is a kludgy compromise - and Apple do appear to have thought out what this implies. Read the specs. Watch the demo. Pause to think. Being a touch radical, it's getting the same cool reception that met the iPod when that was launched. (Check the history.) So maybe this device will succeed, too.
Or maybe it's a cube squashed flat. Have to wait and see.
Paul - not being funny here, but if most of what you're running is FOSS, there are way better laptops that you could run Linux on and have native X11 support instead of Apple's half hearted implementation. I love OS X but my next machine is probably going to be the best laptop I can put together running Ubuntu. The only app I would miss is Panic Unison and the only nice feature will be Airtunes, which someone is going work out real soon now.
Some nice features, but it doesn't need to be this thin
The processor is interesting, it's pretty, and has some legs as a travelling/demo machine that isn't linked up in the (wired) office too often.
However, what's the point of making it that thin other than shinyness? Weight is usually more of an issue.
It really wouldn't have killed them to add more USB ports, modem and LAN.
It's good that things have moved on from laptops the size and weight of a few bricks, but at some point it's counterproductive to make them smaller and thinner.
...that for marketing reasons they will not to bring out a useful product that may keep people from buying this useless toy (like a MacBook Pro 12" or 13.3"). At least not anytime soon.
So now I can pay over a 1000% more than an ASUS Eee PC to get whilst what is a more powerful system, isn't powerful enough to do anything you couldn't on an Eee PC i.e. Web browsing, office, e-mail, IM, movies, music.
It's not like you'll be playing high end games or anything on either system so why pay over £1000 when you could pay £169 and be able to do the exact same things?
Not to mention of course that this thing looks far less rugged than the Eee PC, that's it's made by Apple and is hence guaranteed to have a whole bunch of manufacturing defects and that it's nowhere near as open as the Eee PC. In fact, all it has over the Eee PC in practice is more storage, something that is largely negated with cheap memory cards in the Eee PC.
It's uber-thin, but so what? Its weight that matters, and this is still heavier than a Sony TX or a Samsung Q series. In fact my Samsung Q30 is smaller, lighter, you get the external DVD writer as part of the deal, it has more ports and most importantly, a removable battery (in fact you get a standard 3-hour battery and a double size six hour one).
I'd actually really like a proper Mac sub notebook, would even pay a premium for it, but not this; its a toy.
"Greg said "wireless-N. Nice. So it's non-standard wireless". Wireless N is neither non-standard nor proprietary."
It's not been standardised yet. I'd say that was fairly non-standard. Which makes it....proprietary. Hmm? No?
There are still inconsistencies and incompatibilities in .11n hardware, which is why I wish people would wait for the ruddy standard. Nothing wrong with G for me.
I am sure that some people here sit on their thumbs for months on end waiting for Apple to release a product so that they can flame it.
A few points that some others here have picked up on.
1. You don't have to buy one so calm down dear. Even Steve's mind vortex isn't that strong.
2. It's not a Desktop so stop expecting it to have the features of one.
3. If it doesn't have the specs you need buy a MacBook / Pro and save some money. Also the Eee PC is a different market.
4. Watch the keynote and find out what your talking about first. It has cooling, the battery can be replaced by Apple etc..
I'm surprised that it doesn't have an SD slot that should have been a given with their being no optical drive. A lot of people are carrying SD cards around these days in preference to CD/DVD's ditto this for USB. It needs another port.
Who's going to buy it? Well I hate lugging my Dell Latitude (slim as it is) around to clients. A MacThin or ThinBook (see what I did there) would fit the bill. The larger track pad helps with not using a mouse when out and about. I backup via wireless to my own home server anyway so that works for me. I don't need a DVD drive and the backlit keyboard I wish I had that on my laptop now so all in all it's pretty good.
There is lots of stuff that it doesn't have. Luckily I have all that stuff on my desktop. Which is why I have a desktop on my desk and a laptop on my lap when I'm not in the office.
Geez, you'd be hard pushed to find a bigger bunch of whiners anywhere. It's pretty simple, if you don't like it, don't buy it.
Now, I for one am pretty anti apple. I'm writing this from an IBM/Lenovo T60 (work supplied), and my personal laptop is a Toshiba Portege R100 (check out its size, and the specs of the delicious R500). Awesome.
But I've had the R100 for 4 years now. And I'm looking for something to replace it. And quite frankly, this is it. I work in IT, which means I can claim any such machine on my tax - up to 100% of its value. So over 3 years in Australia, the machine is free and I can salary sacrifice and pay 53.5% of its RRP immediately.
So, for somebody in a field that you can either salary sacrifice or claim this on tax, I really don't see any issues. Battery? Who REALLY gives a shit? You replace it when it's knackered. It'll be a couple of years, I won't stress about it now. One USB port? I've got a mini USB hub which weighs about 12 grams and has 6 ports on it. Jesus how hard is that? Enough for your ethernet dongle, your modem, your CDrom drive and anything else you need.
And who the hell needs a cdrom drive on the move anyway? Frankly, the 1.1kg of my Portege is nice to carry around and do presentations, and even the 2.5kg of the IBM/Lenovo is alright.. but thinner and lighter IS better as far as I'm concerned. Those asking who it's for -- it's for me. People who want a nice machine, preferably POSIX based, which they can use as a daily box.
We've got wifi at work, I've got wifi at home. I need a cd drive maybe once every .. ooh I dunno, never? I have NEVER needed one as long as I've had the Toshiba, and the last time I reinstalled the OS (windows) I did it via network with a VMWare "Ultimate Deployment Appliance".
This machine is frankly exactly what I wanted. I'll be sure to let you know what fails first on it, though :)
Air compares poorly to my full-featured 6lb. laptop...
I'm rather amused by the people saying that the Air doesn't offer feature 'x' and therefore is a waste of time. Especially when what they're comparing it to is a laptop that weighs about twice as much and is twice as thick.
Even better is to suggest that it's no good for HD editing. What the hell? Why would you even *think* about using this for HD editing?
And the 4200rpm drive is there because it's not even a full-size laptop drive. This uses the same drive as the iPod and is one of the ways they got the size down to the point that they did. Of course performance will suffer on some applications, but for running Word/PowerPoint or Pages/Keynote it'll be more than enough. The multi-touch pad copped from the iPhone is a nice touch too and perhaps means that you don't need to tote around the mouse and everything else...
Does it matter hugely that this only has one USB2 port? How often do you use multiple USB devices simultaneously while *away* from the home? Remember, this is an *ultra-portable* -- if you're only going to use it around the house, why not get a regular laptop and save yourself some serious £££? At home you could always connect it to a hub, or wait until they release this fancy new port-replicator-cum-iMac that we just read about in a patent application.
That's why I think this laptop has two audiences: the Apple fans who will buy everything just because they love the sexy engineering, and road warriors who want a truly portable Mac/laptop. For instance, my wife, who travels around a *lot* giving presentations, was really interested when I told her about this machine and its specs. This weighs about half what her ThinkPad does, would do all the same things, and would enable her to ditch the bulky laptop bag and associated shoulder-pain entirely when she travels. Also, in spite of several reinstalls (and download all of the requisite firmware updates) I've never been able to get all of the hardware working the way that my 7 year-old TiBook does.
Frankly, even for the modest amount of traveling that *I* do I would consider it over my MB Pro if it cost a bit less.
My only *real* disappointments with this machine are as follows:
1. Non-replaceable battery -- OK, so I can take it back to the Apple store and have a new one installed for $130 (no doubt £100 for us) when the old one burns out. But that doesn't help me much when I'm on the road for a full day and don't want to take all of the cords with me. A hot-swappable battery would be *awesome*.
2. Battery-life -- is it any different if I have the SSD in there? If Apple could somehow get this up to 7 or 8 hours they'd really have me drooling.
I'm pretty sure I'll be buying one to replace the 12" PowerBook with the almost dead HDD that shows me email and web pages at the moment. I don't need a bazillion ports and connectors and optical drives to do that so I'm going to buy a computer that doesn't have them and so lighter.
God bless the PC idiots who 'need' an RJ45 and a thousand USB slots (more isn't always better but it's always MORE, right?) and are clearly labouring in denial of a world where networks went wireless for the rest of us years ago.
@WebsterPhreaky and his irritating childish drivel I don't spend my life waiting for something I hate to be talked about and jump in waving my ignorance about like a petulant ten-year-old, who the hell do you think is listening to you ? Person reading Mac article suddenly realises "Ah yes, your idiotic rhetoric has convinced me, macs suck!"
"Frankly, the 1.1kg of my Portege is nice to carry around and do presentations, and even the 2.5kg of the IBM/Lenovo is alright.. but thinner and lighter IS better as far as I'm concerned. Those asking who it's for -- it's for me."
Erm, brilliant point, and I wish you all the best...
...but it weighs more than your 1.1kg Toshiba..!! Hope you enjoy that extra thinness though
"Hmmm. That $3098 equates to £1571 at today's exchange rate. Even allowing for UK sales tax, that's a rum deal for Brits."
Actually, once you take off the VAT on the UK price, and add on local sales tax to the US price, there's only about £50 in it. Not really the sort of difference that makes headlines is it!
It's the worlds biggest iPod Touch.... seriously... jobs must be rubbing his hands with glee at all the people who have a rosey picture of driving down to the shops, picking up this years "must have" laptop, walking home (because they needed to trade in their car for it), when they get home and open it - BAM - wtf, where do all my wires go?!
A year later battery life goes down to about 30 minutes... so you ask for a replacement battery, and BAM - you have to sell your house to cover the cost of sending it in for "repair" to replace the battery at your expense.
I suppose I'm just jarred off because there will never be a replacement for my 12" Power Book. Can you imagine the cost of an Air model based on the Pro series??
'labouring in denial of a world where networks went wireless for the rest of us years ago'
You keep going with that wireless thing. Me and a thousand others will quite happily keep sniffing your packets, stealing your credit card details, reading your private mail and generally having a good time.
"God bless the PC idiots who 'need' an RJ45 and a thousand USB slots (more isn't always better but it's always MORE, right?) and are clearly labouring in denial of a world where networks went wireless for the rest of us years ago."
You mean like every secure business environment on the planet?
Clearly if you've only ever used a computer at home, starbucks and work for a mickey-mouse outfit then you might get the idea that you don't need ethernet.
Someone at the Reg, please draw up a comparison table with the new MacBook Air, the Sony G11, Fujitsu P series and the EeePC. I find it amazing that people are considering the EccPC as an alternative but several comments seem to indicate this is the case.
You can't blame Steve Jobs - in the US they bought the iPhone in droves (unlike in the UK) - you charge what the market will bear. People are very cynical - take the battery for example, it's going to fail in 2-3 years time out of warranty - I can see many 3rd party vendors offering replacement services so you won't be locked into Apple (just as you are not if you want to buy any other replacement laptop battery).
I don't like having to pay a margin because I'm in the UK, but considering the effort to get a 10-15% discount for a product from Canada/US with a US keyboard, it's not worth it. I'm not too concerned, I don't own a Mac and this isn't the product to convert me to the light side - the Dell XPS1330 seems like a better option and better value at the moment (I don't care about thickness, just weight).
"Actually, once you take off the VAT on the UK price, and add on local sales tax to the US price, there's only about £50 in it."
Taking off UK sales tax, and adding on US sales tax isn't exactly a fair comparison either - how about comparing the UK price sans VAT with the US pre sales tax price, or the US post sales tax price with the UK price inc VAT?
Can't use my mouse and USB stick at the same time.
Although it has wireless networking I would still have prefered to have an ethernet port built in - even if it envolved some sort of dongle arangement. Also another USB port would have been good. I know it is aimed at people who want ultra portability - but still alot of people want to use a mouse with their laptop. Perhaps the new trackpad might get over this, but I doubt it. Unplugging my mouse to plug in a USB stick would just get annoying.
At the end of the day people will buy this for a varity of reasons, but very few of the reasons will be that they need a computer that small and more to do with the styling and 'must have latest gizmo'.
Complete lack of ports because they'd have made it thicker.
Complete inability to swap batteries on the go, or just buy a new battery when the old one dies, because that would have made it thicker (I suspect the battery is actually spread across the inside of the casing like jam!)
I wonder how long it will be before the keyboard is removed, just cos it doesn't "look right" and would give them another 1/8" back... Anyone else remember the ZX81 keyboard?
The only time this thin lightweight Mac is going to be thin and lightweight is when it's on your desk with you carefully guarding it. As soon as it comes to transporting it anywhere you'll have to put it in a steel box just in case someone puts a heavy post-it not on the top and snaps it!
Okay, yes, i'm a die-hard Mac fan, although i work exclusively on Lenovo and Windows. i'm also a person that *never* runs out to buy the newest and greatest anything; i want those idiots to be the introductory testers and i'll go get it after they've shaken it out. ('swhy i haven't upgraded to 10.5 yet!)
However. i'm currently on an iBook G4 that is a couple years *out of AppleCare* (thus, about five years old). It does what i need it: email & web, WP, financial, games (including WoW), developers' tools, and Adobe CS, especially Photoshop. It's been majorly repaired only once or twice. In five years. And i'm not exactly gentle; i do things like trip over a big dog on the floor whilst carrying the iBook in one hand (running) and something in the other . . . swing around with the thing plugged in at the extent of the cable . . . walk away from a desk carrying whilst it's plugged in . . . carry it in a backpack that i then sling around and drop on floors . . .
The point with this sub-notebook is portability. *Not* digital video editing, *not* major league graphics work. It's a notebook aimed at people who move around, for work *or for school*.
The thinness of it is actually quite a good feature, not just for sexy good looks like intimated above. As thin as it is, i'll be able to carry it *and* these huge tomes of hardback textbooks that seem to be de rigeur for college now. It's great for a college student! Most campuses (in the US, anyway) don't let you onto their network with your personal computer, anyway, so a wired port is useless there. But it's got a full-sized keyboard, great for taking class notes on. Since apparently a lot of students hang out in coffee shops and those seem to have wireless access (i don't go to coffee shops, so i don't know), don't need a wired port there, either.
For travellers, the thinness of it means it will fit in carryon with even more room to spare.
My home is both wired and wireless; my workplace (which is a school district larger than Rhode Island; not, i think, a 'mickey-mouse outfit') is wired and wireless -- i haven't had to use a patch cable with my iBook in forever. 'Fact, i forget that i would need it in someplaces, and open up to check email before i realise that connectivity isn't there. Even my weekend job, for which there is only one computer (the POS), has wireless access so if i need to do some database work there i can just connect right up.
If wired capability *is* needed, get the dongle when you buy the notebook.
As for durability -- have you taken a look at what Apple's iBooks, old and new, have had to go through when in the hands of the target audience? We have schools still using the original coloured iBooks in lab carts and classrooms, and they run just as well as new for what the students need. *What the students need*, mind you; if it's a graphics arts class or something, they aren't going to be on laptops, anyway. i've seen these things run over, slung around by the handle and across the rooms, dropped off tables . . . and keep running. (i am also a repair tech; not just Apple, but IBM and Dell, too.) Maybe the display cracked when it went under the tyres . . . maybe not. Had one seriously stomped on that still worked save for a crack across the display.
i really don't think that Apple would put out such a thin notebook, aimed for students and travel, that wasn't durable. (Unfortunately, it's too expensive for a public school district to add to the approved lineup.)
The sealed battery also tips me off that it's for travel. My iBook has been suddenly powered down a number of times by the battery-latch getting caught on something and popping the battery out, or (lately) simply being loose in the battery compartment and being jiggled hard. Told you it was old! 8) With a sealed battery, a traveller doesn't need to worry about losing power, and schools don't need to worry about curious kids fiddling with them. As a power user, *i* personally find it annoying, because i like being able to swap a drained battery for a full one, but i can at least take a different view and see how it *is* useful.
A lack of FireWire makes sense -- from this viewpoint. Kids aren't going to need FireWire access; they'll get what they need from USB drives or servers. Since i don't travel in my job, i don't know how prevalent FireWire is for the travelling businessperson, but the only time i use it is when i need to mount the iBook as an external drive on something. *That* happens only when the thing doesn't boot by itself. This is a great feature, something i dearly miss on the Lenovos i have to work on, and i find myself wondering if Apple has just dismissed it from this model, or replaced it with another way of mounting the notebook as a Target Disk.
i hardly ever use the CD drive in my iBook. Only when i need to load an app. And since the MacBook Air can utilise any other Mac's *or Windows station's* optical drive over ethernet, no problem. If you need more optical availability than that, then get the external drive (DVD *and* CD burner!), or a different MacBook more suited to your needs.
Personally, i can't see the payoff in paying hundreds extra for a SSD that's 20GB smaller than the HD, nor can i see paying double for that *and* just ~.2 increase in GHz. But the SSD *is* attractive for the shock-resistance! i just can't lose that 20GB (i have a lot of audiobooks!). But the base configuration will still do what i need -- and probably
i *am* disappointed with Apple's continued lack of a second mouse button. It took me a while to get used to having one, and i do find it convenient not to have to use two hands to get the ctrl-click menu.
The default configuration will most certainly be able to run WP, Photoshop, browser, Illustrator, JGrasp, Mail, TextWrangler, Preview (all with multiple files/windows open), a solitaire game, and copy files over the wireless all at once with no problem -- since that's what my iBook can do now. It'll probably even run WoW without having to have *all* other apps closed, though i'd still use an external mouse for that, which'll make it easier for me to pretend i'm not playing . . . ;) *And* it'll run Windows, which will be nice when i'm required to take that blasted VBasic class.
No, this new notebook is *not* the holy grail. But nor is it a pile of flop. It is a precisely focussed notebook, and does it well. Take it *out* of focus, and you may be disappointed. My husband wouldn't use it for his graphic design and artwork, but then he wouldn't expect it to do that. It *will*, though, work admirably as a display to show clients the work in progress, and be able to do minor alterations to it that may come up in consult.
Don't expect the world. You won't get it. Even Jobs can't do that.
(heh, and by the time i save up for it, they might have MkII out with more ports or a replaceable battery or . . ? Initial bugs ironed out, anyway!)
"I wouldn't dream of sending any credit card details etc over wireless because as yet there isn't a single wireless protocol that can't be broken."
That only matters if you're using http, not https. *Are* you an idiot?
"Me and a thousand others will quite happily keep sniffing your packets, stealing your credit card details, reading your private mail and generally having a good time."
Same answer. If you use an insecure transfer protocol, anyone can read your mail without needing to live near you. If you use a secure one, it's secure from start to end.
Register
For once the rumour mill was right. "There's something in the air," said Apple CEO Steve Jobs. And then he hit us with the MacBook Air. It’s aluminium, has black keys, is super, super thin, and Steve held it easily with his fingertips. Apple MacBook Air Thinnovation “It’s the world’s thinnest notebook,” he went on. It has a …
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I'll stick...
...with my HP Pavilion dv9340 rather than this Apple wank cheers...
● Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor T5500
● 2048 MB (2 x 1024 MB)
● 160 GB SATA Hard Disk Drive 5400 rpm
● 17" WXGA+ High Definition BrightView Widescreen
● NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 7600 with 256 MB dedicated video memory
● IEEE 1394 FireWire® Interface
● Lightscribe Super Multi DVD Writer (+/-R +/-RW) with
Double Layer support
● Bluetooth® wireless networking
● Intel® PRO/Wireless 3945 802.11a/b/g Integrated
Wireless LAN
● TV Tuner DVB-T, with remote control
● 5-in-1 integrated Digital Media Reader for Secure
Digital cards, MultiMedia cards, Memory Stick,
Memory Stick Pro, or xD Picture cards
Ports
1 VGA port
1 HDMI port
4 USB 2.0 ports
1 IEEE-1394
1 RJ 11 modem connector
1 RJ 45 Ethernet connector
S-video TV out
Remote control infrared port (Remote Control optional)
2 Headphones-out one w/ SPDIF Digital Audio, 1 Microphone-in port
Cable docking connector
Weight: 3.56 kg (7.8 lbs)
Dimension: 28.50 cm (L) x 39.60 cm (W) x 3.16 cm (min)H /
4.18 cm (max)
@Nick Fisher
"Who uses RJ45 connectors on laptops these days? Er, that's right, no-one."
Err most businesses? Then again, it's designed for home use, not serious work use (don't class luvvies as serious users).
Ok so it has one USB, but hey you can plug in a USB drive, but hold on, I need to copy this DVD up to the Network (no wireless in many offices). So copy to drive, swap over ethernet and continue copying...
Yawn...
Why didn't they just add a couple of extra USB's? Would anyone of noticed that it stayed thicker for an extra cm or two?
Modern Apple engineering, design over function.
Shame because it could've been so much better.....
Apple criticisms
I think this looks pretty nifty -- though as with most new products I'd wait for the first product refresh before buying one.
I really do fine many of the criticisms weird. People seem to be saying "How dare Apple make a product that is not all things to all people, or specifically what I want. They're clearly stupid!"
The MacBook and MacBook Pro lines have not disappeared. There was a major Mac Pro refresh just a few days ago, and product releases happen throughout the year.
The only thing that really worries me about this one is the sealed battery question -- though since it's a pretty low power consumption device, this will probably be less of an issue than it would with most laptops.
Yes, it's a niche, but it's an interesting approach to a very real niche.
Upgrade?
If you want a new computer that fits in an envelope, it's probably a better upgrade path to simply buy a bigger envelope.
Amusing
Fair bit of typical Apple bashing, by largely misinformed/uneducated fools. There's also genuine criticism of the laptop by people not trying to compare it to old, slower and lesser speced PCs.
I have a Dell Latitude X300, it's got a hefty 2-3kg docking bay which is about 15cm thick, but when detached the unit weighs 1.1kg and is about 1cm thick, but it has no optical drive either but it does have more ports than this new Apple laptop.
I agree with others here that the lack of ports is a definite mistake, and not having changable batteries shooting themselves in the foot (they could have a market for spare batteries if they had allowed it to be changed). With 802.11n the lack of ethernet port is not such an issue if you have the machines within the distance people often have machines connected via ethernet, as it can theoretically reach upto 300mbit/sec for transfer rates, whilst not as good as gigabit ethernet connections, it's still quite usable..
That said, I think the specs are extremely good otherwise for a UMPC, and people are forgetting that other UMPCs on the market retail for substantially higher than their larger laptop alternatives.
To the person who was commenting on its lack of suitability for DVE, well der, no notebook is suitable for such a purpose. Higher end laptops like MacBook Pro and other PC laptops can be used for that, but i highly doubt you could find a notebook on the market which would suit such needs (with its limited bus speeds, limited expandability, etc).
Battery
>And if I'm not much mistaken, that's a sealed-in, non-replaceable battery. So
>in a few years, it's dead and there's nothing you can do. Except buy the new
>Mac, of course.
Or do as any sensible person would do and simply buy a new battery and get it fitted for free by Apple:
http://www.apple.com/support/macbookair/service/battery/
(although the European price is over double the US price).
Genius design
The first mac you can put in a shredder.
The most befuddling laptop.... IN THE WORLD!
Reminds me of those superduper sportcars Clarkson et al drool over on the telly. Fine for a quick spin round the test track, but completely impractical for daily use.
No optical drive
My grandad's ripped all his DVDs to a load of 2GB memory sticks. He says they're more convenient to carry around than DVDs. Don't ask me why he didn't rip directly into his hard drive.
Anyway, Apple should have given this thing a memory card slot and supplied the restore disks on a memory card. That would have been embracing the future of computing.
Can't anyone read?
The battery is replaceable, just not by you, and it will cost you $129, which is not too unreasonable. Since I bought my MacBook, I've removed the battery precisely once to install RAM and HD upgrades. In a year and a half I've never burned a DVD, though I've read a couple - I mostly pull stuff across the network anyway as it's faster than the local drive.
My MacBook ethernet port died after a fall from a desk (magsafe lets go, RJ-45 doesn't, lesson learned) and I've survived on WiFi ever since, though I'm glad to see an Apple branded USB Ethernet dongle as nobody else makes drivers (because there hasn't been a Mac without internal ethernet for years). I have 2 USB ports, but most of the time I don't use either (and I can see the new trackpad being better than the majority of mice), though I do use the DVI port on a 24" LCD.
Greg said "wireless-N. Nice. So it's non-standard wireless". Wireless N is neither non-standard nor proprietary. It may not be carved in stone like 11g (not that that's worth much given its interoperability problems), but it does generally work pretty well, and is definitely worth having, especially since it's faster than 100-T ethernet most of the time. Micro-DVI is not non-standard either - it's just not as common as fat and crappy VGA. You'll probably be complaining it doesn't have parallel and game ports next.
All the price comparisons also fail to notice (as usual) that the US prices do not include sales tax, which varies between 0 and about 16% depending on where you are (which is why they don't quote it inclusive).
And yes you can run Windows XP and Vista on it (or linux), either with BootCamp or Parallels/Fusion.
So, missed facts aside, I don't see any great advantage of this laptop for me. If I was some executive travelling a lot with hand baggage only, I'd be grateful for the weight saving and battery life, and getting that at the same time as having a really nice screen makes it actually usable, unlike most 10" screens, especially if your eyesight isn't great.
Toshiba
Err, has anyone tried the Portege models from Toshiba, the on paper specs of the R500 i use are impressive, in all except the processor.... the ULV processor can just about handle running XP (let alone Vista) try and run more than Outlook and Excel and it's slower than continental drift.
This at least looks like a reasonably powerful ultraportable... i would probably rather have had a few more ports, slightly thicker version etc, but the spec doesn't put me off when i think what i actually use it for and what ports etc i use regularly.
Yawn
Why the continuous comments on how thin it is? It's as thin as the thickest part given it only slims down at the edges. Apart from that it's bloody huge (same size as my macbook) with a low res screen (and if it's the same as the macbook, crap) and a slow, slow disk (I've had stinkpad X40s that used 1.8 inch drives and they're slooooow). Yawn.
I've been using skinny laptops since the Stinkpad 560 in the mid 90s, and this is close to useless. No changeable anything. No ethernet (try living in a flat in london with 30 wifi networks buzzing around).
I've currently got an X60 with slower Core 2 and that gets damn hot with proper vents .. this thing is gonna fry. His holynesses arguments over CPU speed are irrelevent here given how slow the disk is and the screen being such crap - the only people needing anything over a 1 gig Core 2 are modelling and graphics guys and they'll take one look at the screen and disk and run).
Toshiba will sell you a much smaller laptop that's half the weight and includes an optical drive.
What a let down.
What is the issue with ports? It's a laptop
I'm currently using a Thinkpad X32 at work. It has, wait for it, no optical drive. I use it in it's docking station when at my desk when i plug in a monitor, power, and a usb hub - because it has limited ports and i need a mouse, keyboard, usb cable to charge my blackberry, a port to plug in my usb key. I tend to install apps when i'm at my desk and rarely use my optical drive.
When I'm working on the move I don't plug anything into it except my power cable and maybe a usb key. This is apple thinking smart and asking what you actually *need* from a laptop. Few people buying a 2kusd ultrasmall laptop are not going to have some other machine they can use for the rare time they need an optical drive and many of my app installs are downloads from the net anyway. As for ethernet - how often do you move a large enough volume of files that this is going to be an issue. Copying your music collection is a one time action so it can take a while without it being a problem.
On portability it's the weight i look at - that's why i have the X32. I'm carrying a bag that's big enough to take an A4 envelope, and usually have a file or sheaf of papers with me, so something with a bigger screen at the same weight as the X32 is no more effort to carry and better to work with.
I think they've got it right. It's not the one for me as a personal machine - given I rarely carry my personal laptop anywhere outside the house it's got no advantages over a Macbook - but if my employer switched to Apple i'd take this over a macbook or macbook pro.
I have a solution!!
You all don't like the skinny thing from the evil evil pear-shaped-head man; evidently.
Well, don't buy it.
That was a simple one, wasn't? Ok, here is my coat.
GB
re: re: My wife just made a good point...
Sorry to let you down, but your wife is also wrong about reclaiming Canadian sales tax for overseas visitors. There *was* such a scheme, but it got cancelled from April 2007, see:
http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/gi/notice221/notice221-e.html
I don't know the situation for the US, perhaps your wife should check that at the same time she is looking for super-cheap flights and hotel accomodation.
The envelope concept is genius...
... especially as the MBA will spend a lot of its time in one, between you and the Apple repair shop...
@Tom Chiverton
Of course the Tosh is much lower spec, it was made in 2002. The point people are making is that yet again Apple have failed to be innovative but would like you to believe otherwise.
@Nick Fisher
Who uses RJ45? Everyone if they listen to my recommendation. I wouldn't dream of sending any credit card details etc over wireless because as yet there isn't a single wireless protocol that can't be broken. Wired is still far more secure.
This is yet another limited Apple product that takes away far more than it delivers and Stevie boy just laughs at you and says 'Whack an extortionate price on it, the muppets will pay it'
4200rpm HD!
What is the slowest, cheapest hard drive doing in a premium product? A 4200rpm drive kills any laptop performance - upgrade any laptop to a 7200rpm and watch the overall performance double.
The problem with any laptop is all the other clutter you have to carry round with you - power supply brick, proper mouse to do something useful, cables and adaptors, etc.
Flat cube?
Sad to see so many ill-informed comments. Makes Reg readers look thick. Bad for publicity... Just read the descriptions, and check the tech BEFORE you flame next time, please.
Obviously, this is an unusual device. Its target market is unclear, because it's somewhat radical. It's pitched at wireless use only - anything else is a kludgy compromise - and Apple do appear to have thought out what this implies. Read the specs. Watch the demo. Pause to think. Being a touch radical, it's getting the same cool reception that met the iPod when that was launched. (Check the history.) So maybe this device will succeed, too.
Or maybe it's a cube squashed flat. Have to wait and see.
re: My Next Mac
Paul - not being funny here, but if most of what you're running is FOSS, there are way better laptops that you could run Linux on and have native X11 support instead of Apple's half hearted implementation. I love OS X but my next machine is probably going to be the best laptop I can put together running Ubuntu. The only app I would miss is Panic Unison and the only nice feature will be Airtunes, which someone is going work out real soon now.
Some nice features, but it doesn't need to be this thin
The processor is interesting, it's pretty, and has some legs as a travelling/demo machine that isn't linked up in the (wired) office too often.
However, what's the point of making it that thin other than shinyness? Weight is usually more of an issue.
It really wouldn't have killed them to add more USB ports, modem and LAN.
It's good that things have moved on from laptops the size and weight of a few bricks, but at some point it's counterproductive to make them smaller and thinner.
It looks pretty.
But that's all it has going for it.
It's an under-spec'd and over-priced fashion accessory and as such I'm sure it will sell bucketloads.
And the worst is...
...that for marketing reasons they will not to bring out a useful product that may keep people from buying this useless toy (like a MacBook Pro 12" or 13.3"). At least not anytime soon.
:-(
Cool
So now I can pay over a 1000% more than an ASUS Eee PC to get whilst what is a more powerful system, isn't powerful enough to do anything you couldn't on an Eee PC i.e. Web browsing, office, e-mail, IM, movies, music.
It's not like you'll be playing high end games or anything on either system so why pay over £1000 when you could pay £169 and be able to do the exact same things?
Not to mention of course that this thing looks far less rugged than the Eee PC, that's it's made by Apple and is hence guaranteed to have a whole bunch of manufacturing defects and that it's nowhere near as open as the Eee PC. In fact, all it has over the Eee PC in practice is more storage, something that is largely negated with cheap memory cards in the Eee PC.
I would've liked it...
... If it didn't have a sealed in battery, and the lack of multiple I/O (USB/Firewire) ports.
Oh well. The Toshiba will have to do a while longer.
Who cares about thin?
It's uber-thin, but so what? Its weight that matters, and this is still heavier than a Sony TX or a Samsung Q series. In fact my Samsung Q30 is smaller, lighter, you get the external DVD writer as part of the deal, it has more ports and most importantly, a removable battery (in fact you get a standard 3-hour battery and a double size six hour one).
I'd actually really like a proper Mac sub notebook, would even pay a premium for it, but not this; its a toy.
Will it blend?
Well?
Re: Battery
"Or do as any sensible person would do and simply buy a new battery and get it fitted for free by Apple:"
I wouldn't class anyone buying one of those as a sensible person. ;-)
</obvious>
Seriously though, how many iPod owners bought new batteries when theirs blew up/expired, and how many just went and bought the new iPod?
And only having batteries available from Mac means they can rip you off to their heart's content.
Re: Can't anyone read?
"Greg said "wireless-N. Nice. So it's non-standard wireless". Wireless N is neither non-standard nor proprietary."
It's not been standardised yet. I'd say that was fairly non-standard. Which makes it....proprietary. Hmm? No?
There are still inconsistencies and incompatibilities in .11n hardware, which is why I wish people would wait for the ruddy standard. Nothing wrong with G for me.
Lots of AC's here isn't there.
I am sure that some people here sit on their thumbs for months on end waiting for Apple to release a product so that they can flame it.
A few points that some others here have picked up on.
1. You don't have to buy one so calm down dear. Even Steve's mind vortex isn't that strong.
2. It's not a Desktop so stop expecting it to have the features of one.
3. If it doesn't have the specs you need buy a MacBook / Pro and save some money. Also the Eee PC is a different market.
4. Watch the keynote and find out what your talking about first. It has cooling, the battery can be replaced by Apple etc..
I'm surprised that it doesn't have an SD slot that should have been a given with their being no optical drive. A lot of people are carrying SD cards around these days in preference to CD/DVD's ditto this for USB. It needs another port.
Who's going to buy it? Well I hate lugging my Dell Latitude (slim as it is) around to clients. A MacThin or ThinBook (see what I did there) would fit the bill. The larger track pad helps with not using a mouse when out and about. I backup via wireless to my own home server anyway so that works for me. I don't need a DVD drive and the backlit keyboard I wish I had that on my laptop now so all in all it's pretty good.
There is lots of stuff that it doesn't have. Luckily I have all that stuff on my desktop. Which is why I have a desktop on my desk and a laptop on my lap when I'm not in the office.
All a bit obvious really isn't it.
Rah rah rah and all that noise
Geez, you'd be hard pushed to find a bigger bunch of whiners anywhere. It's pretty simple, if you don't like it, don't buy it.
Now, I for one am pretty anti apple. I'm writing this from an IBM/Lenovo T60 (work supplied), and my personal laptop is a Toshiba Portege R100 (check out its size, and the specs of the delicious R500). Awesome.
But I've had the R100 for 4 years now. And I'm looking for something to replace it. And quite frankly, this is it. I work in IT, which means I can claim any such machine on my tax - up to 100% of its value. So over 3 years in Australia, the machine is free and I can salary sacrifice and pay 53.5% of its RRP immediately.
So, for somebody in a field that you can either salary sacrifice or claim this on tax, I really don't see any issues. Battery? Who REALLY gives a shit? You replace it when it's knackered. It'll be a couple of years, I won't stress about it now. One USB port? I've got a mini USB hub which weighs about 12 grams and has 6 ports on it. Jesus how hard is that? Enough for your ethernet dongle, your modem, your CDrom drive and anything else you need.
And who the hell needs a cdrom drive on the move anyway? Frankly, the 1.1kg of my Portege is nice to carry around and do presentations, and even the 2.5kg of the IBM/Lenovo is alright.. but thinner and lighter IS better as far as I'm concerned. Those asking who it's for -- it's for me. People who want a nice machine, preferably POSIX based, which they can use as a daily box.
We've got wifi at work, I've got wifi at home. I need a cd drive maybe once every .. ooh I dunno, never? I have NEVER needed one as long as I've had the Toshiba, and the last time I reinstalled the OS (windows) I did it via network with a VMWare "Ultimate Deployment Appliance".
This machine is frankly exactly what I wanted. I'll be sure to let you know what fails first on it, though :)
Air compares poorly to my full-featured 6lb. laptop...
I'm rather amused by the people saying that the Air doesn't offer feature 'x' and therefore is a waste of time. Especially when what they're comparing it to is a laptop that weighs about twice as much and is twice as thick.
Even better is to suggest that it's no good for HD editing. What the hell? Why would you even *think* about using this for HD editing?
And the 4200rpm drive is there because it's not even a full-size laptop drive. This uses the same drive as the iPod and is one of the ways they got the size down to the point that they did. Of course performance will suffer on some applications, but for running Word/PowerPoint or Pages/Keynote it'll be more than enough. The multi-touch pad copped from the iPhone is a nice touch too and perhaps means that you don't need to tote around the mouse and everything else...
Does it matter hugely that this only has one USB2 port? How often do you use multiple USB devices simultaneously while *away* from the home? Remember, this is an *ultra-portable* -- if you're only going to use it around the house, why not get a regular laptop and save yourself some serious £££? At home you could always connect it to a hub, or wait until they release this fancy new port-replicator-cum-iMac that we just read about in a patent application.
That's why I think this laptop has two audiences: the Apple fans who will buy everything just because they love the sexy engineering, and road warriors who want a truly portable Mac/laptop. For instance, my wife, who travels around a *lot* giving presentations, was really interested when I told her about this machine and its specs. This weighs about half what her ThinkPad does, would do all the same things, and would enable her to ditch the bulky laptop bag and associated shoulder-pain entirely when she travels. Also, in spite of several reinstalls (and download all of the requisite firmware updates) I've never been able to get all of the hardware working the way that my 7 year-old TiBook does.
Frankly, even for the modest amount of traveling that *I* do I would consider it over my MB Pro if it cost a bit less.
My only *real* disappointments with this machine are as follows:
1. Non-replaceable battery -- OK, so I can take it back to the Apple store and have a new one installed for $130 (no doubt £100 for us) when the old one burns out. But that doesn't help me much when I'm on the road for a full day and don't want to take all of the cords with me. A hot-swappable battery would be *awesome*.
2. Battery-life -- is it any different if I have the SSD in there? If Apple could somehow get this up to 7 or 8 hours they'd really have me drooling.
Anyone got a good lawyer?
'the battery can be replaced by Apple'
Have to buy all accessories from Apple, get Apple to fit them etc.
STOP THE PRESSES: Monopoly;Anti-Competitive;Tying Consumers into their products etc
Where are the EU lawsuits when Apple keeps pulling stunts like this. No wonder the MS lot think they are being unfairly targeted.
Not only but also
It won't just blend, it'll *fold*
I'm pretty sure I'll be buying one to replace the 12" PowerBook with the almost dead HDD that shows me email and web pages at the moment. I don't need a bazillion ports and connectors and optical drives to do that so I'm going to buy a computer that doesn't have them and so lighter.
God bless the PC idiots who 'need' an RJ45 and a thousand USB slots (more isn't always better but it's always MORE, right?) and are clearly labouring in denial of a world where networks went wireless for the rest of us years ago.
@WebsterPhreaky and his irritating childish drivel I don't spend my life waiting for something I hate to be talked about and jump in waving my ignorance about like a petulant ten-year-old, who the hell do you think is listening to you ? Person reading Mac article suddenly realises "Ah yes, your idiotic rhetoric has convinced me, macs suck!"
@frankgobbo
"Frankly, the 1.1kg of my Portege is nice to carry around and do presentations, and even the 2.5kg of the IBM/Lenovo is alright.. but thinner and lighter IS better as far as I'm concerned. Those asking who it's for -- it's for me."
Erm, brilliant point, and I wish you all the best...
...but it weighs more than your 1.1kg Toshiba..!! Hope you enjoy that extra thinness though
Price disparity?
"Hmmm. That $3098 equates to £1571 at today's exchange rate. Even allowing for UK sales tax, that's a rum deal for Brits."
Actually, once you take off the VAT on the UK price, and add on local sales tax to the US price, there's only about £50 in it. Not really the sort of difference that makes headlines is it!
not a laptop
It's the worlds biggest iPod Touch.... seriously... jobs must be rubbing his hands with glee at all the people who have a rosey picture of driving down to the shops, picking up this years "must have" laptop, walking home (because they needed to trade in their car for it), when they get home and open it - BAM - wtf, where do all my wires go?!
A year later battery life goes down to about 30 minutes... so you ask for a replacement battery, and BAM - you have to sell your house to cover the cost of sending it in for "repair" to replace the battery at your expense.
My 12 incher
I suppose I'm just jarred off because there will never be a replacement for my 12" Power Book. Can you imagine the cost of an Air model based on the Pro series??
@not only but
'labouring in denial of a world where networks went wireless for the rest of us years ago'
You keep going with that wireless thing. Me and a thousand others will quite happily keep sniffing your packets, stealing your credit card details, reading your private mail and generally having a good time.
Idiots?
"God bless the PC idiots who 'need' an RJ45 and a thousand USB slots (more isn't always better but it's always MORE, right?) and are clearly labouring in denial of a world where networks went wireless for the rest of us years ago."
You mean like every secure business environment on the planet?
Clearly if you've only ever used a computer at home, starbucks and work for a mickey-mouse outfit then you might get the idea that you don't need ethernet.
Comparisons
Someone at the Reg, please draw up a comparison table with the new MacBook Air, the Sony G11, Fujitsu P series and the EeePC. I find it amazing that people are considering the EccPC as an alternative but several comments seem to indicate this is the case.
You can't blame Steve Jobs - in the US they bought the iPhone in droves (unlike in the UK) - you charge what the market will bear. People are very cynical - take the battery for example, it's going to fail in 2-3 years time out of warranty - I can see many 3rd party vendors offering replacement services so you won't be locked into Apple (just as you are not if you want to buy any other replacement laptop battery).
I don't like having to pay a margin because I'm in the UK, but considering the effort to get a 10-15% discount for a product from Canada/US with a US keyboard, it's not worth it. I'm not too concerned, I don't own a Mac and this isn't the product to convert me to the light side - the Dell XPS1330 seems like a better option and better value at the moment (I don't care about thickness, just weight).
@Chris Coleman (Price disparity?)
"Actually, once you take off the VAT on the UK price, and add on local sales tax to the US price, there's only about £50 in it."
Taking off UK sales tax, and adding on US sales tax isn't exactly a fair comparison either - how about comparing the UK price sans VAT with the US pre sales tax price, or the US post sales tax price with the UK price inc VAT?
91 Comments
So much said about so little
Can't use my mouse and USB stick at the same time.
Although it has wireless networking I would still have prefered to have an ethernet port built in - even if it envolved some sort of dongle arangement. Also another USB port would have been good. I know it is aimed at people who want ultra portability - but still alot of people want to use a mouse with their laptop. Perhaps the new trackpad might get over this, but I doubt it. Unplugging my mouse to plug in a USB stick would just get annoying.
At the end of the day people will buy this for a varity of reasons, but very few of the reasons will be that they need a computer that small and more to do with the styling and 'must have latest gizmo'.
Steve Jobs Keynote Speech
Bend over and get ready for pain people. Time to take another one for Stevie, only this time we're moving up from a cucumber to a marrow
Ahhh, business as usual...
Form over function...
Complete lack of ports because they'd have made it thicker.
Complete inability to swap batteries on the go, or just buy a new battery when the old one dies, because that would have made it thicker (I suspect the battery is actually spread across the inside of the casing like jam!)
I wonder how long it will be before the keyboard is removed, just cos it doesn't "look right" and would give them another 1/8" back... Anyone else remember the ZX81 keyboard?
The only time this thin lightweight Mac is going to be thin and lightweight is when it's on your desk with you carefully guarding it. As soon as it comes to transporting it anywhere you'll have to put it in a steel box just in case someone puts a heavy post-it not on the top and snaps it!
I'm sure it'll sell a bundle.
Think about the target market!
Okay, yes, i'm a die-hard Mac fan, although i work exclusively on Lenovo and Windows. i'm also a person that *never* runs out to buy the newest and greatest anything; i want those idiots to be the introductory testers and i'll go get it after they've shaken it out. ('swhy i haven't upgraded to 10.5 yet!)
However. i'm currently on an iBook G4 that is a couple years *out of AppleCare* (thus, about five years old). It does what i need it: email & web, WP, financial, games (including WoW), developers' tools, and Adobe CS, especially Photoshop. It's been majorly repaired only once or twice. In five years. And i'm not exactly gentle; i do things like trip over a big dog on the floor whilst carrying the iBook in one hand (running) and something in the other . . . swing around with the thing plugged in at the extent of the cable . . . walk away from a desk carrying whilst it's plugged in . . . carry it in a backpack that i then sling around and drop on floors . . .
The point with this sub-notebook is portability. *Not* digital video editing, *not* major league graphics work. It's a notebook aimed at people who move around, for work *or for school*.
The thinness of it is actually quite a good feature, not just for sexy good looks like intimated above. As thin as it is, i'll be able to carry it *and* these huge tomes of hardback textbooks that seem to be de rigeur for college now. It's great for a college student! Most campuses (in the US, anyway) don't let you onto their network with your personal computer, anyway, so a wired port is useless there. But it's got a full-sized keyboard, great for taking class notes on. Since apparently a lot of students hang out in coffee shops and those seem to have wireless access (i don't go to coffee shops, so i don't know), don't need a wired port there, either.
For travellers, the thinness of it means it will fit in carryon with even more room to spare.
My home is both wired and wireless; my workplace (which is a school district larger than Rhode Island; not, i think, a 'mickey-mouse outfit') is wired and wireless -- i haven't had to use a patch cable with my iBook in forever. 'Fact, i forget that i would need it in someplaces, and open up to check email before i realise that connectivity isn't there. Even my weekend job, for which there is only one computer (the POS), has wireless access so if i need to do some database work there i can just connect right up.
If wired capability *is* needed, get the dongle when you buy the notebook.
As for durability -- have you taken a look at what Apple's iBooks, old and new, have had to go through when in the hands of the target audience? We have schools still using the original coloured iBooks in lab carts and classrooms, and they run just as well as new for what the students need. *What the students need*, mind you; if it's a graphics arts class or something, they aren't going to be on laptops, anyway. i've seen these things run over, slung around by the handle and across the rooms, dropped off tables . . . and keep running. (i am also a repair tech; not just Apple, but IBM and Dell, too.) Maybe the display cracked when it went under the tyres . . . maybe not. Had one seriously stomped on that still worked save for a crack across the display.
i really don't think that Apple would put out such a thin notebook, aimed for students and travel, that wasn't durable. (Unfortunately, it's too expensive for a public school district to add to the approved lineup.)
The sealed battery also tips me off that it's for travel. My iBook has been suddenly powered down a number of times by the battery-latch getting caught on something and popping the battery out, or (lately) simply being loose in the battery compartment and being jiggled hard. Told you it was old! 8) With a sealed battery, a traveller doesn't need to worry about losing power, and schools don't need to worry about curious kids fiddling with them. As a power user, *i* personally find it annoying, because i like being able to swap a drained battery for a full one, but i can at least take a different view and see how it *is* useful.
A lack of FireWire makes sense -- from this viewpoint. Kids aren't going to need FireWire access; they'll get what they need from USB drives or servers. Since i don't travel in my job, i don't know how prevalent FireWire is for the travelling businessperson, but the only time i use it is when i need to mount the iBook as an external drive on something. *That* happens only when the thing doesn't boot by itself. This is a great feature, something i dearly miss on the Lenovos i have to work on, and i find myself wondering if Apple has just dismissed it from this model, or replaced it with another way of mounting the notebook as a Target Disk.
i hardly ever use the CD drive in my iBook. Only when i need to load an app. And since the MacBook Air can utilise any other Mac's *or Windows station's* optical drive over ethernet, no problem. If you need more optical availability than that, then get the external drive (DVD *and* CD burner!), or a different MacBook more suited to your needs.
Personally, i can't see the payoff in paying hundreds extra for a SSD that's 20GB smaller than the HD, nor can i see paying double for that *and* just ~.2 increase in GHz. But the SSD *is* attractive for the shock-resistance! i just can't lose that 20GB (i have a lot of audiobooks!). But the base configuration will still do what i need -- and probably
i *am* disappointed with Apple's continued lack of a second mouse button. It took me a while to get used to having one, and i do find it convenient not to have to use two hands to get the ctrl-click menu.
The default configuration will most certainly be able to run WP, Photoshop, browser, Illustrator, JGrasp, Mail, TextWrangler, Preview (all with multiple files/windows open), a solitaire game, and copy files over the wireless all at once with no problem -- since that's what my iBook can do now. It'll probably even run WoW without having to have *all* other apps closed, though i'd still use an external mouse for that, which'll make it easier for me to pretend i'm not playing . . . ;) *And* it'll run Windows, which will be nice when i'm required to take that blasted VBasic class.
No, this new notebook is *not* the holy grail. But nor is it a pile of flop. It is a precisely focussed notebook, and does it well. Take it *out* of focus, and you may be disappointed. My husband wouldn't use it for his graphic design and artwork, but then he wouldn't expect it to do that. It *will*, though, work admirably as a display to show clients the work in progress, and be able to do minor alterations to it that may come up in consult.
Don't expect the world. You won't get it. Even Jobs can't do that.
(heh, and by the time i save up for it, they might have MkII out with more ports or a replaceable battery or . . ? Initial bugs ironed out, anyway!)
Oh, and...
...by the time i actually manage to save up, a MacTablet may have actually come out, which is what i *really* want!
Idiot?
"I wouldn't dream of sending any credit card details etc over wireless because as yet there isn't a single wireless protocol that can't be broken."
That only matters if you're using http, not https. *Are* you an idiot?
"Me and a thousand others will quite happily keep sniffing your packets, stealing your credit card details, reading your private mail and generally having a good time."
Same answer. If you use an insecure transfer protocol, anyone can read your mail without needing to live near you. If you use a secure one, it's secure from start to end.
Just wait a couple of months for the Price Drop
"...............by the time i actually manage to save up, a MacTablet may have actually come out, which is what i *really* want!"
But we all know Uncle Steve will slash the price after a couple of months (just as he did by shafting early iPhone buyers).
Just sit tight till Spring.
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