Have to buy from Best Buy too...
...due to financing options. I'm student and best buy has a new way of dealing with apple's education pricing this month as a promotion. If you go to bestbuy.com/studentdeals enter any .edu email address and they will email you a one-time use only code that will give you $100 off the price of any MacBook Pro or Air. In the case of the air, this is a better deal than Apple offers for students ($50 off) although apple also gives a $100 app store card, which best buy wouldnt match.
Anyway, I bought the 11inch MBA w/128GB and 4GB RAM for $999.
It pains me to think I will suffer in 6 months like I used to years ago when I didn't buy enough RAM. I'm replacing an early 2011 15" MBP 2.0 ghz quad core i7 w/ 500 hdd and 8gb ram. Mainly, I'm a writer. But occasionally I do edit a 10 minute film in final cut pro or compose music with logic and ugh... Not looking forward to the slow crawl.
However, I really like what reviewers are saying about the quality of life- user experience of the 11" MBA. I read, critique, and write all the time and need to make it to classes in different buildings. The 15 MBP with an optical drive is too big, oxy, fragile, and kind of embarrassing set up next to the guy who just prints out his PDFs and uses real books.
Sorry for rambling - what I'm saying is that since I have to buy from best buy, I have decided to replace m powerful machine with this newer tiny machine for $999 because I think it's a good deal and will make my student experience better despite only 4gb of ram and losing 372 Gb of hd space. But I am also a bit scared.
However, I also have a new iPad, which makes me wonder if I shouldn't just return the Air, which I haven't even opened yet. Was planning to sell the MBP on eBay while I can still get some real cash for it - also has two years left of transferrable AppleCare.