Apple Announces MacBook Air

[iAFC]

When I saw the price and the optional SuperDrive (they could at least include it for free in the box, for God's sake!) I thought it was a load of crap. Then I saw the pictures of this ****** notebook, which looks exactly like a Dell or something. What can I say? Unfortunately, Vaio TZ is still the way to go in this market.

 

[MvdM]

Mono speaker, no FireWire, no ethernet, no optical. Well, that's how they put a Mac in it.

 

[corywoolf]

What a rip off. Just a pricey toy. Not very functional IMO. One USB port?!? Good for the rich people that have a Mac Pro 3.2 Ghz and want a portable to go along with it I guess. I would definitely wait for the next revision. The price will drop a bit and it will have better battery life. The biggest shocker was that it didn't have a flash drive as standard. I like the Macbook Air, but it just looks too expensive/ limited for college students. I guess the thicker brother (Macbook) will have to suffice for the college crowd for now. This definitely confirms what the next MacBook Pro's will look like. The keyboard change is a given, maybe the form factor as well. Obviously they wont be as thin, but the curves will be similar.

 

[clevin]

Please dont even try and compare the two... What a joke? 2-8gb? Cmon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASUS_Eee_PC

there is a SD slot for eee pc, i now has 12G, 8G sd card are $50, cheap!

PS. SSD harddrive is shortlived, especially with journaled system like OSX, whoever like to pay $3000 for a 2-3 life span laptop is beyond me.

 

[zakatov]

Damn. I really was hoping for a 11-12" laptop. Thinness is a useless quality, small footprint would have been much better.

So u'd rather have a thicker, slower laptop with a smaller screen just to save 1-2in diagonally ur crazy

 

[mandoman]

Only complaint is no firewire. Boo hoo. Otherwise, what
an incredible looking machine!

 

[Mac21ND]

Okay, we're not taking anything away from the design. It's the most beautifully designed machine per usual with Apple products. Even if I'm not the target audience, find me a target audience that will pay the premium for this. I don't think it's wrong to be put off by this product. I think it would do Apple and this forum a great disservice just to fall in line and not question it. $3000 for nothing but a smaller solid state drive makes me scratch my head.

No doubt, I'm sure as time goes on, Apple will perfect this machine and we'll see something that will make it worth it's pricetag. But for right now, I don't see it. And I honestly haven't seen a decent argument in favor of this besides "it's beautiful".

Scarlett Johanssen is "beautiful", but she's still a bit out of my price range.

Well, beside beautiful, add thinner, lighter, an LED screen, and the first Mac to have an option for a solid state harddrive. All of those things are engineering achievements, as far as I'm concerned, and warrant the extra cost above a regular MacBook.

 

[jhande]

Am I the only one who thinks 5 hours of battery is pretty low considering other thin laptops can get like 8-10 hours.

And, what is the difference in battery life between the SSD and harddrive version, if any?

If it would have lasted a full day (8 hours min), that would have made it a must buy. As it is, it's nice, and will probably do well, but I'll take a 'wait and see' attitude.

 

[Jonny427]

I love how everyone is bashing its price. Go to sony and compare prices, you're looking at about a $1-300 savings, depending on the specs. $999 for a 64GB solid state is right in line with what most manufactuers charge. So for basically the same price, you're getting a much prettier computer that runs OSX.

This is obviously not for everyone (and definitely not for me), which is why they have a whole line of products... why does everyone think this specific model needs all the specs of its sibilings?

 

[zdobson]

I think there are a lot of people on here who wouldn't be satisfied by anything Apple had to offer. I'm not saying this is the most amazing computer ever, but it's cool. Keep in mind that Apple is limited by current technology and by the prices of that technology. Some people here are expecting features or prices that are just not possible at the moment. The technology you imagine will never compare to what actually exists at the moment.

 

[Phil A.]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/3B48b Safari/419.3)

well I'm getting one 'cos it fits my requirements perfectly as a complement to my mac pro.
Just got to decide if the SSD can be justified now

 

[MacBoySeattle]

The Vaio TZ is better in every regard, as it is actually, OH MY GOD, a REAL UMPC, and not a 13.3" standard laptop that's been crippled and made thinner acting like it's an ultra-portable. And if you want a cheaper ultra portable, one that you can really fit into your pocket, buy an EEE-PC. This thing is a piece of junk.

 

[bijou]

So which one of you is willing to be an iGuinea pig so you can report back to us on just how much this stack of credit cards sucks?

 

[Philter]

Apple stock tanking atm

 

[Markleshark]

It's a good job its well sexy, coz thats a stupid name.

 

[zerger]

Just doesn't make sense

They shaved two pounds and raised the price $700! I wonder what you get if you take the DVD drive out of the Macbook and replace the HD with an SSD, how much would it weight (never mind if it is practical).

Yes, the Sony TZ retails for more. However a business user is more likely to spring for a system that integrates with their corperate PCs. It has a beautiful form factor, but in the end, no market. I do agree with others that it is more a preview of things to come than a marketable good. A concept computer, if you will.

 

[snowfall]

Come on guys, we all knew that this was never gunna be a competitor to the standard MB in terms of price and power, but, isn't this what people have been saying they wanted since the 12" PB was killed?
Admittedly, the 13" screen is a little too big to be truly ultra portable, 12 would have been preferable.

Actually, I personally wanted a smaller sized Pro machine, this doesn't appear to be it. Specs off of Apple site:

1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4MB shared L2 cache

2GB (onboard) [no mention of expansion]
80GB Parallel ATA, 4200 rpm

Intel GMA X3100 graphics processor with 144MB of DDR2 SDRAM shared with main memory

So it's slower than MacBook, has the same hard drive (yet with less storage) as the MacBook, and the same barebones graphics as the Macbook. It's certainly much thinner (and a beauty of a design), but I still declare my 12" Powerbook king.

I feel that if they had just gone ahead and released a 13" Pro computer two years ago, they would have filled a big market niche and not felt the pressure to come out with something so cool and different design-wise, just something really good and functional.

 

[headfuzz]

And an extra $1000 for the SSD, that just places the price too high for a machine that I can't even use for recording because it lacks a firewire port.

The lack of Firewire is a real shame, USB soundcards are generally inferior to their Firewire cousins, from my experience

I'm guessing the hard drive isn't user replaceable...?

EDIT: I still think it looks AMAZING though!

 

[bijou]

I think there are a lot of people on here who wouldn't be satisfied by anything Apple had to offer. I'm not saying this is the most amazing computer ever, but it's cool.

Not true. I love my MBP. If the Air had turned out to be a mini-MBP, than I'd be all over it.

 

[iHerzeleid]

The Vaio TZ is better in every regard, as it is actually, OH MY GOD, a REAL UMPC, and not a 13.3" standard laptop that's been crippled and made thinner acting like it's an ultra-portable. And if you want a cheaper ultra portable, one that you can really fit into your pocket, buy an EEE-PC. This thing is a piece of junk.

ok we heard the the first time. good for you.

 

[Klaxons2012]

Well, beside beautiful, add thinner, lighter, an LED screen, and the first Mac to have an option for a solid state harddrive. All of those things are engineering achievements, as far as I'm concerned, and warrant the extra cost above a regular MacBook.

I'm content in saying this is another design structure for the mac that Apple will develop further.

 

[zioxide]

The Vaio TZ is better in every regard, as it is actually, OH MY GOD, a REAL UMPC, and not a 13.3" standard laptop that's been crippled and made thinner acting like it's an ultra-portable. And if you want a cheaper ultra portable, one that you can really fit into your pocket, buy an EEE-PC. This thing is a piece of junk.

QFT right there.

The rest of you need to stop listening to the RDF

 

[bloodycape]

Kind of odd that the Sony UX umpc has had a 64gb ssd options for almost a year that only cost like $700 more.

 

[darngooddesign]

My Powerbook G4 has a multitouch trackpad. So big-whoop on this one.

 

[Graphis]

Well I think it's gorgeous, and if I could afford it as well as the new Mac Pro I just ordered, I'd get it. One thing though, I wouldn't like to accidentally sit on it.