Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Xcode? Really? These are for students to type up book reports, spreadsheets, and do general research. What a silly post.

Where does it say that? Is other use forbidden by some new Apple licensing model that you know about that somehow got missed out of the article?
 
that is because the minimum order has to be 5... ;)

You are basically getting a bigger screen and $20 extra for free.
2GB + SDD I guess is enough for documents and videos for most college and school classwork except the ones where they need high tech, but they never buy the entry level laptops thought so I think is good; not great but good and I believe more powerful than the white MacBooks overall.

ha! ok, that makes more sense :D

Thanks for the clarification.

You're exactly right, not great but good.
 
I'm pretty sure you're wrong, because we upgrade our computers whenever we see a benefit to doing so.



I agree. We use our macs for final cut pro, CS5 and xcode. I'd say that the only use we'd get out of these machines would be to leave them in the "5-pack" and use them as a boat anchor but they're not heavy enough to do a good job of even that.

You used FCP in high school? For what?
 
I think you miss the point. I think they only offer 5-packs. The price for the single MBA is only listed to show how much it costs per MBA. However you still have to buy them in packs of five.

EDIT: Seems Carlanga beat me to the punch....

I know, I'm an idiot.

I get it now. :p
 
Where does it say that? Is other use forbidden by some new Apple licensing model that you know about that somehow got missed out of the article?

It doesn't have to say that. My middle school started giving students Macs to take home back in 1990, precisely for general use for students, NOT only for CS classes. To assert that Apple would abandon one of their basic tenets of spreading easy access to all students in order to only focus on professional-grade machines for professional purposes after 20 years in education is ridiculous.
 
Why should most educational institutions be interested in this product? It's simply not competitive in price with Windows 7 laptops. I can understand why consumers with disposable income would be willing to pay more, but I don't see how schools could justify spending $1000 for a laptop when I'm guessing they could get a Windows laptop for $500 each or maybe less. The only reason would be if they wanted to use some specific software like Garage Band or something but other than that, it seems like a pretty tough sell.
 
We were luckily able to draw the line at 800 MHz Power Mac G4s loaded up on RAM with the purchase of Intel based Mac minis. The G4s eventually ended up in labs alongside thin clients as a perk. For the most part we skipped the G5 era on purchases. Though nearly all of the G5 machines purchased before my time ended up out of warranty and springing leaks in the cooling systems...

On average you are looking at a 4-5 year life on the front lines unless there was a significant reason to replace a machine. After that secondary uses are not that hard to find. (e.g kiosks, supplemental lab machines)

The Foreign Language department still has a few Beige Power Mac G3s since they have applications still under OS 9!

AH! Leaking G5s where a thing to remember! It pains me to hear about Mac Pro users wanted to upgrade after 3 years with a tower. Five years for a machine is pretty average based on the specs and those old workstations can easily pull 10 or more. We have an HP workstation from 2003 running 64 bit Windows 7 and it's smooth.

There's just no way an institution or corporation or any entity with even a medium load of machines (50+) could settle for paying $1000 for a non-upgradeable system with 2GB of RAM.

You used FCP in high school? For what?

There are many freshman college students that come into our dept. with heavy knowledge in Final Cut Pro and Premier. The challenge is getting them to actually be efficient in it on a professional level.
 
Why should most educational institutions be interested in this product? It's simply not competitive in price with Windows 7 laptops. I can understand why consumers with disposable income would be willing to pay more, but I don't see how schools could justify spending $1000 for a laptop when I'm guessing they could get a Windows laptop for $500 each or maybe less.

Factor in software costs and it gets a lot closer, plus most students simply find Macs easier to use, and of course, Apple was much more aggressive in the education space long before MS, so they would probably be changing platforms as well.

----------

There are many freshman college students that come into our dept. with heavy knowledge in Final Cut Pro and Premier. The challenge is getting them to actually be efficient in it on a professional level.

Yes but I would assume that the vast majority of this nation's schools do not have any use whatsoever for their students to learn to edit videos. It's not as if every, or even many, schools have an internal television station.
 
I know they are trying to get the price as low as possible but 2 gigs of non-expandable RAM is is a bad idea in my opinion.

It seriously limits the longevity of the unit. It wouldn't be such a big deal if it was tech/user upgradable.
 
That’s low RAM. Enough for many people (not techie forum-goers like us), especially since the SSD makes virtual memory work faster than other laptops. SSD is a speed factor too—a BIG advantage over most laptops, and probably even more important than RAM amount.

But still, Apple REALLY should offer 4GB Air models as well.

Oh, wait... :p

As for price... let’s see what that slow, non-SSD $500 Windows laptop is worth in two years (if it’s even still running, replaceable RAM or no). TCO is great on Macs.
 
AH! Leaking G5s where a thing to remember! It pains me to hear about Mac Pro users wanted to upgrade after 3 years with a tower. Five years for a machine is pretty average based on the specs and those old workstations can easily pull 10 or more. We have an HP workstation from 2003 running 64 bit Windows 7 and it's smooth.

There's just no way an institution or corporation or any entity with even a medium load of machines (50+) could settle for paying $1000 for a non-upgradeable system with 2GB of RAM.
We only had a handful of multi-processor systems until the dual core era. The 5 year old Q6600 still offers an incredible amount of base CPU power. You might just want a newer video card or SSD to extend the life.
 
That’s low RAM. Enough for many people (not techie forum-goers like us), especially since the SSD makes virtual memory work faster than other laptops. SSD is a speed factor too—a BIG advantage over most laptops, and probably even more important than RAM amount.

But still, Apple REALLY should offer 4GB Air models as well.

Oh, wait... :p

As for price... let’s see what that slow, non-SSD $500 Windows laptop is worth in two years (if it’s even still running, replaceable RAM or no). TCO is great on Macs.

I imagine the huge 64GB SSD is very useful. :rolleyes:
 
The price is deceptive, with no moving parts, unibody construction and non-glass screen the Air is a very rugged machine that won’t suffer the repair costs as their “cheap” plastic counterparts. Hard drives and optical drives are the single most likely parts to fail on any computer. A $500 HP dropped from a backpack could cost a couple hundred bucks in repair parts alone, let alone labor, lost data, etc… Along with things like Lion’s Internet Recovery solution and the growing importance of iCloud the Air is very price competitive. Back in 2009 Apple had a 17% failure rate over three years, market leader HP was 25%, Dell was 18%, Lenovo was 22%, Asus was 12%.
 
why on earth...

because the rugged Macbook Air is the first choice when it comes to handling frequent drops and other abuses.

:eek:
 
"The machine is available in a 5-pack for $4,995 or $999 per machine." :rolleyes:

If my math is correct $999 x 5 = $4,995. So you could actually say, it's available in a 6-pack for $5,994 or a 7-pack for $6,993.

Just seems funny to me to offer a 5-pack deal when there is actually no price break at all, you're just paying the "per machine" price 5 times. :D

I don't know, made me laugh. :p

I think the article was implying that they are only sold in quantities of five. You can't just buy one for $999.
 
Agreed. And 2 GB is all but unusable on Lion, thanks to its voratious appetite for RAM.

This just isn't true on the Air. I have the original 11" with 2GB and Lion.

In many ways it outperforms my 8GB 2.53ghz i5 MBP. It's all about the SSD. I don't have major memory issues with it.

And remember, mine is the *slow* 11" MBA, not the way faster newfangled one.
 
I appreciate the gesture, but these aren't even "big" enough for my 9 and 7 year olds. 4/128 would be quite workable, though.
 
No school with a responsible person in the finance department would say yes to this terrible offering when Lenovo have built a purpose made educational laptop for only $429.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/26/lenovo-thinkpad-x130e-available-now/

Specs include i3 or AMD Fusion, 4GB Ram (expandable to 8GB), 250GB HDD. This thing is built to withstand the usual abuse kids unleash anything they get their hands on. Funny thing is it looks pretty nice too.

I read in another article that Lenovo have had such huge demand that they can't make them fast enough! No wonder Apple is offering this pretty laughable deal.
 
"The machine is available in a 5-pack for $4,995 or $999 per machine." :rolleyes:

If my math is correct $999 x 5 = $4,995. So you could actually say, it's available in a 6-pack for $5,994 or a 7-pack for $6,993.

Just seems funny to me to offer a 5-pack deal when there is actually no price break at all, you're just paying the "per machine" price 5 times. :D

I don't know, made me laugh. :p

Seems funny to me that you think a 6-pack or 7-pack is available. Maybe it is just a minimum of 5 on the order, but to me it reads as if they have to be purchased in multiples of 5.

---

Sorry, I see now that this has been more than covered. :p
 
You used FCP in high school? For what?

Forget high school - my 9 year old is using FCP to make figurine-based movies she puts on YouTube. And now she's started working with Autodesk 3D modeling apps - by the time she's of high school age she'll probably have mastered Maya.

Kids do more on these things than grownups, often.

----------

Perhaps the 7 year old should have something like a ball instead of staring at a screen all day.

Perhaps you should avoid commenting on people you know nothing about.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.