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Apple Offering Stripped-Down $999 13" MacBook Air to Educational Institutions Buying in Bulk
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The cost going from 2GB to 4GB memory is $5 additional, retail. 4GB to 8GB costs about $10-20. This is 1333MHz DDR3 SODIMMs.
Why Apple ships Airs at a $1K price point with only 2GB RAM is just plain dumb. Why hinder the user experience?
Why Apple ships Airs at a $1K price point with only 2GB RAM is just plain dumb. Why hinder the user experience?
swingerofbirch
macrumors 68040
To piggyback on everyone else, I'm not sure K-12 education, or really any education environment, is the place where an ultra-portable computer is the most valued, unless it's one of those programs where the kids take the computers home with them. But if you're in a classroom or lab, why not purchase cheaper, more powerful desktops with larger screens? Or, if you want a mobile lab, why not go for the MacBook Pro? I haven't spent a lot of time with MacBook Airs, but I have a MacBook Pro, and it's so easy to clean the screens and you can't really hurt the screen unless it shattered somehow, while the MacBook Air screen seems more fragile to me.
It will be interesting to see what the IT admins at schools think. In my experience they tend not to like Macs, and they tend to love being able to control everything and to make their jobs seem as difficult as possible. I have a feeling they'll hate computers they can't even take the battery, hard drive, or memory out of. Although somehow iPads are gaining adoption in schools . . . seems the IT admins' role will slowly diminish as these things become about as foolproof as pencil sharpeners.
It will be interesting to see what the IT admins at schools think. In my experience they tend not to like Macs, and they tend to love being able to control everything and to make their jobs seem as difficult as possible. I have a feeling they'll hate computers they can't even take the battery, hard drive, or memory out of. Although somehow iPads are gaining adoption in schools . . . seems the IT admins' role will slowly diminish as these things become about as foolproof as pencil sharpeners.
Trust me, there will still be issues. At least as far as I know, my school's IT staff aren't a big fan of having to open up laptops to replace HDDs and the like. Their job scope is more to install software when requested, look into problems with logging in/connecting to internet, and (more frequently) solve the boot up/BSOD that crops up. In short, there's more than enough things for them to do each day without having to worry about all your aforementioned issues.
Besides, I feel they are sorely underpaid and understaffed for what they are expected to do, maintain all the computers in the school. So if you spend a little more on foolproof laptops that don't conk out ever so often, and it helps make their jobs that much easier, save the teachers and pupils more headaches and less time wasted on repairing them and more time on lessons, why not?
I don't see why your're complaining about the 2 GB RAM... It's more than enough for evereday tasks. OK, of course I'm more calm with my 4 GB on the 13" Air, but my brother and sister both have the 2 GB / 11" model, and they are perfectly satisfied. Even with Lion everything's blazing fast, and they have no problem with multitasking. There are two questions to be answered.
1. Is it a bit unashamed, that Apple only gives 2 GB RAM for a very expensive price? -> YES, it's almost impudent
2. Anyway, is it enough for an average user? -> YES, it's enough
1. Is it a bit unashamed, that Apple only gives 2 GB RAM for a very expensive price? -> YES, it's almost impudent
2. Anyway, is it enough for an average user? -> YES, it's enough
The 2GB of RAM is fine for today, but those machines will be used for at least 5 years in a school if not longer.
The problem is return on investment calculation looks really bad on the air with non-upgradable 2GB RAM compare to laptops with upgradable RAM slots. Plus Apple often drop support for machines with older hardware, it is likely 2GB will not meet the minimum requirements for the next major version of OSX.
Amen
AMEN! Same is true at my school. We just don't have staff to handle upgrades. The tech for my building can only be there three hours a day during the school year. No upgrades in that situation. Not enough time.
Also, our expected life-cycle of the machines is somewhere out around 10 years.
I don't know if low ram MB Air is a great choice for schools, but schools are going to need devices in the hands of kids every hour of the day soon. Books are going away. You don't have to be much of a visionary to see the printed page actually on paper going away soon.
The lab model probably isn't going to be a good fit for computing across the curriculum as more of the material is coming in from the web and on PDF. Not sending computers home with kids will create problems for some students with homework. So a laptop/iPad/Kindle/Nook per kid is going to be really important soon. I think the device choice will depend on the expected level of content creation the student will be doing.
Just wish it was possible to get the costs down even lower.
AMEN! Same is true at my school. We just don't have staff to handle upgrades. The tech for my building can only be there three hours a day during the school year. No upgrades in that situation. Not enough time.
Also, our expected life-cycle of the machines is somewhere out around 10 years.
I don't know if low ram MB Air is a great choice for schools, but schools are going to need devices in the hands of kids every hour of the day soon. Books are going away. You don't have to be much of a visionary to see the printed page actually on paper going away soon.
The lab model probably isn't going to be a good fit for computing across the curriculum as more of the material is coming in from the web and on PDF. Not sending computers home with kids will create problems for some students with homework. So a laptop/iPad/Kindle/Nook per kid is going to be really important soon. I think the device choice will depend on the expected level of content creation the student will be doing.
Just wish it was possible to get the costs down even lower.
what cheap bastids...Apple should be giving schools a much larger discount. schools/teachers are already financially stretched thin
Apple like any other companies is looking to maximise profit on their products, so I don't blam them only offer the minimum amount of RAM they can get away with on this version of air.
I just think if Apple really wants to break into the educational market, and get kids familiarise with OSX at a young age. They need to offer much better spec or cheaper machine to compete against Windows based options. If Apple can get kids hooked on OSX at a young age, it will pay off in the future when those kids start to buy their own computers.
I was comparing the retail cost of the 11.6" to the edu cost of this new 13.3" configuration, but now that you mention it, I think your comparison is definitely better.
It's not like (a) the white MacBook couldn't have been used just as easily for iBooks Authoring, given that it has the ability to run Lion and iBooks Authoring just like the MacBook Airs do, (b) you couldn't hook up an external display to an 11.6" MacBook Air for iBooks Authoring, or (c) the resolution bump for those wishing to use these new Airs for iBooks Authoring is all that drastic (let alone more drastic than simply using the external display that should be used instead if the user is serious about any sort of content creation).
That said, given Apple's subtle "if you're upgrading to an iPad 2 from a 1, you should donate your iPad 1s to schools" campaign, I think you're totally right about the iPad 1 being kept alive in terms of OS and software support.
Well, even worse, why they ship a machine with only 2GB of RAM THAT CAN'T BE UPGRADED is beyond me and definitely beyond dumb. At that point, you're asking for your machine to be disposable; and at the $1000 price point, it REALLY REALLY shouldn't be.
Mine did, at the age of 8 I was using an Apple IIcs
- if only I could redue that class.It's not fine for today. I guess it helps a lot that you'll be swapping against an SSD, but still, IMHO 2GB is below the minimum requirement for Lion, because some programs, most notably Safari, have a crazy appetite for memory (Right now, Safari's web content process is using 2.7GB RAM on my 16GB iMac).
I've just bought new RAM for my 13 year old's 13" MB Pro (2009 model) - he's struggling with only 5GB, so now he'll get 8 GB... (and that cost me 60 $, and I happen to live in the most expensive country in the world).
IMHO it's outright stupid of Apple to offer any model with less than 4 GB preinstalled.
Do you work in or with education? Maybe its a UK thing because I can't imagine anyone I know in the education sector here thinking that.
Yeah. Except that our disk images, with all those applications, are not far off that size upon install, leaving very room for anything else at all.
You really think that $1000 for something that will more than likely perform too poorly to be any use at all in less than 4 years (assuming that the next OSX version arrives in that time) is accessible?
I'm not sure what the point is, unless its selling overpriced stuff with a poor shelf life to any educators who are too dazzled by the shiny to run the spec past someone competent.
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To be honest, outside the iPad, Apple pretty much lost the K12 market to Windows many years ago. Price is a big reason for it, but also Apple's products have become geared more to consumers, not institutions.
Apple should focus on getting more iPads into schools because that is a place they could really grow things.
Apple should focus on getting more iPads into schools because that is a place they could really grow things.
How can you strip down an AIR anymore LOL.
Seems people on here love blowing other TAX Payers money.
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LOL Yeah right.
They make to much in New ENgland!
Seems people on here love blowing other TAX Payers money.
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LOL Yeah right.
They make to much in New ENgland!
The cost of producing a non-standard Macbook Air 13" is perhaps equal to offering a subsidized standard Macbook Air 13". It produces a branch in the manufacture chain subject to quality issues.
Apple could just offer a discount to the machines for an institution buying in bulk. I know for a fact that the employee discount is 25%, so offering an EDU buyer a 20% discount on a $1300 MBA would be $1040 with no tax. Then you get a beefier CPU and 4GB of RAM. . . . a decent start.
If that were true, my 2010 MBA w/ 2 GB RAM running OS X Lion has just been rendered useless. Weird, it still does everything it is supposed to do quickly and reliably. I must be doing something very wrong.
Silly really...
From my comment # 65:
SSD is masking the issues. Open Activity Monitor (from Utilities) then click System Memory tab. If you are like most, page outs should be quite high. Paging out to SSD is far speedier than hard disk, but it comes at the expense of heavy writes. And since each block on SSD has lifecycle of about 10,000 writes, that's not a good thing in the long run.
If nothing else, running short on RAM for things like many, many Safari windows open (which is something kids *do* do) will make the machines feel sluggish.
Which means many kids first experience with an Apple product will be with an underpowered machine that doesn't do what they expect it to.
Which means many kids first experience with an Apple product will be with an underpowered machine that doesn't do what they expect it to.
Browsing with several opened tabs in Safari and iTunes playing some music I'm currently using approximately 1.6 GB of RAM with zero page outs.