Article: The MacBook Air Misses the Mark [as 12" PB replacement]

[Jiddick ExRex]

Folks, unless the size of the average person's hands starts decreasing, the footprint of laptops has gotten just about as small as it's going to get. In order for an average person to be able to type effectively, the keyboard can't be any smaller than a certain size; and if the keyboard is that wide and deep, then the screen should also be roughly that wide and deep. Those two constraints inform the minimum footprint size, at least until someone designs a keyboard and screen that collapse when the machine is closed. (Perhaps flexible screens, currently in development, will help with this process.)

If you want a smaller footprint, there are machines out there that are even smaller than the MBA. But their keyboards are sized for small children, and their screens are smaller and harder to read.

I don't understand why some people have a hard time grasping that these machines are designed to be used by adult (or teenage, at the very least) human beings. That imposes certain limitations on how small things can be and remain effectively usable.

There's a lot of wasted space from sides to the beginning of the keyboard as well as the giant bezel around the screen. They could easily have chipped off 0.75-1" off overall and made the Air more useable.

I am quite disappointed they didn't do this.

 

[clayj]

There's a lot of wasted space from sides to the beginning of the keyboard as well as the giant bezel around the screen. They could easily have chipped off 0.75-1" off overall and made the Air more useable.

I am quite disappointed they didn't do this.

Unless you've seen detailed schematics/pictures of the entire inside of the machine, you don't know this for a fact. I *have* seen a picture of the insides of the lower half of the MBA, and it doesn't look like there's a lot of wasted space inside there.

 

[CalMin]

Unless you've seen detailed schematics/pictures of the entire inside of the machine, you don't know this for a fact. I *have* seen a picture of the insides of the lower half of the MBA, and it doesn't look like there's a lot of wasted space inside there.

+1

The thing is as small as they could have dang well made it. The bezel is ugly, but I doubt there's any space in there at all.

 

[macjay]

has it ever occurred to you that apple doesnt spend millions of dollars on a product that has no intended market...

apple is not stupid, sure they could sell a hundred 12" mbp or they could actually make money!

So Dell is only selling a few XPS M1330 and Sony is only selling a few SZ? Those are incredibly popular models in the premium 13" category, and they're full-featured.

A 13" MBP would likewise be very popular.

 

[RichL]

My girlfriend has a PB from several years ago. Her school (School of the Art Institute of Chicago - SAIC) was the first to ever have a school wide laptop plan which I think was featured in an apple article. Anyway, her laptop is getting old now, just as others in this article are feeling, and she wanted a replacement with some power like a MBP. Now, she doesn't follow technology but when I told her the new portable Apple made had no CD drive and a hard drive that was the standard size of about 4 years ago she was a little upset. That 12 incher she's got now is just what she likes for portability. Having a laptop that's a little bit thinner doesn't really justify all those key components being ransacked.

So, maybe apple isn't making a laptop for everyone but there is a consumer base that is presumably upset about the laptop or lack there of that the MBA has graced us with.

-Rich L

Edit: lol whats the sense of ultra portability if you need to carry around an external HD and DVD drive?

 

[clayj]

Edit: lol whats the sense of ultra portability if you need to carry around an external HD and DVD drive?

Um... who says you need to carry around an external HD and an external DVD drive?

See, that's what a bunch of critics of the MBA don't seem to get: A lot of us don't need an incredibly huge hard drive in our notebooks. 80 GB, or 64 GB in my case, will be plenty big enough.

And a lot of us don't need an optical drive when we are out of the office. The only thing I've ever used my MBP's optical drive for is to install software; once I've done that, the optical drive is just extra weight and volume for me to carry around.

So I am happy that the MBA has no optical drive built-in, and I'm happy with the size of the available HD/SSD.

 

[TheStu]

My girlfriend has a PB from several years ago. Her school (School of the Art Institute of Chicago - SAIC) was the first to ever have a school wide laptop plan which I think was featured in an apple article. Anyway, her laptop is getting old now, just as others in this article are feeling, and she wanted a replacement with some power like a MBP. Now, she doesn't follow technology but when I told her the new portable Apple made had no CD drive and a hard drive that was the standard size of about 4 years ago she was a little upset. That 12 incher she's got now is just what she likes for portability. Having a laptop that's a little bit thinner doesn't really justify all those key components being ransacked.

So, maybe apple isn't making a laptop for everyone but there is a consumer base that is presumably upset about the laptop or lack there of that the MBA has graced us with.

-Rich L

Edit: lol whats the sense of ultra portability if you need to carry around an external HD and DVD drive?

80GB was standard 4 years ago... no it really wasn't. Not in laptops, and just barely in desktops, so stop lying to your girlfriend.

 

[eba]

Um... who says you need to carry around an external HD and an external DVD drive?

See, that's what a bunch of critics of the MBA don't seem to get: A lot of us don't need an incredibly huge hard drive in our notebooks. 80 GB, or 64 GB in my case, will be plenty big enough.

And a lot of us don't need an optical drive when we are out of the office. The only thing I've ever used my MBP's optical drive for is to install software; once I've done that, the optical drive is just extra weight and volume for me to carry around.

So I am happy that the MBA has no optical drive built-in, and I'm happy with the size of the available HD/SSD.

++++

The MBA also is a HUGE FAILURE as a replacement for the 17" MBP, the MacPro and the iMac. It's also a HUGE FAILURE as a replacement for a corn shucker, a drill press and a floor buffer. Apple REALLY SCREWED UP on this one.

 

[Catch]

80GB was standard 4 years ago... no it really wasn't. Not in laptops, and just barely in desktops, so stop lying to your girlfriend.

I love these comments going around lol. I just can't stop reading the MBA threads. I agree with the above completely. Was not much longer than 4 years ago people were cutting video with less powerful machines than the MBA. I think I just about traded in my G4 for one of the first G5s around that time...

Either people are very young on this forum or they have very bad memory...

http://www.apple-history.com/?page=gallery&model=g5

Regards,

C

 

[Jiddick ExRex]

Unless you've seen detailed schematics/pictures of the entire inside of the machine, you don't know this for a fact. I *have* seen a picture of the insides of the lower half of the MBA, and it doesn't look like there's a lot of wasted space inside there.

I am curious. Do you have a link or anything to said picture? It would be nice seeing as we right now have a standoff in statements.

+1

The thing is as small as they could have dang well made it. The bezel is ugly, but I doubt there's any space in there at all.

Dear lord I hope this '+1' catch phrase is over soon. It's getting old and overly abused.

And I strongly recommend backing up your statement with some sort of documentation to justify what you just said. Please Carol, were you in fact one of the engineers that designed the innards??
Otherwise, you 'know' for a fact that the MBA is a small as they could have dang well made it as I 'know' that they could have cut off the bezel.

Honestly guys, I have also seen older and ultraportable laptops with 11" screens. If Sony can pull this off, so can Apple. Show me the pictures or be silent. And none of this 'but Apple made it as thin as they could. No, the attempt was made before in 2003(?) and was actually thinner.

This leads once again to before mentioned pictures of the innards. I would really like to see them as that could be the end-all of our petty argument.

 

[eba]

Honestly guys, I have also seen older and ultraportable laptops with 11" screens. If Sony can pull this off, so can Apple. Show me the pictures or be silent. And none of this 'but Apple made it as thin as they could. No, the attempt was made before in 2003(?) and was actually thinner.

And I've seen machines with tiny screens. They're called iPods.

Apple wasn't trying the make the smallest machine possible. They were trying to make the smallest machine possible with a 13" screen.

Why do people have trouble grasping that?

 

[clayj]

I am curious. Do you have a link or anything to said picture? It would be nice seeing as we right now have a standoff in statements.

The picture was here on MacRumors, in one of the threads about the MBA, but I can't find it easily.

 

[TheStu]

I love these comments going around lol. I just can't stop reading the MBA threads. I agree with the above completely. Was not much longer than 4 years ago people were cutting video with less powerful machines than the MBA. I think I just about traded in my G4 for one of the first G5s around that time...

Either people are very young on this forum or they have very bad memory...

http://www.apple-history.com/?page=gallery&model=g5

Regards,

C

I can't tell if you are on my side or the other guys... I stand by my statement that 80GB was just barely becoming standard in desktops and was miles away from being standard in laptops. How can I know this? Well, when I bought my MacBook 1.5 years ago, it shipped with a 60GB drive as default, if 80GB was standard, basically everything would have them.

 

[eba]

I can't tell if you are on my side or the other guys... I stand by my statement that 80GB was just barely becoming standard in desktops and was miles away from being standard in laptops. How can I know this? Well, when I bought my MacBook 1.5 years ago, it shipped with a 60GB drive as default, if 80GB was standard, basically everything would have them.

You're right.

 

[diabolic]

They could easily have chipped off 0.75-1" off overall and made the Air more useable.

Not if you look at this picture, and if they only took away the screen bezel, then it would be smaller than the keyboard section. That would look terrible.

I wouldn't be buying one if the screen or keyboard were any smaller.

 

[clayj]

Not if you look at this picture, and if they only took away the screen bezel, then it would be smaller than the keyboard section. That would look terrible.

I wouldn't be buying one if the screen or keyboard were any smaller.

Yep, that's the picture I was referring to. Thanks!

As I said, you can't reduce the size of the machine below a certain footprint if it's to have a normal-sized keyboard. That, it turn, informs the size of the screen, and the two need to match width and height or it'll look like crap. Also, don't forget that a lot of the components are bought "off the shelf" (the screen, mostly) and this has an effect on whether the screen width will match the keyboard width.