I know it's anecdotal but the vast majority of people I have spoken to, or are looking to get a Macbook Pro are put off simply because of the Air's lack of features. Sure it has a better screen and weighs less. But consumers want that extra 'power' of a better CPU and hard drive. Lets not forget the average non tech person looking at a Mac will look at price and specs. The Macbook Pro is at the £999 sweet spot compared to the £1100 Air and in relation to specs, people still get fooled by clockspeed wars and GBs over the writespeed of a SSD. It can't be denied you get a more 'complete' machine with the Macbook Pro, for at a lower cost too.
You're absolutely right. Lots of people I know dislike the air due to lack of ports, which is a valid reason. However Apple seems to be the first to get rid of "legacy" connections. The specs do appear significantly better than they are (however if the Pro shipped with an SSD, that advantage from the Air is gone) and that is important to consumers, no doubt. But I see the price of the Air going down, personally, and rumours agree. Makes it much more viable cost wise.
There is a clear market for a 13" Macbook Pro, it's simply nonsensical for Apple to lose this segment and just suddenly go guns blazing for the ultrabook market. If Apple are going to merge the 13" Pro and Air line, then the price needs to drop significantly because of the increasing threat from Windows ultrabooks this year.
I just find it ridiculously naive to suggest that everybody in the 13" pro market would be willing to suddenly jump ship towards the 13" Air. I mean, if this is the case why do people still buy the 13" Pro? And not just still buy, buy them to such an extent the Pro is something 3x the sales of the 13" Air. It doesn't add up. Price is a huge factor. In the case of "buy a 15" instead then", lose portability and pay £500 because wants to needlessly drop having two 13" laptops, which for as long as I have been following Apple has always been the case.
I agree. The 13" Pro is an amazing machine and is by far the most popular Mac (laptop, at least). There's a huge market for it. As long as it exists, it will continue to sell extremely well. But what I'm suggesting is that people would be willing, if necessary, to move to a different laptop. But who knows, I could be terribly wrong. And obviously our opinions differ so there's definitely tons more out there who would disagree with me as well. It's hard for me to tell since I don't need the power of the Pro and would prefer a slimmer form factor (although with a slimmer Pro, I could be convinced). I definitely have a bias in that regard.
Fair enough about it not being a desktop replacement, maybe I am being too student centric, but I am one of the few people on campus who has both a desktop (iMac) and a laptop with me. The rest just use a 13"/15" laptop as their main machine. And in this case the 13" is much more suited to use in this way.
I only use a laptop because as a student, it doesn't make sense for me (financially at least) to have a desktop. So yeah I guess I do use it as my only computer. I get your point and I think I'm just being a little to-the-book on the "desktop replacement" term. It definitely is a better option than an Air for students who can only afford one device. I however plan on getting an Air simply because I like the form factor/portability and any complex programs I run are only licensed to my university and probably wouldn't run well on a Pro anyways.
Edit: In relation to the UK poster, *shrug*. Maybe I was being a bit too presumptuous over claiming most UK universities in dorms don't have wifi enabled yet. But the 5 places I put on my UCAS and around 10-15 I looked in detail, none of them had widespread wifi support in halls (ie. in every single halls).
Well it proves that in your case at least, it is necessary. But I still think that as a minority truly need ethernet, it will likely be gone.
But who knows. I think that if the 13" Pro was slimmed with a lack of ODD, it's getting Air-like. Put in an SSD instead of an HDD and the differences are starting to fade away. I think that they should slightly lower the Air's price point and toss a quad-core i5 in the Pro (standard) and raise the price. Then the differences would be sufficient. But if they really do slim the 13" Pro, lose the ODD, replace HDDs with SSDs while keeping dual-core processors, the Air and Pro overlap way too much.
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