Disagree, the Air is a niche product, and there is a noticeable difference in weight. 2KG 13" Pro is exactly 50% heavier than 1.3KG Air, and if you lug the laptop around all day long such weight difference is noticeable. It might be added that most Air users are never gonna need the extra computing power of the MBP. If your work requires a MBP you're never going to get an Air anyway.
If you don't need the power of a MacBook Pro, then a white MacBook is the best bang for the buck. Period. The only two reasons why an Air would be desirable over a white MacBook are superficial aesthetic preferences (please people, these are computers, not fashion accessories) and weight, which brings me to...
I am going even further - I like the featherweight of the 11" and the fact that after the update it is going to be a very serious machine is not to be neglected.
After the update, it'll still be the slowest Mac in the line-up. Serious machine? Perhaps compared to a Core 2 Duo machine, but then again, at that point, they'll all have Sandy Bridge and will thusly all be serious compared to the Core 2 Duo Macs in every respect (save for the IGP in tow, of course). Featherweight? Sure, but at that point, do I really want to be editing my Microsoft Word documents or Photoshop files on a computer with an 11.6" screen? And for the same cost as a full featured Mac laptop (white MacBook)? No thanks.
Last but not least, those 2 pounds you're talking about can be crucial when deciding what to take in your hand luggage when traveling by plane. I've been up to such a decision when I had to take my 2.8kg PC laptop. That's where I guess the name of the computer comes from - Macbook Air, designed for use on an Airplane.
A 13" MacBook Pro wouldn't make travel THAT much harder. Seriously. I've traveled with a white MacBook for quite a while, and honestly, an Air would make the bag lighter, but not to the point where I'd take it over a white MacBook or a 13" MacBook Pro. Were I doing constant walking with the thing, maybe. As it stands I don't have that kind of mobile computing lifestyle, nor do I know many people that do.
The integrated Intel HD 3000 seems to be about equal to the integrated GeForce 320M when Barefeets did their tests on vidoe games.
On Portal, the HD3000 was 68FPS and the 320M was 65FPS.
On X-Plane, the HD3000 was 38FPS and the 320M was 43FPS.
Certainly worth moving to SB processors.
http://www.barefeats.com/mbps04.html
The 4Gig RAM limit is more critical than the change in graphics.
For every test that the HD 3000 beat the 320M or matched it, the CPU was largely at play. Jus' sayin'. Though really of the four Macs that ship sans a discrete GPU, the only one where it is sorely missed is the 13" MacBook Pro. For everyone else, the difference between the 320M and the HD 3000 won't matter at all.
I think you need to define very simple, because the MBA can run about everything. Lets face it, computers have been capable of running pretty much anything for the last decade, the upgrades stopped being as meaningful as they used to be quite some time ago.
I'm a Unix sysadmin, the MBA is my only computer. I do casual gaming on it, I use it to do graphics for my website using CS5, I use it for my work (using a VM), I use it to do my hobby coding, I use it to watch TV series and Anime in 720p. It has the upside of being light and small, so carrying it around on the motorcycle for when I'm on stand-by is less of a pain than 15" MBP or even a 13" MBP (which I had before, when it was called the Unibody Macbook).
Call me bat-**** crazy or my needs "simple", but it works for me as a stand-alone computer.
By "run everything", you can't possibly mean run games at "higher than medium" settings, nor edit lots of HD footage in something like Final Cut Pro. Though that's not what YOU use YOUR MacBook Air for, and really that's fine. I'm not trying to invalidate your purchase decision, man. I'm saying that on the whole, unless ultraportability ABSOLUTELY HAS TO BE A CONCERN, it's not the best of buys in an already over-priced Mac market. If you handed me $1000 and told me to buy a Mac laptop, I'd buy the white MacBook over the 11.6" Air every time. But that's a difference in opinion and frankly, I'd rather not argue difference in opinions.
