Now I'm a believer....
I really had doubts about it, based upon all the negative reviews and bashing I've read about it, mostly on this forum.
I'm not editing the next summer blockbuster movie on the go, but I am a professional in my late 40's who shleps a laptop out of his office every day to access web based information, view scanned pdf's of documents, make notes and annotations and return emails during downtime.
LOVE the size, weight, form factor, keyboard (after a bit of adjustment period), battery life and screen. I've bounced around between MBA's (***** screen, don't even get me started), 13" rMBP's (a bit heavy and thick in the briefcase to haul everyday) and iPad keyboard folio combos (limited by screen size, iOS limitations, and less than optimal keyboards). For me, the nMB is firmly in the Goldilocks zone.
Could it be just a bit better? Of course. I wouldn't mind just a bit more horsepower; there's a bit of a wait in accessing scanned documents from Dropbox. 13" MBA battery life would be appreciated. If I spend more than half a day out on location, I'm eyeing over outlet locations but it hasn't completely conked out on me yet. I'd really like one legacy usb port, but the lack of one has only been a temporary inconvenience once or twice.
I suspect like a lot of other people, I was waiting for Apple to release a Macbook Air with a retina display. But I no longer think or hesitate for a second before throwing its baby brother in a bag.
I am slightly disappointed to have to buy a female usb to usb c adapter for $19 ($1300 laptop, and this wasn't included? Really?), but it's compensated for by being able to buy male usb to usb c cables for $12 on Amazon as spare chargers. I'll miss magsafe and will have to be more mindful of how charging cords are positioned, but I won't miss giving Cupertino $60 or more for spare chargers. IF usb c becomes the new standard, having it will be a big plus for the macbook. And if it doesn't, it's not new territory for Mac users after firewire and thunderbolt.
I also have no doubt that this is going to parallel the 2008 MBA and come down in price while gaining more power and features in two or three years. But I don't think I'm paying or will be paying the premium that those first adopters did when they couldn't sell their three year old $1800 machines for a third of the original price. I think of it as being on the edge of a knife rather than that of a razor.
For my relatively modest needs of a secondary travel computer, the nMB serves it purpose well. If I were a graphics designer or student in my teens or twenties that needed a general purpose computer to do some heavier lifting for the next three or four years, I would look elsewhere. To each his or her own.