Okay, A, I stand behind the "financial sense" statement using paragraph 3 of post 61 as my reasoning. Did you read the whole post?
And, B, people KEEP ON USING the "MBA is almost HALF THE WEIGHT of the MB! and HALF AS THICK!!!1!1!!" argument. I'm saying that such a weight reduction is of little relevance when the item in question is as small as it is already.
Take a piece of bread. Pick it up. Is it easy to tote? Slice it in half and pick up one of the halves. It now weighs half as much. Is it twice as easy to tote? Scientifically speaking, yes, it takes half as much energy to move it from place to place, but we're talking about Joules here... fractions of Joules.
Same goes for the MacBook. It's five pounds. That's less than my cat. Anyone complaining that 5lbs is too heavy either has severe, severe back problems (for which I sympathize) or is a wimp. Sorry, there's no other way to slice it... no pun intended.
I'm not being immature or attacking people, I'm stating what I think is a reasonable argument. Calling someone a wimp isn't an attack when it's true. And wimps do exist. Same thing with being fiscally wise. There are a lot of people out there who just blow away their money on The Next Big Thing, somtimes even when there are bills and mortgages to pay. I'm not making this up. It does happen.
If you have money to throw away, then yes by all means, buy an MBA, but it does not represent a good value when compared to the alternatives, namely the MacBook. You'll have a hard time convincing me that you NEED an MBA. This makes it a toy. A glamour-piece. A Cube 2.0. A status icon... all these things, but not a cost-effective computer... ever.
-Clive