Why are people sayings it's overpriced?
The Regular macbook Air 13" - $999
Macbook Air With 256GB SSD - $1199
Macbook Air 256Gb SSD + 8GB RAM - $1299
Macbook Air Retina 256GB SSD + 8GB RAM - $1299
How is that overpriced? It's a steal, you're getting a much better screen, and a much lighter machine, with slightly less battery life. Minor trade off I guess.
You get 3 hours less battery life. I think that's significant, it's 33% more than the MB. Especially considering that in 2 years, a MBA might still have 9 hours or whatever, while a MB is down to 6, and that's the difference between being able to go out without a charger to work, use it all day, or not.
I also prefer the keyboard on the MBA. More space between keys, more space between keys and the touchpad and more travel on the keys. The MB keyboard isn't bad but the new features are to make it not **** when it's so thin, not to make it actually better. For example there is no click on the touchpad anymore, instead they have a little vibrator that gives you feedback. It doesn't work better than the click itself, it's just an engineering idea to simulate clicks in a thinner space.
The screen is something you can argue about, it's the key takeaway from this laptop. But it's not like the MBA screen is crap. I write this from a 22inch 90 PPI monitor, it's great. The 27' iMac has a PPI of 109, it's great. And the air lineup averages a PPI of 132. The MB is now 190 on a smaller screen, with only 720p vertically (that's less than an ipad in landscape, think about that for a second).
Sure it's a better screen, no doubt about that, but it's not like the MBA is a 480 x 320 iPhone 1 screen, and it's not like this is a 13' retina screen either, it's more nuanced than that.
The weight and thinness... perhaps the way you look at the extra battery of the MBA (30% more, but 9 hours is good enough), I look at the weight/thinness. I never go 'damn this MBA is too heavy or not thin enough.' It's better but not really that important.
I think at the end of the day people go: I use a MBA not to store 200g of video, I use it to stream Netflix and do word processing. 128g is enough for me (the most popular choice, after all). As is 4g (again, most popular choice).
So now they can either pay $999 and get 12 hours of battery, 13' screen, comfortable keyboard, higher res camera for skype, with plenty of ports.
Or they can pay $300 extra, get a weaker CPU/GPU, lose 1 inch of screen space, get a weaker camera, lose 3 hours of battery, lose all their ports. For what? More crispy but smaller text, and a few grams off an already light device?
Then there's users who buy 8 gigs of RAM but don't need the storage (or get a Nifty device, not even an option on the MB), and it's still a whole lot cheaper, with the benefits above.
I'd say the MB is a very interesting device and if you have the money you'll like it, but it's simply not the best value or a good 'deal', imo. And I think we all agree that next year's editions will be. It's like the first iPad, just not a great deal. Or the first MBA, super slow and $1800(!).
Especially when considering that the specs are comparable to the 2011 MBA 11' if I remember correctly? That's crazy. That means you can buy new, from stock, a 2014 model, and it'll get much better specs, and you can get that for $700-800 new. Compare that to the MB and $1300 seems expensive. Especially as you require bricks and externals etc to do anything but charge, which not only add costs, but also diminish the thinness and lightness factor when it has to be paired with externals.
Anyway I completely see what you're saying. It's a good buy for a certain segment of people. But overall, it's overpriced compared to other very solid or even better apple products in the 13' MBA 2013, 14, 15 models imo.
As for all the $300 is nothing nonsense... there's a limit to the notion that if you can afford a $1 candy you can afford $2. As if you can afford a $2 candy you can afford a $3 candy, too, and so on until $1 million dollar candies. It's just silly. Relatively, 30% price increases are significant, whether it's for a $1 item or a $1m item.
