But the subscription models i use incorporate actual content like Netflix for movies and tv shows and google music for music. Im not paying JUST for storage.but also for my content. My dropbox account is free.
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The Macbook Air - the gold standard for all laptops
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But the subscription models i use incorporate actual content like Netflix for movies and tv shows and google music for music. Im not paying JUST for storage.but also for my content. My dropbox account is free.
I agree. My 10GB of Dropbox is free. I have to have Office, so I bought the subscription and 1TB of OneDrive came with it. I use Dropbox for my files, and OneDrive for offsite media backups of my home videos, images, and iTunes music.
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Back on topic, the MBA really defined the current notebook. It's an awkward time now. In a few years the rMB will be cheap and capable enough to replace the MBA as the entry Mac notebook and the Pro's will be slimmed down, lightened, and possibly tapered.
The MBA may be squeezed out, but it's legacy will live on in future notebooks.
I personally chose the MBA over the rMB because the keyboard on that thing was god awful IMO. The screen was beautiful, and the design itself is gorgeous but the functionality is not there and I'd go MBA over rMB any day.
I would recommend the MBA to a rMB to a general user any day. It's still closer to a "real computer" in most users eyes. It's powerful, thin, light, and will work with their accessories without an issue.
I actually made an Apple employee mad because I was killing time in the Apple Store and this couple was unsure of the new MacBook and no employee would help. I explained that it may not be the most future proof and wouldn't work with their devices without an adaptor. They were displeased and then an employee came up and made a snarky comment directed at me.
Maybe so, but a couple of points to that.
1) Apple has done much more research than I when it comes to pricing. It's not a mistake that the 13" Air starts "sub" 1k. Don't underestimate the power of that $999 price tag.
2) The next up configuration (price wise) from Apple is the $1300 rMB, which for most people is a non starter mostly because of the one port. There are people who can work with that kind of machine, but the majority of people couldn't or wouldn't deal with the limitations.
3) The next up configuration (again, price wise) is the 13" Retina Pro. At $1500, it's 50% more than the base cost of the 13" Air. You get a better machine, noticeably so in many areas, but the average consumer won't see the difference or won't care.
4) Many of the comparable Windows ultrabooks are in that same price range. Some are a little cheaper, and some are a little more. But for this class of machine, I think the Air is competitively priced. This is primarily an Apple-related discussion, so most people looking at the Air want Apple, and people looking at Windows don't want Apple, but for the purposes of our discussion, the Air was the original ultrabook design that all other manufacturers took their cues from.
So, I stand by my initial assessment that the Air is probably the best laptop for most people out of all laptops considered, and the best laptop in a given price range.
(Sorry that I never responded earlier. Life and all that.)
Actually the 13" rMBP starts at $1300. For $300 you get double the RAM of the base 13" Air, better graphics, and the retina display.
You stallwart... get with the times the MBA is dead, pointless device
Look.
Take the 13" rMBP.
Remove all the ports and replace them with 2 USB-C/TB3 and 2 USB-A ports at the rear right and left (i.e. where the ports are on the Air).
Taper the case and fill it with new "sculpted" batteries as per the rMB, making it a bit lighter than the old rMBP.
Stick in a new-gen more energy efficient processor.
Cross out "MacBook Pro" and write "MacBook Air 2" on the case.
The Air lives on...
Seriously, that's what seems likely to happen at the next major MacBook range re-design (except Apple will probably take it one step too far and drop the USB-A ports as well). Even now, the current rMBP is only $300 more, smaller in 2 out of 3 dimensions and very slightly heavier than the Air - when it's re-designed, the Air will indeed be pointless.
I don't underestimate the importance of the $999 price tag at all - and I expect that within a year or two Apple will aggressively move the price of the rMB to that level or below. One of Apple's problems is the number of pure cr@p Windows notebooks on the market that are price in the $500-700 range. (Note that I am not a Windows-basher, nor a MS-basher - quite the contrary.) These notebooks aren't really competitive with even the base MBA, even with what I regard as a woefully inadequate and uncompetitive display, but it's hard for Apple to try to persuade people to part with double the amount that they could pay for a superficially equivalent notebook. Not sure where that goes in terms of the discussion.
Life and all that. I continue to find these discussions fascinating, and they have helped my own decision-making process greatly (thank you!). What I come away with is a point that's been reiterated again and again: if you end up doing enough research and get the product that you REALLY WANT, you can't go wrong. Just know what it is that you want, or what you'd kick yourself for not getting, and even if someone else might say, oh, that's too much, that's not enough, that's not powerful enough, that's too powerful, that's too heavy, that's visually weak, etc, etc. - there ARE benchmarks to be sure, whether it's comparing retina to non-retina or weight or number/kind of ports or prices, but at the end of the day, I think if you are clear about your wants, even if you may end up paying a little more, then you'll enjoy the product for a good number of years.
Unless your glass of lemonade tips over onto the keyboard. And even THEN, all is not lost!
Unless your glass of lemonade tips over onto the keyboard. And even THEN, all is not lost!
z31fanatic, I apologize, and you are correct. I didn't mean to mislead anyone with my post.
What you said is definitely relevant. It's difficult to get someone to pay 1.5x or twice as much for a Mac than they would for a "superficially equivalent" (Nice) notebook. But I think it's a lot easier than it used to be. People own iPhones, they own iPads, so when shopping for a new computer, it's at least a little easier to get them to ditch their old Windows PC for a Mac.
I don't underestimate the importance of the $999 price tag at all - and I expect that within a year or two Apple will aggressively move the price of the rMB to that level or below. One of Apple's problems is the number of pure cr@p Windows notebooks on the market that are price in the $500-700 range. (Note that I am not a Windows-basher, nor a MS-basher - quite the contrary.) These notebooks aren't really competitive with even the base MBA, even with what I regard as a woefully inadequate and uncompetitive display, but it's hard for Apple to try to persuade people to part with double the amount that they could pay for a superficially equivalent notebook. Not sure where that goes in terms of the discussion.
What you said is definitely relevant. It's difficult to get someone to pay 1.5x or twice as much for a Mac than they would for a "superficially equivalent" (Nice
) notebook. But I think it's a lot easier than it used to be. People own iPhones, they own iPads, so when shopping for a new computer, it's at least a little easier to get them to ditch their old Windows PC for a Mac.
What you said is definitely relevant. It's difficult to get someone to pay 1.5x or twice as much for a Mac than they would for a "superficially equivalent" (Nice
I think that's right. I am always amazed at the number of people here who insist that Apple laptops are overpriced. In general, I think they haven't done their research or shopped for a Windows laptop recently. Equivalent quality and specs generally comes out priced similarly.
I also think you're right about the synergy effect.
Certainly if you want to compare similar specs then the MBA is a pretty good deal.
But if you want something that's simply functional, Apple can't compete with the PC vendors. You can get a very capable PC laptop for under $300. Granted, it'll be an inch thick and made of creaky plastic and weigh 5 lbs and have a hard drive instead of an SSD and have poor screen viewing angles and only get a few hours of battery life. But that sort of machine is still a good choice for anybody who's on a tight budget, and if you do most of your computing at a desk with your laptop plugged in then all the differences in size and portability and battery life and so forth become much less important.
I got a deal through Bing last year for 340GB a year for something like $10... I forget the price now but it was absurdly, absurdly cheap. I thought to myself, "Melrose," I said, "I can use Microsoft for that kind of deal."
...and whatayaknow? OneDrive is actually quite easy to setup and integrate.
Yeah, and if that didn't come through in my post, apologies. I was about to type an extended version of "but you get what you pay for" but in some ways people who buy the beater laptops may be smarter, at least in economic terms, that most of us here. I would argue that many of the Apple laptops are over-spec'd and over-built for what most users actually need, which doesn't keep me from buying higher-end laptops, regardless of the OS.
Cloud storage - the problem is that you have to have access to make it work. I am routinely in situations where remote access doesn't work. The universe of people who both (1) have regular access issues and (2) care about that may be small, but it matters to me.
Sure. Very few people need SSDs, retina displays, quad core CPUs and high performance GPUs. But technology trickles down. Flash-based storage and more efficient CPUs lead to products like the iPhone and iPad, which are amazing handheld computers. And the miniturization of components helps with battery life which is a tangible benefit.
Apples technology and research has a way of starting in low volume, low(er) margin products but quickly is added to other products as possible.
banks are not laughing.... they sent notice to Apple "too much cash, you guys are drowning us in money... we had to spend money to build hundreds of warehouse to store all you cash... our bank employees have encountered numerous injuries trying to ship/store all your cash.... stop sending us so much money!"
To be fair, the technologies you mentioned specifically (flash storage and more efficient CPUs) hardly have anything to do with Apple.
SSDs were widely available and getting to be pretty cost effective before Apple released the first Air in 2008 with its absurdly overpriced SSD.
And Intel started their big low-power push with the Core architecture back in 2006 which was cited as one of the main reasons why Apple switched to Intel.
No, but that was kind of my point. Apple didn't invent any of those things, but they certainly take advantage of the benefits those components bring. Most consumers don't know what any of that stuff means; the average consumer doesn't know what a SSD is or that RAM is different from storage.
Put the internet in their pocket. Let them go all day (or 2) on a battery (including on the Mac, largely thanks to intel). An insanely awesome camera. Those things are amazing to the average person. Apple didn't invent those things, but to say that they simply slapped components together (as some would say) would be disingenuous.
The unibody design and the A-series chips, however, have a lot to do with Apple, and I think are part of their competitive advantage. I also think that the existence of the A-series chips and their rapid year-over-year performance gains (while maintaining battery parity) are serving to ignite a fire under intel's ass.
Sorry, didn't mean to seem overly negative about your point/post but I think it came off that way.
Certainly Apple can and is innovating in the hardware space even if they manufacture very little of anything themselves and don't invent the fundamental technologies. They still tell their suppliers what to make and how to put it all together, i.e., they engineer their products. Most computer "manufacturers" just take whatever parts they can buy and slap them together as cheaply as possible.
Apple was the one who told their suppliers to make high resolution (Retina) screens for phones. Apple told their suppliers to CNC aluminum to make their laptops. etc.
The A# chips are a special case because that's a level of engineering that Apple rarely gets into, but they made a good investment in buying PA Semi to do this for them for sure. Unfortunately the days of rapid performance gains seem to be winding down but it's certainly an accomplishment to achieve what they have.
It depends on what amount of media and other data you have - but long story short - usually if you have to ask it is best just to go with the base.