***Official MacBook Air Thread***

What's new - Apples whole product range is overpriced.
If you want value for money then buy an Acer laptop ;)

Also, any product that genuinely is the Worlds best, smallest, thinnest, fastest etc is not going to be cheap.

It's a great design, but...

So it is practical enough for you?

RAM is soldered to MB etc.

It doesn't seem to have enough connections to me and how easy is it going to be to install software on it without no optical drive, or watch a DVD/Blu-ray etc?

Are Apple expecting wireless to take over from having an optical drive?

What happens if you drop it, is it strong enough not to bend if it was dropped on a corner?
 
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It doesn't seem to have enough connections to me and how easy is it going to be to install software on it without no optical drive, or watch a DVD/Blu-ray etc?

Are Apple expecting wireless to take over from having an optical drive?

They have the Superdrive addon for you to bring around IF optical media is needed on the go, if not, the MacBook Air is essentially a ultra-portable laptop, a medium between e.g. your Camera - MacBook Air - Desktop (of some kind)

Apple also inc a software with your MacBook Air, for you to "borrow" any iMac / PC's Optical drive, so you can essentially have an optical drive if there's some kind of computer near-by.
 
They have the Superdrive addon for you to bring around IF optical media is needed on the go, if not, the MacBook Air is essentially a ultra-portable laptop, a medium between e.g. your Camera - MacBook Air - Desktop (of some kind)

Apple also inc a software with your MacBook Air, for you to "borrow" any iMac / PC's Optical drive, so you can essentially have an optical drive if there's some kind of computer near-by.

Having an external drive makes it less portable and what if there isn't a PC nearby?

I think this technology, in time no doubt, would have been better used to improve on the Macbook Pro.
 
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Having an external drive makes it less portable and what if there isn't a pc nearby?

Then you're in need to either return home to your system or you've got all your "essential media" converted into .iso and carried in your USB pen drive or something.

The External Drive isn't that bulky, almost on par with carrying an extra 3(?) standard CD case (in terms of size) and a USB lead...

Edit:
http://store.apple.com/Apple/WebObj..._mac/mac_accessories/portable_gear&nplm=MB397
About 2CDs case thick
 
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Then you're in need to either return home to your system or you've got all your "essential media" converted into .iso and carried in your USB pen drive or something.

The External Drive isn't that bulky, almost on par with carrying an extra 3 standard CD case (in terms of size) and a USB lead...

A card reader slot would have been better then, they're compact and the storage capacity of them is on a par with HDD now!
 
Lets get one thing straight lol... I love apple!

But I HATE the Macbook Air. It looks horrible! It looks cheap and tacky

flame away lol
 
So it is practical enough for you?
To deliver photo slideshows and as a portable photo editing platform it's perfect.

Those of you who have USB devices coming out of your ears, gaming demands or desktop replacement needs clearly need to look elsewhere.
 
They had to make the keyboard black.

It'd just look like a regular MacBook if it was white, and the backlight wouldn't work so well.
 
I was hoping for some sort of UWB docking station, where the DVI, Firewire and a bunch of USBs would live. I remember being wow'd by Toshiba's R300 for this very reason, even though it didn't seem to get much media attention.

It's not what I'm looking for in a laptop, but I can see where it would be ideal. Love it, but don't need it ;)


Can't wait for the new trackpad to filter into the MB/MBP.
 
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I'd buy a thinkpad. It's lighter on the default battery, not much bigger, more powerful, and a whole lot more useful port wise.

Sure it's thin, but it's not actually that small in other dimensions, and in all honesty I've never had a situation where I've thought "hmm my laptop is too fat to fit in this gap! I wish I had a smaller one!". However, I have thought I wish my laptop was smaller in screensize so it would fit in a bag I had at one point.

1.8" disk will be slooow and SSDs are overpriced.

Don't like the profile of smoothed edges either, but I guess that's a personal thing.
 
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It looks awesome, has amazing specs (most ultra portables have 1.2Ghz ULV chips), and I think it priced very reasonably (people who are moaning about how much more that it costs compared to a MacBook obviously have no idea how much more expensive/difficult it is to make a laptop that small). Unupgradable RAM is unfortunate but a sacrifice I for one would be willing to make to lose even more thickness. I travel a lot with work and although it wouldn't be for me (Need to run lots of VMs/DBs etc so hard drive and processor wouldn't be enough) I think this would perfectly suit the business types and photoshopping creative types who hang out in coffee shops. Maybe i'll upgrade to one in a year or so's time when SSDs will hopefully be standard.

Anyone know when the Apple stores will be getting them in? I need to take a Gander.
 
Jesus, I actually cannot believe how utterly pointless the Air is. What a waste of time. Ugly, horrifically expensive, no optical drive and very little new features. Who in the hell is going to buy one of them when you can get the already top notch MacBook and MacBook Pro. Not a good move by Apple.
 
Jesus, I actually cannot believe how utterly pointless the Air is. What a waste of time. Ugly, horrifically expensive, no optical drive and very little new features. Who in the hell is going to buy one of them when you can get the already top notch MacBook and MacBook Pro which are already quite slim and light. Not a good move by Apple.

Bum, i pressed quote instead of edit...ooops.
 
Damn this is really annoying me, I've been reading a load of reactions such as this one. The general reaction seems to be - It looks nice but it costs almost twice the cost of a MacBook and isn't as fast, you can buy an Acer XX for £xx, it costs less than a MBA, has a CD drive and is faster, failing to mention than it's twice as thick and heavy. I'm almost banging me head against the desk here! These people can't seem to grasp the fact that these arn't power machines, value machines or do everything machines, they are ultra portable, ultra light and aimed squarely at the business market, not as an alternative to to MacBook.
 
Jesus, I actually cannot believe how utterly pointless the Air is. What a waste of time. Ugly, horrifically expensive, no optical drive and very little new features. Who in the hell is going to buy one of them when you can get the already top notch MacBook and MacBook Pro. Not a good move by Apple.

Did you read the thread? People who will buy one:

Professionals who need a lightweight ultraportable
Photographers who need a lightweight machine to use on the road
Students who have more money than sense

And thats just for starters.

£1200 is not overpriced, much less horrifically overpriced. The Sony TZ (the most direct competitor really) starts at £1299 for a slower processor, less ram, smaller screen.

No optical drive doesn't matter for the target market, I have an ultra-portable with no optical drive and I don't ever miss it. If I want to watch DVDs on the move I'll create an ISO and stuff it on a portable drive (which means I could take a dozen films with me in the size of one DVD case.) I installed software when I bought it but even most of that was downloaded rather than CDs. What else would I want an optical drive for?

No new features? so a multi-touch trackpad isn't a new and potentially useful feature?

There's a reason I have both a macbook pro and an ultraportable, because my mbp just isn't something I fancy dragging around with me every day of the week. I'd love to be able to use a mac ultra-portable because the unix based OS suits me far better than windows but until now it hasn't been possible.

Just because it isn't as powerful as a macbook pro, half the size of a macbook and £500 doesn't mean it's rubbish. It's very reasonable compared to the competition. It's not perfect (I'd still be tempted to buy a thinkpad and install linux on it instead - for similar money I'd add) but it's not half rubbish
 
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