MacBook Air

[tkam]

Yeah honestly the new dual quad mac pro was a bigger announcement than anything that came out at MacWorld today in my opinion of course. It's also priced surprisingly well.

[hYdrociTy]

For $3k, I'll take the Mac Pro with 8 cores and 4 hard drive bays over this hunk-o-crap.

Goddammit.

But you can't carry the mac pro to beautiful places in a fashionable manner.

[grawk]

For $3k, I'll take the Mac Pro with 8 cores and 4 hard drive bays over this hunk-o-crap.

SSD should be standard at the base model price.

Goddammit.

Hard to fit a mac pro in a carryon

[grawk]

VERY few people need 8 cpu mac pro speed. Many people want super thin light laptops.

[tkam]

I know I'd rather have the 8 core mac pro.

[grawk]

I know I'd rather have the 8 core mac pro.

Yah, but I don't see you buying either.

[aardvark baguette]

No argument there.

But still, this is just way too much money for way too little product, even by Apple standards.

The Mac Pro just got a hell of a lot more tempting, for me at least.

1200 for SSD... its cheaper just to keep buying the hard drives, and break them multiple times, or hell, buy multiple laptops, than to invest in the added security of solid state.

Also, with MAC, its 'want', not 'need', at least for me.

[justin]

I don't understand the obsession with thin notebooks. To me, that's the least important dimension. It doesnt change how much room it takes up when in use, and it's unlikely i'll stuff my bag so much that a 1" laptop won't fit but a 0.76" wedge will. Take a MacBook but give it a slower CPU, substantially slower HD, no optical drive, only 1 USB port, no optical output, no firewire, no wired ethernet, non-replaceable battery, charge hundreds more, and you have the MacBook Air. You have to really love thin to be excited about this. It does have a nicer case though, wish my MacBook had that.

[aardvark baguette]

Thin is nice, but what I really wanted was an 11 or 12" screen.

This basically fails on all levels for me. Wrong screen size, wrong storage type, wrong storage price, wrong battery, wrong DVI connector, no Ethernet, wrong price overall, ...sigh.

[ojnihs]

man as much as i like having the portability of a notebook, after i use this macbook for a few more years, i'm going to get a desktop computer, probably a mac mini. i just don't carry around my macbook enough to even warrant spending the money for it when i could have spent way less and had a perfectly usable, and space saving mac mini.

[grawk]

No argument there.

But still, this is just way too much money for way too little product, even by Apple standards.

The Mac Pro just got a hell of a lot more tempting, for me at least.

1200 for SSD... its cheaper just to keep buying the hard drives, and break them multiple times, or hell, buy multiple laptops, than to invest in the added security of solid state.

Also, with MAC, its 'want', not 'need', at least for me.

In this case, the ssd is more about speed than savings. If you want faster, and that thin form factor, you pay for the solid state drives. Early adopters pay a tax. The point of the macbook air is for road warriors and executives, etc, who don't want to carry a big laptop bag. It's not something I'm more than casually interested in, but that's mostly because I don't fly 500,000 miles a year anymore.

As to the mac pro, sure it'd be nice, but I don't really tax my mac mini as it is. I could rip movies a little faster with the mac pro, but that's not a huge deal to me. I'll probably never buy another fast desktop. I'm not at all impressed with fast desktop computers, much in the same way formula one drivers probably aren't impressed by the subaru wrx.

This isn't a computer for geeks, really. There are lots of those out there. This does have some really nice innovations tho, especially the multitouch touchpad and the ssd drive. I can't wait til those migrate into other systems. My goal is the 8" tablet. Thin isn't something I particularly need, what I need is small enough to fit in a hip bag, etc, so I can work from anywhere in a pinch.

[Dusty Chalk]

I think apple products are durable enough. My large and heavy ipod photo have dropped many times, and somehow always chooses to fall on hard sidewalk and never had a problem- even the screen.

My macbook dropped from about 9 foot off the side railing of stairs onto granite floor, and other than a sorta-bent-wierd side, everything is intact, even thought it was on when it fell. The second time, I dropped it from around 4 feet with the screen open and on! (I was holding it up with one hand for some reason) It fell in the most awkward way and the screen started flashing and interlacing. Rebooted, and presto- as if nothing happened.

I have yet to have any apple product break from dropping onto hard surfaces.

Hate to say this, but you're just lucky. So far.

[grawk]

Hate to say this, but you're just lucky. So far.

My 12" g4 powerbook was dented in several places from where it got knocked off tables (toddler ftw) and kept on ticking. Modern laptops are fairly durable, unless you hit the wrong spots.

[tkam]

On an unrelated apple note it's nice to see the new iTunes (7.6) finally has 64-bit Vista support.

[jinp6301]

on another unrelated apple note, the new imacs are sexy

[grawk]

With luck, blueray will be an unpromoted addition...I'd love to be able to add a usb or firewire blueray drive to my mini

[Dusty Chalk]

Modern laptops are fairly durable, unless you hit the wrong spots.

Well...hydrocity appears to trying to hit as many spots as possible, sounds like. You hit it enough times in enough different spots, you'll eventually find those spots.

On a different note, if they make them flexible, people will be able to take them anywhere, and in anything.

[saint.panda]

What I really like about it:

- Lightweight. I don't care about thinness, the Macbook is plenty thin already. But almost half the weight of a MB is great.

- Backlit keyboard & aluminum case in a 13'' format. I really miss these two things on my MB.

If it had Ethernet I would have bought it. Omitting it was really stupid.

[grawk]

What I really like about it:

- Lightweight. I don't care about thinness, the Macbook is plenty thin already. But almost half the weight of a MB is great.

- Backlit keyboard & aluminum case in a 13'' format. I really miss these two things on my MB.

If it had Ethernet I would have bought it. Omitting it was really stupid.

The need for a $30 usb dongle was a deal killer eh?

[Dusty Chalk]

If it had Ethernet I would have bought it. Omitting it was really stupid.

Not really -- they put bluetooth and wireless into it; Ethernet is so last year.

[tkam]

Not really -- they put bluetooth and wireless into it; Ethernet is so last year.

Except wireless isn't exactly what I'd call secure, so yeah Ethernet still has a place in computers

[thrice]

Yep, this is pushing the issue of wireless... with 802.11n and more and more hotspots and now a compelling wireless router and 1TB backup/storage drive with the Time Capsule, the Macbook air makes sense....great little laptop if you generally use a desktop and need something for the road...plus, there's the Back to My Mac aspect of Leopard so you can access your desktop files/computer remotely. Pretty slick. Expensive for a portable like that, but slick. Time Capsule is definitely compelling and at a good price too. That's what I'm most excited about at least.

[saint.panda]

In my office building we can't have wireless routers for weird security reasons. Everything has to go through the university's VPN, which apparently has to be via ethernet. Don't ask me why.

But yeah, I didn't think of the ethernet dongle.

Hmmm

[Dusty Chalk]

Except wireless isn't exactly what I'd call secure, so yeah Ethernet still has a place in computers

If you're worried about security, then I go back to grawk's point about the $30 dongle, or perhaps using encrypted in your internal wireless network, or perhaps you're not the target market for this computer (and by "you", I don't mean "Todd", I mean the generic "person not buying this laptop").

In my office building we can't have wireless routers for weird security reasons. Everything has to go through the university's VPN, which apparently has to be via ethernet. Don't ask me why.

Firewalls 'n' stuff.

[tkam]

Well wireless encryption no matter wep, wpa, wpa2, etc, etc is all breakable to some extent. WEP takes about 2 minutes at most WPA takes a while longer. But yes a usb ethernet adapter is a pretty good idea. Unless you need that 1 USB port for something else .