I wouldn't consider that a con... more of a pro, but as SM said you can dual boot windows on it since its an intel chip.



The letter "i" first stood for internet. It came about because way back when the old first gen iMacs were so easy to connect to the internet (trust me that was a big thing at the time) because they were all in one and had a built in modem so you just plugged in the power and the phone line and your set. I think the "i" just kind of stuck, but this isn't the first product without it. None of their new intel laptops have it. Macbook, Macbook Pro, and Macbook Air


I'm sure if you can lug that huge printer of yours everywhere you go you can afford to cary one tiny usb hub.



Well Like I said this isn't a replacement for a desktop. It's designed to go along with a desktop computer. Plug all those accessories into your desktop!

---

Also a quick note about it perhaps being a flop: The second Jobs announced it (before we even knew what it was) our apple store was getting tons phone calls asking if we had it.

 

 

 

Reply

That's why usb hubs were invented, honey.

 

 

 

Reply

Personally, I think it looks nice, and it'd be something really fun to show off, but... I'm worried I'd break it, it looks SOOOO thin, it looks like you could snap it in half with your thumb and pointer pinched together as hard as you can! And what if you stepped on it, or dropped it, no chance it would survive those things! I'd be too scared to so much as rest my wrists on it, let alone carry it wherever I go, which, if I'm not mistaken, is the whole point of portability! Now don't get me wrong, it looks really cool! But I'm an accident magnet, and I don't think me and this computer would get along...

Reply

I don't know of any consumer laptops that would reliably survive being stepped on or dropped. I own and use a Macbook Pro that's about 17 months old according to my battery health monitor, Coconut Battery, and it's puttering right along with no issues. I should add a Gig of RAM one of these days, but otherwise, I can't complain. I sure wouldn't drop it, though, and expect not to have to replace part of the casing or something else. The hard drive parks its heads when the computer detects a sudden change in velocity, though, so it'd likely survive a fall, as long as it wasn't too far. The sensor for that feature is so sensitive, someone created a small software program to detect seismic disturbances using the velocity sensor. I can watch the needle bounce when I walk around the room when running that program. Called SeisMac, I believe. The problem with Macair, for us who have limited resources, is it is dependent upon you having another computer, a whole Macintosh computer with optical drive and WIFI in order to upload software. It uses software included in Leopard to allow it to easily commandeer the optical drive of a host computer. That means, not only do you have to pay a premium for the tiny thing, you have to have another newer Mac to host it. I don't have the budget for that kind of nonsense. I'll stick to my MBP, thanks.

Reply

Have you ever heard of the ToughBook series by Panasonic? Now that's something that I wouldn't mind owning.

As for the Mac Air, to me it's just another Apple product: sleek, slim, maybe innovative, and of course the thing to have because it screams out "TRENDY! FASHIONABLE! MAKE THIS A PART OF YOUR iLIFE!" One of these days I'm going to have to own an Apple, but at the same time, the price for most of their products are enough to keep me away.

With the Mac Air, your money goes towards the completely-flat design and the fact that it's only 3 pounds. (Then again, there are other laptops, albeit not as thin, that weigh about the same or even less.) This is the chief selling factor that Apple has going on their site... and really, that's the only thing that you should expect of this laptop for the price that you'll be paying.

The few things I like about this laptop that Apple has done right include the integration of components (again, design wins) and the multi-touch pad. That's unfortunately about it. Looking at the specifications for this laptop, it doesn't look like you could do much with the laptop unless you were the general consumer that does nothing much but word processing, surf the Internet, e-mail, chat, and anything else that's not too CPU-intensive. I have a computer with similar numbers as far as the processor and RAM and I can run Photoshop CS3 without too much of a problem, but using it to create movies with as simple of a program as Movie Maker (you can shoot me later ) was doable, but slow. If what Apple elitists say is true about Mac OSX and Leopard actually utilizing hardware to its full potential, I wonder to what extent that it is better. But compare a $700 tablet PC running Windows XP and Ubuntu 7.10 to a $1800 thin form factor Macintosh which may be equal to or lesser than my tablet PC...

We won't really talk about the price of upgrades...

You do the math.

Now, one thing worth mentioning when it comes to bumping the price up to $3098 is the 64GB SSD. Even though it is an entire $1300 just for a processor upgrade (adding 200MHz... which we all know makes a negligible real-world impact nowadays) and the SSD, it is a jump towards solid state drive technology. It is very expensive, but at the same time operates on a much larger performance boost than the traditional platter hard drives. Thus, the race with RPM dwindles down with the advent of SSD, but not until SSD becomes more affordable.

With the advent of new technology come new problems.

The way a SSD works is that it is comprised of what we traditionally know as RAM. RAM loses its data when it is no longer powered by electricity, clearing it for its next usage when the computer is turned on again. This means that there is a small rechargeable battery that constantly provides electricity to maintain the integrity of your data. The reason why SSDs are faster than traditional HDs lie within the fact that there are no moving parts. Keep in mind that, as I've learned now, SSDs are not as much faster than their HD counterparts, and combined with the right hardware, can even seem unnecessary (with the justification of price). Source

Also, whereas there is an average MBTF of 3 to 5 years for a hard drive, there is a wearout expectancy for a solid state drive. Apparently, it's good enough so that you won't have to worry about it, as the SSD will potentially last longer than you will live (depending on how frequently you read/write data over the life of the drive). Source

Another good thing about SSDs vs. HDs is the lessened power usage. (How this works out, I'm not sure... I'm guessing it takes more power to move a head around?) This figure can be up to 10% in lessened power consumption. Source

I don't see this going anywhere other than being the talk of the Mac community and seeing spoiled or rich kids flaunting the darn thing around high school or college. The price tag just doesn't fit with the product itself, which is underpowered for the stereotypical multimedia usage that most people know Macintosh computers "excel" at.

Reply

The Macbook Air would be great for the traveling business man who needs something light to take around the airport... that is, assuming the TSA will let him past security.

I'd take one, but I'd first load Vista on it and I would DEFINITELY have a desktop-replacement laptop to use for everything but traveling. Kudos to Apple for trying to start a true light-weight revolution though.

Reply