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Apple Announces MacBook Air
Apple made four announcements at MacWorld Expo: the new MacBook Air, new features for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and movie rentals via iTunes from a TV without a computer involved. The new portable gets most of the attention. It is 0.76" thick at the thickest part, tapering to 0.16". It weighs 3 pounds and has a 13.3" screen and full-size, backlit keyboard. Its Intel chip is the diameter of a dime and the thickness of a nickel. The MacBook Air will cost $1799 and up. Its storage is either 80 GB disk or 64 GB solid-state drive. 2 GB of memory. It has no optical drive (an external one is available for $99) and features a way to wirelessly use the optical drive of any nearby Mac or PC with the proper software installed.
does it blend?
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From the apple site...
.8-1.2 inches, 11 or 12" display, miniature keyboard, and slower processor.
Hard Drive
Your MacBook Air comes standard with a Parallel ATA (PATA) 4200-rpm hard drive. Or you can choose a solid-state drive that delivers faster performance and greater durability.
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80GB Parallel ATA Drive @ 4200 rpm
64GB Solid State Drive [Add $999]
Wow. Just Wow. Transcript from http://www.macrumorslive.com/
10:26 am New Ad for MacBook Air. Plays off of the ability to fit in an envelope.
10:25 am Pre-orders today, shipping in two weeks
10:24 am $1799
10:24 am 2 GB Memory standard
10:23 am 5 hours of Battery Life
10:23 am No optical drive, but a Superdrive accessory is available for $99. Also, software comes with the MacBook Air that allows you to "borrow" a Mac or PCs optical drive.
10:21 am 802.11n + Bluetooth 2.1/EDR
10:20 am Other features: 45 Watt MagSafe, 1 USB 2.0 port, Micro-DVI, Audio Out
10:19 am Steve retaking stage
10:19 am Otellini: The processor is as thick as a nickle and as wide as a dime.
10:18 am Apple asked Intel to shrink the Core 2 Duo. Intel shrunk the processor by 60%. Paul Otellini, CEO of Intel is taking the stage
10:17 am 1.6 GHz Standard, 1.8 GHz Option -- Intel Core 2 Duo
10:16 am 80 GB hard disk standard, 64 GB SSD as an option. "they're pricy, but they're fast"
10:15 am 1.8" Hard Drive
10:15 am How did we fit a Mac in here?
10:15 am Move a window by double-tap and move. Rotate a photo by pivoting your index finger around your thumb. Of course, pinch-zoom.
10:14 am Multi-touch trackpad
10:13 am display is LED backlit. iSight is built-in. MacBook-like keyboard, but with an ambient light sensor
10:12 am Magnetic latch, 13.3" widescreen display
10:12 am MacBook Air is 0.16" to 0.76". The thickest part of the MacBook Air is thinner than the thinnest part of the Sony. It fits inside a envelope
10:10 am We thought 3 lbs is a good target weight, but there was too much compromise with the other features
10:10 am Most people think of Sony TZ series when they think of thin notebooks. Competition specs: 3 lbs,
10:08 am "The World's Thinnest Notebook"
10:08 am As you know, Apple makes the best notebooks in the industry. Today, we are introducing a third kind of notebook. It's called the MacBook Air
10:08 am 4th thing: There's something in the air
10:07 am Steve has re-taken the stage
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
But how am I going to watch movies?
What's that? I can rent them from Apple, you say? What a coincidence!
Remember, kids, it's not lock-in, it's Steve Jobs holding you nice and safe in his loving arms...
(from tech specs page on apple.com)
"Integrated 37-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery"
Are they serious? No way to swap out a battery halfway through a 10 hour flight? No way to take it out at security check points (or if it catches fire)?
Please tell me I'm misinterpreting that phrase. Want to buy one now, but that's a deal breaker. Argh!!!
-Chris
I thought this was a pretty big part of todays Keynote:
Touchstone, Miramax, MGM, Lionsgate, Newline, FOX, WB, Disney, Paramount, Universal, Sony all on board.
Library titles: $2.99,
New Releases: $3.99,
HD rentals are $4.99.
Rules: 30 days to start watching. 24 hours to finish
Watch anywhere (Macs, PCs, all current iPods and iPhone
Thanks MacRumors.
So, somebody's going to buy one, and when they foobar their OS and drop it off at the helpdesk, how do we fix it?
Yes, there is USB, so we'lll need to keep a few USB CD-Rom drives around for these things. >p>ah well, it looks real nice.
Never ask for directions from a two-headed tourist! -Big Bird
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Just because it costs a lot doesn't mean it's overpriced. It's a deal compared to comparable Sony models with less power and aren't as thin.
Just a USB2. FireWire target mode has saved my butt so many times, I would really hate to give it up, especially on a portable machine.
Although, you probably don't need it as much if you have that $1000 solid state disk...
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
If you are not willing to accept those tradeoffs then you are not the target market for the MacBook Air. Might I suggest a MacBook or a MacBook Pro?
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
That's not the half of it. If you decide to go with the flash disc (SSD), you'll have pony up over 3000 smackers.
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
Can you link to something cheaper with a competitive hardware spec? Please do not link to anything physically larger, as size is the primary discriminator in its class. I went looking for a Vaio to price against it but couldn't find anything in its class. HP, Dell, and Lenovo all fell short as well. Before saying it's more expensive than its competition, please actually tell us what its competition IS, keeping in mind that to compete, you have to compete on form factor first.
Seriously, they have no moving parts - which do you think will fail first? The manufacturers have been working on the limited write capacity for years such that they believe it's no longer an issue. Modern flash memory can already silently correct for any parts that can no longer be written.
Now all we need is for production to ramp up and the cost to come down.
You serious? Have you priced out its competition? The closest is probably the Vaio, and it is more expensive. The Dell XPS is cheaper, but is bigger and heavier.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
It better include a iHandjob!
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
I feel the same way about the iPhone -- with 16GB storage, it is in no way a replacement for my current iPod. But I suspect if he'd been willing to accept 1/16 of an inch increased thickness, we could be looking at 32GB or 64GB, and then you've got me as a customer.
No way. The iPhone (which is 8GB max) uses flash and has zero space left inside. If you're talking 32GB flash, you're adding hundreds of dollars to an already hefty price to get that much flash, and you'd still possibly need to slim down the battery to make more space for flash chips (the thing is seriously packed inside). And a 32GB hard drive like the one in the current iPods wouldn't fit in 1/16 of an inch.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
I'm a tad annoyed by this. iPhone users get the new software update for free, new iPod Touch users get them for free, yet the early adopter iPod Touch people have to stump up $20?
I know I'll end up buying them, but it's the principle of it all...
Compared to Vaios that have a DVD drive or 200GB second drive built in?
Really thin is only so useful. The Vaio TZ (along with some Japanese laptops that we don't get here in the states) allows you to change the way that you live. You can stuff those notebooks into a man-purse (Tumi makes some that fit rather well) and go. You can use them in the coach section of an airplane without fear of screen-crunch.
I'm not saying that the Macbook Air is a bad thing. Thin notebooks are nice, but thickness is the dimension that I find least annoying in a notebook (keeping in mind that my thickest notebook is a comparably enormous Vaio FZ, and my favorite notebook is my Thinkpad T42). I wouldn't want my sub-notebook to be as thick as the old Thinkpads were (think DSM-IV hardcover) size, but the footprint matters as well.
If only someone would bring back the old butterfly keyboard of the Thinkpad 701...
I was thinking the same thing. Everyone wondered why an airdisk wouldn't work. I think now we have our answer. They wanted to force us to buy an apple product to do wifi backing up. Lame...
I agree the XPS is bigger and heavier (not that much anyway) but to gain 0.4kg, you loss the DVD, the CPU speed, the storage size and speed, and you paid much more for it. I don't pay 700$ more to have less.
Insightful!
At first I was psyched about the MacBook Air. I've been wanting a small MacBookPro for... well, since the MBP came out. I was goign to ask whether this thing has a glossy screen.
But really, a non-replaceable battery in a LAPTOP? Especially when Apple says that the batteries are rated for 18 months with "ideal usage"? That seems... a bit off to me. Also I'm betting the harddrives aren't that easy to replace/upgrade.
Come on, Apple! I'll take the same form-factor as a MacBook! Heck I'll take the same specs, just put a real keyboard on it and get rid of the glossy screen! I'll still pay $1,799!
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
Apple removed many of the parts from a normal laptop computer and are now going to charge more for it. Genius I tell you!
The MacBook Air is NOT designed to be a "primary computer."
In fact, the brilliance on Apple's part here is the recognition (FINALLY) that there are lots of people with big honkin desktop machines who also need a portable computer for going out to meetings, travel or just reading the web (on something bigger then a 3" screen) at the local coffee shop. For us, the Air is perfect - a minimalist extension of our main work computer.
The only two complaints I have about the Air are the hard drive (you get to choose slow or obscenely expensive) and the fact that Apple hasn't really taken the concept of a satellite laptop as far as they could in OS X. It would be cool if my MacPro and my laptop used WiFi to sync up documents, preferences, media files and such. This problem is especially acute in iTunes where I have hundreds of GB of media on my main machine, but have to manually manage those things on my laptop. I wish Apple recognized this problem and solved it elegantly.
Other then that, I already pre-ordered my MB Air with the SSD. I can't wait!
Wait, we ARE talking about Macs, right?
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
Answer: Travelers. Or anyone who moves around a lot, whether they're traveling or working mobile around the city. Lightweight + small form factor = something you can fit into a backpack or any other bag you use, while not weighing you down. Now that I think about it, students fit this profile pretty well too.
I see this as being a complement to your regular computer, something to take with you when you need mobility. Shame about the price though, at $1800 I think I'd rather just lug my Powerbook. I don't travel nearly enough to justify the cost.
Web consulting +
Apple is using the lingerie model : pay more for a lot less, but it looks sexier.
I also just noticed that it doesn't come with the Front Row remote by default... you have an option to pay $20 more to get that... what's the deal with that, when the other MBs include it?
No ethernet port, only ONE usb2 port, no microphone jack? Honestly, how are you supposed to use this thing? What if you need to use Ethernet and a flash drive at the same time? Are you supposed to carry around a USB-to-ethernet dongle and a hub... possibly a POWERED hub?
I love how people rave about Apple's "all-in-one" designs, yet in practice every all-in-one computer is a mess of external devices and cables. My grandma, for example, has an all-in-one iMac... with an external modem, an external floppy disk drive, and a hub... since the stupid computer doesn't have any convenient front ports for a USB flash drive.
Oh, and no user-replaceable battery? Thanks but no thanks... there are lots of other ultra-portables that I'd choose over this one.
My bicyles
omg you're not genuinely unaware of the fact that for electronics, smaller is generally more advanced and hence more expensive are you?
if not, why do you constantly talk about its price in terms of its size? ("For a little tiny thing like that...", "the cost of these small machines...")
One of the most irritating pet peeves of mine from the days of working retail is what you stated. There's nothing more annoying than a customer complaining to you that something is "too expensive" because it costs more. What I would do to help them understand is to tell them "A Mercedes costs more than a Honda, but people still buy them. You pay more and you get more. The same applies to this product."
The summary missed one of the new products, called "time capsule." It is basically an 802.11n wireless hub/Gb ethernet hub, with a built in hard drive for use with Time Machine to auto-backup all your macs. It's going for $500 for a terabyte, or $300 for a half terabyte. It is, of course, a small form factor without room for more drives. It will probably be the only backup solution that will really be easy enough for most of the home market, but not really all that cool for Slashdot types.
This argument is often trotted out for the iPod, etc. It's specious. First, it's not expensive to install a new one -- it's free as part of your AppleCare.
Bullshit. The warranty specifically excludes reduced battery consumption as a result of use/age, both under the standard warranty and the Applecare extended warranty. At least they're (more) upfront about it now than they used to be...they now mention that Lithium Ion batteries degrade with time and use, etc.
Please help metamoderate.
Note: Women are getting more education, and filling more elite/management positions than men.
Note: The CEO of Avon cosmetics joined Apple's board.
Apple got a Gap board member to help with retail design and strategy. Apple got a Google board member to have a strong ally in networks and data distribution.
Apple is not looking in to selling cosmetics, I can guarantee that. What Ms. Jung brings to the table is a huge amount of experience in marketing to women. Women who, per the first note, are going to be earning more, spending more, and who are an expanding market for techno-doo-dads which have been traditionally marketed to men.
Oxygen network vs. Macbook Air? I don't know if that's what's going on here, but I think it's likely to think that Apple will be pushing their products--naming, ad campaigns and more, possibly even specific designs--in ways that will be more and more appealing to women. Making a laptop that's 3 lbs instead of 5 is not something that should be ignored by anyone who has ever noted the difference between the average man's hand/wrist strength and that of the average woman.
Sony has done something similar, but half-a$$ed, with their "Bravia - A TV both Men and Women can Love" campaign. I think Apple will go down this road, and they will do it right.
The CB App. What's your 20?
Wanna bet the touchpad shows up on the other Apple notebooks as they are refreshed?
People DO pay for size. A friend of mine paid almost as much for a Lenovo x61s (IIRC) a few months back. He loves it - it weighs half what his old laptop did, gets about 3-4x the battery life, and takes up so little room that he doesn't need a separate bag for it anymore. That's worth a few hundred bucks for a lot of people, and isn't simply a matter of "being trendy".
I wouldn't want it as my primary computer, but it would certainly do the trick as a second computer (as my iBook does now...).
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I have a Toshiba Portege R500. It's 2.4lbs, .77" thick, includes an optical drive, and has a replaceable battery (usually runs me a full 6hrs on one charge with average usage). Granted it's not as powerful as the mac (it has a 1.2ghz Core 2 Duo) doesn't have all the cute features of the mac (my favorite is the backlit keyboard), but it's lighter and has some essential practical benefits over the mac. IMHO I don't fully understand the hype that's behind the Air. It's not nearly as revolutionary as people are suggesting.
The only consistency in life is the lack thereof
You didn't happen to notice that the damn thing's approximately the size of a postage stamp, did you? The point of the air is that's it's incredibly thin. This isn't designed to be the most powerful, feature-laden notebook out there, it's designed to be portable. For instance, Intel re-designed the processor to make it significantly smaller. Things like that don't come cheap; hence, Apple charges more for the device. Yes, it isn't as powerful as the Pro, but it's designed to complement Apple's other notebooks, not replace them. Buy the Pro if you want more power/features, buy the Air if you need an eensy notebook. It doesn't make sense for Apple to sell 3 different notebook models that are all essentially the same thing. One's cheaper, one's more powerful, and one's small. Pick one. Personally, I'm impressed that the Air's still cheaper than the competition, considering that: A) it's a Mac B) It's smaller (thinner) than comparable notebooks C) it's decently powerful and has good battery life. I wouldn't buy one for video/audio editing, but for web-browsing, e-mail, and text editing it's perfect. And, let's face it, that's all that most consumers use a computer for.
I am inclined to disagree with that analogy. I look at it more like, some people like red cars, some people like blue cars. If for some reason the blue car is more expensive than the red car, but you really really don't like red, and you have to have a car, is it worth it to pay more for the blue car? They are fundamentally the same, but you just can't stand walking out to your driveway every morning and staring at that hideous red car. That's why I pay more for a Mac. I could use Windows, it would get me where I want to go, but man is it ugly.
The SSD is a $999 upgrade. Have you looked at the prices for 64GB SSDs recently? They tend to run in the $1500 range. I know it's hard to believe, but the SSD from Apple is actually *cheaper* than retail at the moment. It's not something you usually see in BTO upgrades for a Mac.
Frag 'em all...
That Dell is about the size of the MacBook, which costs less and is more powerful. It is lighter, but then it also has a smaller screen. It is far bigger than the MBA.
A more apt comparison is the one Jobs did, with the Sony slim notebook, and the Sony's more expensive.
You're more right than you know.
The difference in price between the 'middle' MacBook and it is $500. I put together a WHOLE PAGE of stuff that is on the cheaper MacBook but not on the Air. And for less money, seriously, look at the specs, it's freaking hilarious. I'm a huge Apple fan boy but I can't say I'm enthusiastic about something that is so blatantly only sold for the 'cool' factor (insert your 'isn't that all Apple products' line here).
Apple really missed the mark with this one here. At $1000-1200, it's reasonable but at %50 more it becomes laughable. I was really hoping for something in that range so I could replace my girlfriend's aging iBook but now it looks like I'll wait for an LED-backlit refresh of a MacBook, you know, that laptop that actually does something for $1200.
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
Its also twice as thick, weights 25% more, has a smaller screen and as you say comes with half the ram. Also, in order to get a similar battery time you need the extra big battery. Still a fairly good deal if the Thinkpad has everything you need but for some people the lighter computer with the larger screen might be worth the money.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
I'll summarize another post I made along the same lines.
First, I wholeheartedly agree that there is a market for sub-notebooks. I've been wanting to pick one up myself. I consider the Macbook to be on the larger side of the sub-notebook class of computers. What I was talking about was specifically the Macbook Air, specifically compared to Apple's next smallest notebook.
Here's what you get going from the stock Macbook to the Macbook Air:
2 pounds lighter.
0.25 inches thinner, at its thickest.
Spiffy new touchpad.
OLED screen, meaning that the LCD should last longer (this is a marginal improvement)
1 extra gb of RAM, base (costs $150 to add to the Macbook on Apple's website, $50 to add after-market)
Trendy new computer that few other people have.
Here's what you give up:
1 optical drive
1 USB port
1 Firewire port (probably not a big deal to travelers)
1 replaceable battery (meaning that your travelers won't be able to carry a spare)
1 hour of battery life (even worse considering the lack of a replaceable battery)
1 ethernet jack (probably not a big deal, since wireless is slowly becoming ubiquitous)
400mhz on the low end, 200mhz on the high end.
Replaceable RAM (RAM starts going bad? Your Mac is going in for service. Hope it doesn't go bad after the warranty is up.)
Stereo speakers
Optical audio out
$600
I simply can't believe that the things you get are highly sought after.
I'm on a 1.5 year old MacBook Pro, on my fourth battery. The first one was recalled, and the next two started performing poorly and both times I called AppleCare and had a new battery on my doorstep the next day without paying a dime.
The difference in price between the 'middle' MacBook and it is $500. I put together a WHOLE PAGE of stuff that is on the cheaper MacBook but not on the Air. And for less money, seriously, look at the specs, it's freaking hilarious. I'm a huge Apple fan boy but I can't say I'm enthusiastic about something that is so blatantly only sold for the 'cool' factor (insert your 'isn't that all Apple products' line here). What amazes me is the gist of the comments, here:
"There's no optical drive!"
"You can pay Apple more money to solve that!"
"There's only one USB port!"
"You can pay Apple more money to solve that!"
"There's no user replacable battery!"
"You can pay Apple to solve that!"
I'm sorry guys, I just don't get this one.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
As it was explained to me when I worked there, the Legal team at Apple feels that they'd be vulnerable to shareholder lawsuits if they gave away something that customers would be willing to pay for. This is traditionally attributed to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, but I think the intent of the policy is more general than that.
In general, updates to existing products are not allowed to be free if they add new features, only if they fix bugs. There are a bunch of exceptions, including for products that are given away, like iTunes. I expect that the iPhone is actually being "sold" a bit at a time over the course of the mandatory 2-year contract, and so since customers are still technically paying for them, it's okay to add new features in a software update.
I didn't much like this explanation the first time I heard it, but given the number of shareholder lawsuits Apple already gets every year, they definitely have reason to be cautious. As long as the prices for feature upgrades remain relatively low, it probably won't anger the customer base too much, and it'll hopefully keep the class-action lawyers at bay.
I don't consider features like a backlit keyboard or a FireWire 800 port to be necessities, so I have no problem comparing the MBP to competing models that have the same size screen, same CPU, same hard drive and optical drive, same networking features, etc. but a much lower price tag. For example, a configured HP dv6700t with the same basic specs as the low-end MacBook Pro costs $958.99 - less than half as much as the MBP.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
It's 0.1 inches thick, can be folded up to fit in a standard envelope, sports a 2 terabyte SSD and 8 cores, all while sipping only 3.5 Watts of juice. As a nod to Greenpeace, it is not only biodegradable, it is also edible. Early beta testers describe it as having a "cool mint" flavor, and there are reports of a "zesty orange" version in the works.
To enhance morale, at Apple there are gigantic posters of Steve Jobs fixing employees with what can only be described as a "level stare".
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
I've never encountered RAM going bad. I've encountered a lot of RAM being bad to begin with, however. ... 95% of users don't swap them around, the only exceptions being those who need extra long battery life. So we have established that the Air isn't going to compete in the rugged industrial laptop category ... that's quite the bummer, buddy!
Sure, it could happen. Congratulations, a high-tech laptop is less serviceable than a whitebox PC. Whoddathunk it?
As for the optical drive, I use mine every other month, why should I carry it around every day?
The battery
Optical audio out? Completely useless. Stream over wifi or Bluetooth (has Apple implement hifi audio on their bluetooth stack in Leopard?). Apple sells a device for that.
You're missing the point. The Air is not replacing the MacBook, it's a new product. So yeah, it's expensive. Too expensive for me, I'm keeping my MacBook and will buy an EEE to carry around, but this is a nice product and will sell like hotcakes, no doubt about it.
People say that Apple missed the mark with everything they release. Sometimes they do, but lately it hasn't been very often. One thing Apple knows is their customers. Apple Marketing is truly superb. When you say that Apple "missed the mark," what you really mean is they missed the mark for you, but most likely you weren't in their target market for this device in the first place.
That said, you may be right. Maybe nobody will buy it, but I don't think so.
This author takes full ownership and responsibility for the unpopular opinions outlined above.
1. The air is a lot thinner and less sturdy than the X61 for the same weight. This may be a stylistic plus, but it also makes the hardware a lot less breakable, and I think they made the wrong choice here. Maybe, maybe not. It does have a metal shell, unlike the x61, and MagSafe, so you're less likely to pull it off a desk. Though I wonder what the metal shell will do to wireless reception. Also, I hate to say it, but the x61 shell is kind of shoddy for a ThinkPad. Mine is already cracked around the CPU fan vent, and I've been pretty nice to it. 2. The Air is only 1.6 Ghz for a core 2 duo. My X61 came in at 2.2 Ghz. It uses a low-voltage processor, like the x61s. It gets more battery life than the x61 (even the s), at least in the 3lb configuration, unless Apple is lying more than Lenovo. Anyway, many ultraportables use 1.2GHz ULV processors, so Apple is taking the middle of the road here. 3. The Air costs a lot more. My X61 came in at about $1400, whereas the air starts out at $1800! That's $400 for a brand identity on slightly inferior hardware. Expensive, yes, but inferior isn't clear yet. It has a lot of features that the X61 doesn't. 802.11n, keyboard backlight (that LED on the ThinkPad is not a substitute), 13.3" higher-res display, magsafe, magnetic latch, multitouch trackpad (conspicuously missing from the x), camera, microphone. Also, let's admit it, ThinkPads are ugly. Not as bad as Dells, but nothing compared to the shiny of a high-end Mac.
Also, it ships with Leopard instead of Vista. 4. The Air has a tiny by current standards harddrive (80 gigs) probably to make the solid state version not look so bad. It has a 1.8" HDD. Smaller and uses less power, but more expensive and less capacity. 5. The Air's one strong point is that it has DVI out, whereas the X61 only has VGA out. Since there are DVI to s-video adapters, this means the Air can play movies on the tv, whereas the X61 cannot. Yup. And you can connect it to a nicer LCD. On the other hand, the other ports are pretty limited. No ethernet (not "airy" enough?), no mic-in (of course, it has an internal mic), no firewire (oh, the irony), no sd reader, no express slot. And only one USB port. This isn't as bad as it sounds, because you probably have a hub on your desk anyway, and you're not going to need more than one port on the road. Probably.
Still, it seems silly not to include Ethernet. I suppose there's an adapter, but blah. 6. The air has an optional (it's in the $3000 dollar model) solid state drive. I'm not sure what real benefits you get by paying for this. Faster (especially for random reads), lower power consumption, lighter weight, no moving parts, more rugged, geek cred.
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
That's an upgrade from a 32GB SSD to a 64GB SSD. The Air is an upgrade from a normal HDD to an SSD. Completely different starting points in terms of price. Apple's price is still perfectly fair.
Frag 'em all...
Fuck you, my insecure little cupcake.
If you don't like it don't buy it. But get off your sanctimonious high-horse, your false belief that your purchasing decisions are the One True Way and that anyone who differs is a fucking idiot. What you chose to buy does not make you better than other people.
"No nothing"? Except for... a 1.8GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, 2 gig of RAM, 802.11n wireless, USB2, backlit keyboard, built-in iSight, LED display, 5 hour battery life. Not to mention the software.
Yeah, I guess other than that nothing. If I were a business traveler I'd want one of these. I'm not, so I don't. But I'm not such a child as to think that I'm better than anyone who might.