In-Depth Review of the MacBook Air With Photos

Engadget has the first really in-depth review of the MacBook Air that I have seen with plenty of great photos and specifics. They do a great job of highlighting the highs and the lows with plenty of concrete examples to back their claims up. It seems that while the MacBook Air is a great step towards ultra-portable computing, overall the pricepoint is just too high. Which is not surprising from a new Apple gadget I guess.

Comments

Re:Worth reading if you still care

[Ohreally_factor]

Going by weight, emmmmmmaybe we can kind of, sort of call this ultra-portable, but like you, I've always considered the foot print to be an important aspect (I'm typing this on a 12" Powerbook, btw). And just going by the looks of the thing, I'd really love to own it, but not at this price.

I've been a Mac owner since 1991, and my main machines have always been Macs. Currently I'm considering the Asus eee PC, which is both tiny and light, and which seems capable of handling 80% of my computing needs. It's so (comparatively) inexpensive that I'm tempted to buy now, even though I want to wait and see the 2nd generation of eee PCs.

Re:Worth reading if you still care

[catwh0re]

I just think they were stuck for things to talk about... when you spend a paragraph detailing how a different laptops power adaptor doesn't fit in the unit, or that if you have dirty/sweaty wrists you'll have to clean the unit (unlike any other material?) - then it just sounds like you've got nothing to really complain about.

Maybe it's a showcase?

[autophile]

Lord knows I love all things Apple-y, but not the MBA. That being said, perhaps the MBA is a showcase machine, not really designed to be practical, but to show off new technologies for light laptops. And, unlike concept cars, you can drive this one home with you.

I guess that's positive enough spin :)

--Rob

Re:Power Users?

[mccalli]

Who are these power users everyone is talking about? I run genetic simulations and I'd be fine with what the MBA is offering.

Well, there's me. The things that it lacks for me are...

• Memory - I run large VMware images and 2G is barely sufficient for me.
• Storage - Not big enough to store lots of vms plus a large amount of music and video. Probably not fast enough either - I do a lot of compilation and have multiple processes writing huge log files simultaneously. A fast drive is appreciated.
• CPU - inside my VMware images I'm often running 5 or more large Java VMs - I like my CPU.
• Screen - it's both not quite big enough for what I do, and it's glossy whereas I prefer matt
• No firewire - so no input from a DV camcorder
• No wired ethernet - I hate adapters
• "There can't be that many people doing video editing"
  Oh, and I also do video editing. And Logic Express for music work too.

Now don't get me wrong, the above wasn't an anti-MacBook Air rant and in fact I quite like the device. Those answers are specifically addressed to your question - "who are these power users?". One would be me. That's fine though, a MacBook Air isn't aimed at me whereas a MacBook Pro is. I'm actually fine with the no optical drive thing which others are seeing as such a controversy, but the other compromises are a bit too much for my usage.

Cheers,
Ian

Re:Listen up, airheads

[peragrin]

I actually did a price comparison on the vaio's and the Vaio's give you slightly more bang for the buck but at the cost of less battery life. All in all you are talking about ~$100 price difference. Apple also surprisingly has the least expensive 64gb SSDrive on the market. Hundreds less than retail and competitors.

What I want to know is does Intel and apple have an exclusive contract on that motherboard? or can Intel start selling those boards to anyone? in 6 months will sony be selling these? Better yet will someone merge one of these and an LCD TV to make turely interactive TV.