Lithium Posted January 15, 2008 Posted January 15, 2008 http://www.apple.com/uk/macbookair/guidedtour/index.html?size=small
baxter Posted January 15, 2008 Posted January 15, 2008 very nice.... apart from it's no use in the education market... To be honest, it was an extremely disappointing keynote from an educational perspective.. Apple had a great opportunity to compete with new low cost notebooks from Acer etc - but i guess we will have to wait another year before they bring out something between the ipod touch and a full notebook. We're budgeting for the next school year at the moment, and i'm having to budget 200 euros more per mac this year than the last two years, simply because they offer no 'education' level machines and the price of the entry level Macs have been slowly creeping up .. rant over
markcuk Posted January 15, 2008 Posted January 15, 2008 (edited) yeah its a macbook but thinner great design there!!!.with the current market state with the asus eee etc should of made an affordable!! THIN but smaller notebook. dont really see where it fits in £80 more can get you the macbook pro Oh yeah anyone notice the price for the ssd model!! also no user replaceable battery mark Edited January 15, 2008 by markcuk
torledo Posted January 15, 2008 Posted January 15, 2008 yeah its a macbook but thinner great design there!!!.with the current market state with the asus eee etc should of made an affordable!! THIN but smaller notebook. dont really see where it fits in £80 more can get you the macbook pro Oh yeah anyone notice the price for the ssd model!! also no user replaceable battery mark i agree with bth comments made, i'm very underwhelmed by this announcement. Yes it's thin, it's light, god it's thin it's like the RAZR of laptops...but the fact the battery isn't replaceable and the sacrifice of the optical drive i don't think is worth the supermodel dimensions. But I'll reserve judgement until i get one in my hands. I'm hoping they turn their atention to the macbook pro for their next crash dieting push...would love to see a sub notebook in the macbook pro form factor.
Grommit Posted January 15, 2008 Posted January 15, 2008 i agree with bth comments made, i'm very underwhelmed by this announcement. Yes it's thin, it's light, god it's thin it's like the RAZR of laptops...but the fact the battery isn't replaceable and the sacrifice of the optical drive i don't think is worth the supermodel dimensions. But I'll reserve judgement until i get one in my hands. I'm hoping they turn their atention to the macbook pro for their next crash dieting push...would love to see a sub notebook in the macbook pro form factor. You forgot the ££1,199.00 price tag for the cheapest and lowest spec one..
torledo Posted January 15, 2008 Posted January 15, 2008 (edited) The air isn't going to break any performance records, but on a plus point it doesn't feature one of those crappy intel ULV processors...although i have a feeling it's going to get pretty darn hot 'cos of the thinness (would aluminum help with dispersal of heat ?). Choice of material is a good move, 13.3 inch screen is great, SSD disk option would have to be a must for this despite the expense. Multi-touch trackpad is ingenious. a kicker for most of you guys is going to be no built-in ethernet!!!! That's mad isn't it, but i guess an ethernet port would have just been too big to accomodate. Instead there appears to be a usb to ethernet dongle available Apple fanboys aren't going to care either way. Just wonder how hot it's going to get...and the price with SSD is going to be a wee-bit on the eye watering side. The PATA, sorry IDE (i'm not fallling for the apple marketing hype of trying to disguise an older technology as somehing new) drive is only 4200 rpm - so i'd probably go with the SSD if i were going to be one - better battery life and performance. Edited January 16, 2008 by torledo
webman Posted January 15, 2008 Posted January 15, 2008 Yeah, price tag - and lack of ethernet ports, lack of replacable battery, lack of optical drive (how can they burn their iMovie creations?! ) etc isn't really a problem for die-hard fanboys; they would remortgage just to get their hands on one while being completely oblivious to its many pitalls. Me? Cynical? Anti-Apple? Nooo
torledo Posted January 15, 2008 Posted January 15, 2008 (edited) Yeah, price tag - and lack of ethernet ports, lack of replacable battery, lack of optical drive (how can they burn their iMovie creations?! ) etc isn't really a problem for die-hard fanboys; they would remortgage just to get their hands on one while being completely oblivious to its many pitalls. Me? Cynical? Anti-Apple? Nooo The price is a valid critiscm, the others aren't (apologies webman the battery issue is a valid criticism). USB to ethernet dongle IF you need it, the eee doesn't have an optical drive either (and this isn't much heavier than the eee with the advantage of a full sized screen). Do you really need a replacement battery ? you're certainly not going to need an extended life batt option, macbook white battery life under osx puts any windows laptop to shame...and in the unlikely event the battery does develop a fault well that's what applecare is for. Less than optimal battery capcity as a result of charging dischaging over time will be an issue......and i personally wouldn't like to send a 1200+ quid notebook away just replace the battery. But they had to make sacrifices to make the weight. But i agree, 2000+ for a properly specced version is painful, but there's nothing like it at for the price. Vaio's don't even come close and they can reach similarly astronomical prices. Edited January 16, 2008 by torledo non-replaceable battery
tech_guy Posted January 15, 2008 Posted January 15, 2008 Oh, it's something new from that company called Apple. [Goes back to sleep]
webman Posted January 15, 2008 Posted January 15, 2008 From my experience of working in a school for the past 4 and a half years, yes, I would say being able to replace the battery is fairly important; even more so if the laptop costs over a grand to begin with. Yes, external optical drives are an option obviously. But for macites - I'm not so sure if it's ideal - they rave on how they use Macs to make cool DVDs using iMovie on the go. I'm with tech_guy ZZzzz....
torledo Posted January 15, 2008 Posted January 15, 2008 From my experience of working in a school for the past 4 and a half years, yes, I would say being able to replace the battery is fairly important; even more so if the laptop costs over a grand to begin with. Yes, external optical drives are an option obviously. But for macites - I'm not so sure if it's ideal - they rave on how they use Macs to make cool DVDs using iMovie on the go. I'm with tech_guy ZZzzz.... As someone who's used ilife, i can tell you idvd is pants...it totally blows so NOT having the option to author to DVD from ilife is a blessing. If you really want to author DVD Studio Pro on the Macbook Pro or one of the desktop based macs is the only way to go. the idea seems to be to use this as part of a home multimedia setup - so you may have a desktop mac from which you can present a storage device or superdrive to the ultraportable air. No doubt a revised apple tv will fit into this scenario with the air as the perfect laptop based playout device. I don't think it's about having an all-in-one multimedia station on the go... the macbook pro does that job very well. apple are clever enough for their products not to overlap and to that extent the pricing for the air is very smart. They don't want to cannibalise the macbook lineup by pitching too low, and they have made it distinct enough from the macbook pro to give buyers genuine options depending on their needs. whatever we think of the price they are going to sell a lot of these. this obviously isn't a laptop for use in schools in large numbers.
tech_guy Posted January 15, 2008 Posted January 15, 2008 I was just having a nice dream and now I've woken up. It was all about will it blend? and the new Apple Ar$e or whatever it's called.
HodgeHi Posted January 16, 2008 Posted January 16, 2008 You can still edit and create your movies on the go. You just wirelessly connect to a different machine (mac / PC) and burn it on that one instead. I assume you can use a blank disc in a shared drive and burn to it. Would be interesting if this was the case. Would an 11n sepcced wifi network be able to deliver the data quick enough?
torledo Posted January 16, 2008 Posted January 16, 2008 You can still edit and create your movies on the go. You just wirelessly connect to a different machine (mac / PC) and burn it on that one instead. I assume you can use a blank disc in a shared drive and burn to it. Would be interesting if this was the case. Would an 11n sepcced wifi network be able to deliver the data quick enough? Yes, i think that's exactly how it works hodgehi - superdrives on remote macs can be made accessible to the Air for reading or writing to over wifi or ethernet. You could always connect via gig ethernet with the usb dongle if .n data rates were'nt sufficient - or whip out the external optical drive for when you need to write to DVD if you can't connect to a remote mac via a wired connection. On all levels it's an interesting design - the 80 gig drive is not big enough to store music and video collections in addition to apps so wirelessly connecting to a dekstop mac in the home to offload and access certain content is probably the way apple envisage using the air. Isn't that what MS are trying to do partly with Home server - although no doubt the air is a more simplified way of dealing with the storage and access issue. And as i've said i'm sure Apple TV with on demand content for multimedia access will also figure in an Air home network setup.
HodgeHi Posted January 16, 2008 Posted January 16, 2008 They must be pretty confident that their draft version of 11n is going to be close to the ratification considering the amount of hardware they are sticking it in. Will it be just a firmware upgrade to the ratified version or will this all need to be re-purchased if there are significant changes? i.e issues with security or channel strengths etc.
mrforgetful Posted January 16, 2008 Posted January 16, 2008 Looks like every other Apple product to me. Bland, white, missing basic features, expensive to buy, expensive to maintain....Are we sure it's something new?
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now