MacBook Air
So a lot of you know I am at MacWorld, those of you who didn’t do now.
I didn’t go to the keynote. Didn’t feel like paying $300 for a ticket that got me the priviledge of standing in line to get into the keynote. I followed it online on macrumorslive.com, the only site that seemed to be able to stand up to the load of the Mac faithful.
So for me one of the more interesting announcments was the MacBook Air. I read about it online, but was a little dubious. I mean if you have a MacBook you already have an extremely thin well equipped laptop in my mind.
Later that day I got to see it in person. It is a pretty amazingly small laptop. Very thin and light. I also noticed that it runs MUCH cooler than a typical MacBook. The main draw backs in my mind are the battery not being user replaceable (I know Apple will replace it for free, but that is a drive across town for me that will be sure to chew up 2 hours of day for me). The other thing is no firewire. I am just suprised at this as Firewire has been a core part of Mac for a very long time.
Once you buy the MacBook air, and the external Super Drive, you are within $100 of a MacBook Pro. $30 for a wired ethernet adapter, etc. The gap keeps closing and your laptop bag is getting bulkier. So my view is unless you just have to have the latest thinnest thing there is, then that MacBook Pro is a much more feature rich platform.
January 18th, 2008 at 11:27 am
I agree with you on going Pro. In fact, I might have said the same thing in my blog post about it. It is amazing that they could make the Air that thin and light without severely crippling it. I am mystified about two things, though:
- No 160GB HDD upgrade. It’s the same drive in the iPod Classics. It should be $100 upgrade.
- No firewire. Wow. ‘Nuff said.
Don’t get too worked up about the battery people. You’re an early adopter. The battery will likely last 2-3 years before it needs replaced. You most likely won’t have this notebook by then as you’ll have sold it to buy a newer model sometime in that 2-3 years.
January 18th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
I’d have to agree. For a second laptop when you need to be ultra-portable or ultra-lightweight, I think it’d be fine. But the price doesn’t really justify it for me, especially when the Pro’s are so nice (and not really that bulky) anyway.
It gets a 9.875/10 on the cool factor though. Very sexy.