[buzz] MacBook Air (2010 model)

[fasteez]

Anyone saw the Apple Event ?

Except the Core2Duo cpu ( when SandyBridge looks like a whole step better in terms of Perf/Watt ) and probably glossy screen it looks like a great little friend.

999$ for 11,6" , 64GB flash HDD (or I should say mainboard persistent module , it's just like sodimm )
discrete gpu, nice res. , unibody casing .. I'm quite impressed. Can't wait for the reviews to pop.

edit 2 : apple website has been updated http://www.apple.com/macbookair/design.html

I find the internals quite ~sexy~

edit : some pics thanks to arstechnica live webcast

http://static.arstechnica.net/back-to-mac/smallmba2.jpg
http://static.arstechnica.net/back-to-mac/mbabatt.jpg
http://static.arstechnica.net/back-to-mac/mba2.jpg
http://static.arstechnica.net/back-to-mac/mba3.jpg

[pianowizard]

Anyone saw the Apple Event ?....http://static.arstechnica.net/back-to-mac/smallmba2.jpg

I had been looking forward to this event because there had been rumors of a smaller and lighter MacBook Air, but I have been super busy all day and haven't had a chance to read about it. The first photo shows that the resolution of this new laptop is going to be 1366x768, meaning Apple is moving from 16:10 to 16:9! I was hoping that they would stick with 16:10.

UPDATE: I just went to apple.com to check out the specs of the new 13.3" MacBook Air. Wow, it now has 1440x900 resolution (used to be only 1280x800)! I am glad that Apple is keeping the 16:10 aspect ratio for this one. Another improvement is that there are now two USB ports.

And I just realized why Apple might have opted for a 16:9 screen for the 11.6" model: it's wider than 16:10 and so the keyboard can be larger.

[qviri]

I'm impressed by the 11.6" Air. I know the CPU and RAM specs aren't much, but it's pretty much all I'd need in a laptop were to buy a new laptop right now, and the price is accessible.

[Navck]

Wow, SSD Hibernation, how innovative.

Too much RDF for me, my head starts to hurt from staring at that page.

[ThinkRob]

Talk about underwhelming...

Apple has basically released a "new" product that is inferior to the X200s in pretty much every aspect. It's slower, it's far more user-hostile, it's less durable, it's not as flexible, and (in 2010) it's more expensive.

About the only thing it has going for it is the design, and even that's not really innovative. I am, however, in awe of the excellent salesmanship used to convince people that the "unibody" design is something to be desired for reasons other than its appearance.

[pianowizard]

it's less durable

What's the evidence for this claim?

[ThinkRob]

What's the evidence for this claim?

Admittedly, anecdotal. But having seen an X200 and a unibody MacBook dropped from the very same desk... well... aluminium's resilience to impact leaves something to be desired. In this case, it left the user desiring a new lid assembly to replace the bent one.

It makes sense though -- while both plastic and aluminium will deform in response to force, the latter tends to warp and remain bent.

[Maliha]

I own original Macbook Air since mid-ish 2008, in my view it's quite sturdy, perhaps not as solid as T series yet still beefy. It has taken two falls thus far, fortunately survived on both counts except a tiny scuff near the right hinge area. This is just my personal experience, I'm not making a claim here about sturdiness of all MBA's.

I haven't watched the keynote yet, but did read the news on Yahoo, the 11.6 model does look pretty.

[Navck]

Thinkrob, you can quote any of my rants on how the unibody design is inferior for laptops including transferring forces to the planar if you care for it.

Also if Apple slips on design (They don't care, but they're not very "bad" in design like HP is) they can start actually inducing fatigue cycles on the aluminum if the user thinks "wow, this unibody is more durable, I'm going to lift it from the palmrest!"

Oh wait, why is there a crack in my chassis? Oops.

[mediasponge]

Besides, Apple can say, "You're holding it wrong. "

[Colonel O'Neill]

YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG

http://www.qxm.de/digitalewelt/macbook-paper-080509.jpg

[mediasponge]

http://www.qxm.de/digitalewelt/macbook-paper-080509.jpg

Link seems dead.

[fasteez]

Interestings comments about the Aluminium unibody properties .. I blindly thought it was flawless -_-;

After reading y'all, I checked the x201 price; i7 for 230$ more (web special deal), i3 for less than a MBA .. my point of view just changed

[ThinkRob]

If battery life is of the utmost importance, I'd recommend the X200s instead of the X201 or X201s. If you can find a WXGA+ model with a ULV (not LV) CPU, you can actually hit 10 or so hours of real, honest-to-goodness use.

That said, I think that most non-Mac fans for whom looks aren't paramount will find the X20x series to be a better fit for their needs and budget.

<Checks URL.>

But as we know... I'm biased.

[asiafish]

Honestly, Windows people won't buy the Air because they don't "get" Apple. Apple people won't buy any non-Apple because for them OS X is more than just a spec.

[dsvochak]

John C. Dvorak's comments on the topic

[ThinkRob]

John C. Dvorak's comments on the topic

I don't put much faith in Dvorak. Why? well... gems like this:

What will be radical is the company's choice of processor. Apple will announce its use of the Itanium chip, which can be used in such a multiprocessor design and will become the first desktop use of the chip. The choice of the Itanium is suggested by four factors. First, there is zero evidence that Apple is talking to AMD—and it would if it were staying with the x86 legacy chips. Second, Apple likes to make jazzy announcements in which it claims to be the first or the most aggressive in a market. The Itanium fills the bill perfectly, because Jobs can lord it over current PC makers with all sorts of performance claims.

Third, if Apple optimizes the OS X kernel for the Itanium, the likelihood of the Apple OS being ripped off by normal PC users is nil. And finally, by choosing the Itanium, Apple will have an ally in Intel, who will put its design team to work for Apple and perhaps even invest in the company, knowing AMD is not in the picture.

(source)

And even better, this:

The problem here is that while Apple can play the fashion game as well as any company, there is no evidence that it can play it fast enough. These phones go in and out of style so fast that unless Apple has half a dozen variants in the pipeline, its phone, even if immediately successful, will be passé within 3 months.

There is no likelihood that Apple can be successful in a business this competitive. Even in the business where it is a clear pioneer, the personal computer, it had to compete with Microsoft and can only sustain a 5% market share.

[...]

What Apple risks here is its reputation as a hot company that can do no wrong. If it's smart it will call the iPhone a "reference design" and pass it to some suckers to build with someone else's marketing budget. Then it can wash its hands of any marketplace failures.

It should do that immediately before it's too late. Samsung Electronics Ltd. might be a candidate. Otherwise I'd advise you to cover your eyes. You're not going to like what you'll see.

(source)

And, perhaps best of all:

Having said that, why can't Apple take its genius to the next level and bring out a completely new machine that is not a Macintosh? The answer is obvious if we look at recent history and compare it to the era when the Mac was invented. Here's the problem. This supposedly creative business of high technology has invented nothing that compares with the Xerox Star in over 20 years. All the R&D money has been diverted, mismanaged, killed by zealous bean counters, or simply wasted. Most of the big R&D labs have been closed or cut back. All the R&D seems to be in semiconductor technologies, which is because that particular business is more of a psychopathic rat-race than anything else and you get eaten by the rats if you miss a step.

So perhaps I have answered my own question regarding putting down the old dog called Mac. Apple has nothing it could possibly replace it with. There is no new idea out there short of a talking computer. And the technology for the talking computer is decades away.

(source)

[mediasponge]

LOL! That's some funny stuff. I love it when these so-called industry pundits are seen in the light of their past drivel. Apple on Itanium? What was he smoking? Remember: Extraordinary drivel tends to drive off the screen ordinary drivel.

At one company I worked, we had a different name for the Itanium. The Itanic. Seriously! Intel actually sent us a "prototype" server based on Itanium. It was a total dog. The IT guys ran a boot-up test on it, and it rated no better than a 750 MHz P-III in Linux. It was in a 3U rack mount server configuration. It took 4 people to lift it. When the company dropped support, Intel insisted that we ship the unit back to them. They wanted it back just to crush it. We were told to just strap it to a pallet and put it on a truck without any need for a cover or protection. I wanted to put 4 little smokestacks on it before it went out, but didn't have time.

[ThinkRob]

LOL! That's some funny stuff. I love it when these so-called industry pundits are seen in the light of their past drivel. Apple on Itanium? What was he smoking? Remember: Extraordinary drivel tends to drive off the screen ordinary drivel.

At one company I worked, we had a different name for the Itanium. The Itanic. Seriously! Intel actually sent us a "prototype" server based on Itanium. It was a total dog. The IT guys ran a boot-up test on it, and it rated no better than a 750 MHz P-III in Linux. It was in a 3U rack mount server configuration. It took 4 people to lift it. When the company dropped support, Intel insisted that we ship the unit back to them. They wanted it back just to crush it. We were told to just strap it to a pallet and put it on a truck without any need for a cover or protection. I wanted to put 4 little smokestacks on it before it went out, but didn't have time.

In all fairness, Itanium was great... but only for apps written with Itanium in mind. Its generic x86 support was absolutely awful.

And the rest of the stuff... well... Dvorak seems to take the approach of "fling enough mud, and some of it will stick." Yeah, he correctly predicted the switch to Intel, but based on his comments regarding non-Mac devices, the future of the iPhone, the choice of chips, etc. I think it's a fair bet that his correct predictions were pretty much just luck.

[Navck]

http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/migrateto ... pare2.html
"HP offers Intel Xeon and AMD Opteron. Oh yeah and there's Itanium, but how long that will be around?"

...If that says anything about Itaniums.

Oh, wait, who else uses Itaniums. There must be a reason for this...

[ThinkRob]

Oh, wait, who else uses Itaniums. There must be a reason for this...

Yep. As I said: it's good for running things written with Itanium in mind. It's not a good choice for common x86 code -- which is what most apps are. Thus, Itanium is not the best choice for most apps.

It's a bit of a shame because it's a pretty cool architecture, but sales-wise it's been something of a dud.

[onigiri]

Honestly, Windows people won't buy the Air because they don't "get" Apple. Apple people won't buy any non-Apple because for them OS X is more than just a spec.

Personally I hate all of this 'windows vs os x' stuff, or more inaccurately and often framed, 'PC vs Macs'. Ironically, the only people who ever frame it that way are usually trying to promote apple products. Perhaps its the marketing strategy from all of those very lame 'PC vs Mac' commercials. As much as I love thinkpads, I would never say people aren't buying thinkpads because they just don't 'get' it. That's the kind of marketing Apple does. They sell an image more than anything.

That being said, I am disapointed by the use of an old processor...how long will it be until they upgrade their hardware again? I certainly won't pay $1000 on an old Core2Duo.. And I may be alone, but I'm not a fan of their design, especially the silver body/black keyboard combo. I much prefer their older all black matte casing...

[JaneL]

Personally I hate all of this 'windows vs os x' stuff, or more inaccurately and often framed, 'PC vs Macs'.

So do I, so all of you knock it off.

[dsvochak]

Apple announces MacBook Clear

[mediasponge]

Apple announces MacBook Clear

ROTFL!

[Harryc]

You guys obviously don't know JaneL very well ... One more post that is not discussing the OPs original post is going to get this thread locked, and who knows what else.

[asiafish]

Not true at all. The fact is, WIndows and OS X are different systems that run different applications. To move from one to the other is a major undertaking, and should in most instances be enough to dissuade someone from switching.

Neither OS is better than the other, but they each have very definite advantages and disadvantages.

My office used to be mixed platform, about half OS X and half WIndows, then last year I decided to simplify and had to choose one OS or the other. I went with OS X based on those advantages and disadvantages lined up with the work done in my office and the particularities of the users.

So, when I shop for an ultraportable, it doesn't matter if the X201 is more powerful than the Air, because it doesn't run OS X. Likewise, to a Windows user, it doesn't matter that the Air is thinner or lighter than the X201, it isn't optimized for WIndows (it does run it, but power management sucks).

I hate it when people over-simplify the platform differences or think that anyone who separates Macs from Windows machines is just a fan. Some of us are actually fans of both platforms, but choose one or the other based on the advantages for a particular task or workflow.

[asiafish]

I've had my 11" Air for about a week now. Mine is the mid-level model, 1.4 GHz, 128 GB SSD and 2 GB RAM. I was initially concerned about only getting 2 GB RAM, but after trying it at the store with everything under the sun open, I found there were no slow-downs.

I routinely get over six hours battery life despite Apple's claim of five, and that is with the screen at about 50%, wifi on, bluetooth off and flash disabled (I have a flash blocker that allows any flash content to be activated with a click, called Click To Flash).

The screen is gorgeous, and as I found out yesterday, the machine is short enough to use safely on a coach-class airline tray table, even with the passenger in front reclined.

The computer is also fast. The processor is slow, but you only know it when working with images or video. WOrking with video doesn't mean playing video, which is smooth and fast without any stutters.

I have yet to instal any games on the Air, and may not, but so far I have been so satisified with the performance with office productivity applications that I don't even bring my Core i7 MacBook Pro to work anymore, instead hooking up the Air to my external monitor and treating it like a desktop.

Of course, the portability is the big thing with this computer, and it does not dissappoint. I have never owned a thinner or lighter computer, and it is addicting.