macbook air, part 2
i wasn’t really that impressed by the group of japanese engineers conclusions about the short comings of the macbook air’s design quality. it really seemed like nitpicking to bring up the amount of screws that hold down the keyboard and the non utilized space inside the casing. moreover, feigning surprise that apple would leave room for an upgrade or price drop next year is laughable. really, a corporation using price discrimination to recoup their research expenditures by charging early adopters more for the same thing people who wait will be able to buy next year? you don’t say?
that being said their are some legitimate reasons for not liking the macbook air. some have been mentioned elsewhere so I’ll go over those quickly, however there are others that not many know about that i’ll go over in deeper detail.
1. non-upgradable after purchase: the ram is soldered on with no extra card slots, the hard drive is not customer replaceable, meaning you void your warranty if you even look at the logic board, if you cant plug it into the one usb port than its not going to happen
2. increased repairs: need a battery change? have to send it in. need to reset the smu? send it in. ram need replacing? send it in. hope you don’t have any problems, or when about a year passes by i hope you don’t have any files that you haven’t backed up yet when you’re computer has to go in for a week. moreover i hope you enjoy that feeling of getting screwed when your battery dies after a year and apple care no longer covers it (over $150)
3. using the wireless migration and setup assistant is slow- it takes fourteen minutes to boot to the install disk wirelessly on a 25mb connection. i shit you not. want to migrate files from your old mac using migration assistant? depending on your internet connection speed and the amount of files my experience has been anywhere from 2-20 hours. there are many people who mistakenly think that their macbook air is broken when they’re just waiting on a slow ass connection. and just wait till when you back up your files using time capsule, enjoy.
4. wtf is with the hard drive space?- 80GB? are you kidding me? or you can “upgrade” (for a total price of $3000) to a solid state drive of 64GB. the ipod classic comes with a bigger hard drive and they couldn’t fit something a little bit larger into the macbook air?
5. remote disking cds and dvds- apple has been wrestled by the riaa and the mpaa into using dmr to disallow the wireless transfer of encoded dvds, blue ray dvds, (the now defunct) hd dvds and audio cds. thats right, without a hack you can’t transfer or play a dvd from another computer.
6. want accessories that might make the wireless transfer process a little faster, or maybe allow you to boot to the operating system before you pass out from boredom, maybe you’d like to transfer your remaining cds to onto the computer so you don’t have to buy them from itunes well never mind, because they are expensive as hell for what you’re getting.
7. processors are last generation-even the cheapest model of macbook comes with a 2.2hz processor, you can get up to 2.6hz on the macbook pro. on the macbook air the upgraded version comes with 1.8hz. you are paying premium price for last year’s model in a nice shell.
8. all this to drop three pounds-yes that is the difference in weight between the macbook air and the macbook
9. slim and sexy?- more like easy to break. these things are about a heavy key stroke away from annihilation. just look at it, does this seem sturdy to you?
10. why not just buy an iphone- seriously. they have 90% the same capabilities of the macbook air and they’re about the quarter of the price
long story short, if you’re going to buy a macbook, buy a macbook. if you want a cool toy buy the iphone or ipod touch.
1. yes. This is bad.
2. yes. This is bad.
3. yes. This is bad.
4. 80GB is small… but the assumption is that you’ll be using it as an on-the-go machine and attaching external or portable hard drives to it when you’re dealing with projects.
5. I don’t get it. You can’t rip using HandBrake or MacTheRipper?
6. um. No comment.
7. does it really matter, in the end? Most people using this thing are going to be either early adapters who’ll buy *anything* Mac just ’cause or rich people who value style over substance and, therefore, don’t give much thought about what they need, anyway.
8. for some, that’s still a lot. Especially if, say, you’re a shorter female/someone with back problems walking around with a ton of other stuff in their bag besides a computer.
9. but… but… it has 32 screws! How can anything with 32 screws break?
10. fine if you’re living somewhere that *has* iPhone plans (unlike, say, all of Canada)
Long story short, if you want a cool toy, why even buy an iAnything?
If you’re only using a laptop for true on-the-go-ness and have a desktop waiting at home and *don’t* do heavy application work beyond Word, Excel, iTunes, surfing and mailing and stuff, why not just wait a few short months and get a $400 Wimax-able Acer EEE PC with Linux (although the current ones do pick up wifi quite nicely if in range).
It’s light, the screen’s about 7″ but the next version should have better resolution and the ones I checked out had comfortable reading and there are Office Suite readers (and Google documents will save in .doc). The keyboard’s comfortable to type with, too. The forum community seems very friendly, there are a growing number of programs (all guilt- and gild- free) and, geeze, it’s about 6 times less expensive than a MacBook Air. If it gets you a year or two, you’re golden. Don’t know how much it weighs.
I just picked up a Nokia N800 internet tablet a few weeks ago for about $230. It’ll take up to two 16GB SD cards (one of which is easy to pop in, pop out when you want to swap). I just put an entire season of HBO’s ‘Rome’ on one 4GB card and that means a good 12-hour’s worth of .avis to watch on a long trip. I may dedicate another 4GB card for ‘projects’ and another for music and on-the-go podcasts.
It comes with a Skype client that I’ve used to great effect for about an hour with a friend in Wales. Clear voice. A video/still camera pops out the side. Not huge resolutions but good. I also downloaded an application that lets me record, too.
The battery’s the same as most Nokia phones and if you remember to put it in ‘online’ mode when you’re out an about, the battery should last you a good eight hours. A USB charger is about $15 and, of course, it comes with a plug-in charger.
The thing will fit in your back pocket. Honestly. The size of a woman’s pocketbook. The downside is the screen’s only about 4″ and rendering web pages means the fonts can appear small. Easy enough to zoom, but that means you end up scrolling, too. However, the touch screen capabilities are excellent and is as good as anything the iTouch can do.
I love it especially because I love using it as my alarm clock/bedside internet companion/international radio receiver (I hooked it up to my old-but-good RCA plug speakers) and I can bring it to wifi-less work and listen to podcasts and music (and, you know, an episode of something at lunch) all day.
The keyboard is onscreen. You type with one of the two provided styli (?). I just got an iGo Ultra Slim Stowaway bluetooth keyboard and will use that when I need to do more than peck out web links. There seems to be a lot a lot of clients for these instant chat applications and, of course, *you* decide the font sizes and that makes it just as easy to read as on any screen. Downside: this thing sucks for syncing my iMac Address Book. But I usually carry ’round my iPod anyway and the contacts are sitting on that.
Frankly, both the EEE PC and the Nokia N800, to me, blow the iTouch out of the water.
I’ve had Apples since the IIC but I don’t dance like a puppet for them. And I just don’t see the need for the Air except as some candy fluff.
February 24th, 2008 at 4:38 pmGot one of these for my wife. The build quality is GREAT and I’l be getting one when they have a 160 gb or greater option. It’s a really nice machine, and most of the negatives aren’t that bad.
February 24th, 2008 at 7:15 pmHere’s what I think are huge problems:
1) Only 1 USB port. That’s ridiculous.
2) No replaceable battery and since there’s no removable drive (make that no media drive at all), there’s no place for a secondary battery. Shouldn’t an ultraportable be usable far from any power source for a long time? Also, given that laptop batteries tend to degrade over time, that’s another thing you’ll have to send it in for. The battery life means this is good for an evening of use, but as someone who often has to use a laptop away from any power source for most of a work day, this laptop is completely useless to me.
But this has long been Apple’s problem. Great external/form design while exercising utter control over what a user can do. That’s what killed them in the PC market years ago. Apple is at least as monopolistic as Microsoft, but they have a better design team and great PR. Having a small hardcore rabid fan base also helps.
The new Lenevo that is coming out soon costs more, but is a much more useful ultraportable. Several of the Japanese ultraportables have been as small/thin or smaller/thinner than the MacBook Air (which might be why those Japanese engineers were in a huff since Jobs claimed this was the thinnest laptop ever).
February 25th, 2008 at 12:10 amI’m just curious to see what’ll happen in a few years when we’ll be looking at 50, 75 and 100GB flash memory and all you’ll have to do is easily swap them out, much like you did when everybody had the 3.5″ discs.
Or when the SmartPhones really start to incorporate the ability to get hooked up to a dedicated portable screen that also acts like an external hard drive/keyboard so reading web pages and storing larger documents become a lot easier.
But, for now, I can see in five years that the footprint of the MacBook Air will be all over Apple’s laptop series.
As for the lack of USB ports… this version is definitely dedicated to on-the-go. I really don’t get the impression that this version is suppose to eliminate the need for any other computer. It basically acts as a very very fancy notebook with internet capabilities. So one USB port for an external hard drive or for plugging into a non-wifi connection is fine. If there really seems to be a need for more USB ports, just get a small hub and voila!
Any links for Japanese ultraportables? I would have thought that Apple would have snatched up Japanese engineers a long time ago. I wonder what Apple’s R&D, rather than retail, presence is in Japan.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:46 am