Is the Air for you?

[Wonderful Pork]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: her34
* there should be 2 usb ports not 1

* there should be hdmi, not micro-dvi

* external optical drive should be included

Ooh HDMI would have been an even better idea! Plus an ExpressCard slot, then you could add whatever you wanted!

I don't know the specs of HDMI, but if it was included in the Air I would sell my MBP and buy an Air. I certainly dont use the power in the MBP at all, but I do want something that could hook up to a 30" Display and potentially an HDTV (don't own one, assume 1080p). Plus I like the fact that HDMI transfer sound and video so only 1 cable.

 

[Tegeril]

Originally posted by: dnuggett

Originally posted by: rikadik

Originally posted by: dnuggett

Originally posted by: rikadik
Oh yeah - and my friends 3 year old Toshiba Portege is thinner. Pfft.

I'm calling you out. What 3 year old Toshiba is this?

Its a Toshiba Portege R100.

In practical terms, due to its tapered design the Air obviously feels like a slimmer machine, but at its thickest part it is 19.4mm compared to the R100's 19mm. It's a petty difference I know, but all I was really getting at is that the Air isn't the thinnest laptop in the world like Apple claims.

What is the thinnest part of the R100? In aggregate, the Air may have it beat.

The R100 does not taper at all. He's being ridiculous. It's 19mm all the way along.

It also uses a Trident video processor and maxes out at a 1GHz Pentium M. (Read: Awful graphics and ULV CPU). Compromises not made with the Air.

 

[rikadik]

Originally posted by: Tegeril

Originally posted by: dnuggett

Originally posted by: rikadik

Originally posted by: dnuggett

Originally posted by: rikadik
Oh yeah - and my friends 3 year old Toshiba Portege is thinner. Pfft.

I'm calling you out. What 3 year old Toshiba is this?

Its a Toshiba Portege R100.

In practical terms, due to its tapered design the Air obviously feels like a slimmer machine, but at its thickest part it is 19.4mm compared to the R100's 19mm. It's a petty difference I know, but all I was really getting at is that the Air isn't the thinnest laptop in the world like Apple claims.

What is the thinnest part of the R100? In aggregate, the Air may have it beat.

The R100 does not taper at all. He's being ridiculous. It's 19mm all the way along.

It also uses a Trident video processor and maxes out at a 1GHz Pentium M. (Read: Awful graphics and ULV CPU). Compromises not made with the Air.

:laugh:

 

[secretanchitman]

Originally posted by: rikadik

Originally posted by: Tegeril

Originally posted by: dnuggett

Originally posted by: rikadik

Originally posted by: dnuggett

Originally posted by: rikadik
Oh yeah - and my friends 3 year old Toshiba Portege is thinner. Pfft.

I'm calling you out. What 3 year old Toshiba is this?

Its a Toshiba Portege R100.

In practical terms, due to its tapered design the Air obviously feels like a slimmer machine, but at its thickest part it is 19.4mm compared to the R100's 19mm. It's a petty difference I know, but all I was really getting at is that the Air isn't the thinnest laptop in the world like Apple claims.

What is the thinnest part of the R100? In aggregate, the Air may have it beat.

The R100 does not taper at all. He's being ridiculous. It's 19mm all the way along.

It also uses a Trident video processor and maxes out at a 1GHz Pentium M. (Read: Awful graphics and ULV CPU). Compromises not made with the Air.

:laugh:

hahaha pwned!

 

[rikadik]

Originally posted by: secretanchitman

Originally posted by: rikadik

Originally posted by: Tegeril

Originally posted by: dnuggett

Originally posted by: rikadik

Originally posted by: dnuggett

Originally posted by: rikadik
Oh yeah - and my friends 3 year old Toshiba Portege is thinner. Pfft.

I'm calling you out. What 3 year old Toshiba is this?

Its a Toshiba Portege R100.

In practical terms, due to its tapered design the Air obviously feels like a slimmer machine, but at its thickest part it is 19.4mm compared to the R100's 19mm. It's a petty difference I know, but all I was really getting at is that the Air isn't the thinnest laptop in the world like Apple claims.

What is the thinnest part of the R100? In aggregate, the Air may have it beat.

The R100 does not taper at all. He's being ridiculous. It's 19mm all the way along.

It also uses a Trident video processor and maxes out at a 1GHz Pentium M. (Read: Awful graphics and ULV CPU). Compromises not made with the Air.

:laugh:

hahaha pwned!

It's still thinner if you only measure it at its thickest point mwa ha ha

 

[Tegeril]

It still made sacrifices to a garbage GPU and an ULV CPU if you measure it at its important points, even at the time.

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: Tegeril
It still made sacrifices to a garbage GPU and an ULV CPU if you measure it at its important points, even at the time.

It's 3 years old...c'mon...

 

[Gravity]

I just got a MacBook pro. 2.6, final cut lite installed. I'm using it for school but when I'm at the office it will fold. It gets very, very hot! I love the camera installed though, that's a way cool feature.

I would have bought an MacAir but it's first gen and I try to stay away from first gen stuff.

Still learning about the mac stuff,

Gravity

 

[Tegeril]

Originally posted by: loup garou

Originally posted by: Tegeril
It still made sacrifices to a garbage GPU and an ULV CPU if you measure it at its important points, even at the time.

It's 3 years old...c'mon...

The whole crux of my argument mitigates its age. The Air is not a ULV cpu, the Protege was, the Air did not utterly cripple its graphics power, the Protege did. This has nothing to do with how old it is, just compromises.

 

[cruiser1338]

I'd think that its quite plain that the Air isn't designed for uses such as plugging in your video camera and editing your movies, or running that Windows VM. It's on par with a Mac Mini: all the basics covered. Word processing, watching movies, listening to music, traveling, browsing the web, nothing like editing a home movie or playing Crysis in your Boot Camp partition. Hell, if you want an Air, you shouldn't really be thinking Windows anyway, the hard drive is small and the processor is slower. I'll tell you who the Air is designed for: College students.

College kids are all about buying Macs and staying trendy. Walk on a campus, you'll see more Macs than PCs on students' laps. A lot of those are Macbook Pros. The wealthy parents buy the best, even though the child is gonna be doing his gaming on his XBox and isn't majoring in anything Film related. So this year, when kids go to get their computer for college, they'll see the slimmest Mac that weighs next to nothing that they can take to class and look cool in, while still being up on Office and some light Photoshop, listening to music, and downloading movies. This is for them. I'm a college kid and I'm going to go Air. It can be a primary computer for college kids, that's where it'll see the most success. Plonk $150 for 500GB of external storage and get the Superdrive for DVD watching/ripping and you're all set. And with an educational discount the Air is $100 cheaper than the lower end Macbook Pro ($1699 and $1799), so for $1950 you can have the machine that you would want to lug around and have the battery survive on for 4.5 hours a day, something my Macbook Pro falls an hour short of.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: cruiser1338
I'd think that its quite plain that the Air isn't designed for uses such as plugging in your video camera and editing your movies, or running that Windows VM. It's on par with a Mac Mini: all the basics covered. Word processing, watching movies, listening to music, traveling, browsing the web, nothing like editing a home movie or playing Crysis in your Boot Camp partition. Hell, if you want an Air, you shouldn't really be thinking Windows anyway, the hard drive is small and the processor is slower. I'll tell you who the Air is designed for: College students.

College kids are all about buying Macs and staying trendy. Walk on a campus, you'll see more Macs than PCs on students' laps. A lot of those are Macbook Pros. The wealthy parents buy the best, even though the child is gonna be doing his gaming on his XBox and isn't majoring in anything Film related. So this year, when kids go to get their computer for college, they'll see the slimmest Mac that weighs next to nothing that they can take to class and look cool in, while still being up on Office and some light Photoshop, listening to music, and downloading movies. This is for them. I'm a college kid and I'm going to go Air. It can be a primary computer for college kids, that's where it'll see the most success. Plonk $150 for 500GB of external storage and get the Superdrive for DVD watching/ripping and you're all set. And with an educational discount the Air is $100 cheaper than the lower end Macbook Pro ($1699 and $1799), so for $1950 you can have the machine that you would want to lug around and have the battery survive on for 4.5 hours a day, something my Macbook Pro falls an hour short of.

You nailed it! Change that 500gb external to a 500gb Time Capsule and you've got it I really like your comparison...it's a Mac Mini in laptop form, basically.

I'm with Gravity though - I'm all for staying away from 1st-gen stuff. I got burned on the initial release of the 13" MacBook - I had every single problem in the book haha. Really turned me off to Apple for awhile.

 

[Kaido]

After reading the recent reviews on the Air, I think there are only two changes I would make:

1. Add an ExpressCard slot
2. Change the Micro-DVI to HDMI (if there exists an S-Video/Composite/VGA adapter for HDMI)

I would also love to have a 4-pin Firewire port on there. And upgradable memory. And an option for a 120gb 5400rpm 1.8" hard drive. If you've seen the reviews, even the smallest USB WWAN adapter won't fit - you have to use an extension cable. Dumb! The ExpressCard slot is really the biggie...I'm crossing my fingers that they'll have it in rev 2.