Apple takes two steps forward five steps back with the new MB Air!

[danielmramos]

Ok, I will admit the new MB Air is pretty cool, but come on! WTF, no USB3? WTF, you can't tell me they didn't have room for an SD card slot? I guess they expect everybody to stick with USB2 flash drives. Isn't that just a bit TEN YEARS OLD! Come on Apple, you are supposed to push the envelope. Core 2 duo? Don't they know that this is 2010?

 

So obviously those are the things I don't like.

 

The cool stuff is basically really awesome battery life, the thing looks positively anorexic, and no optical drive (who needs them anyway).

 

Since Apple completely ignored any mention of their desktop line I am assuming they are just going to avoid putting any real thought into updated desktops anytime soon. What a bunch of {censored}!

[jotokun]

I have to agree that it has its pros and cons. The hardware itself mostly sounds astounding. The core 2 is just fine for the size of the machine. It is overpriced, but not overly so. If the 11 inch model were $700, I might be tempted to buy one.

 

The area they lost me was battery life. I'm sorry, but 5 hours is complete {censored} considering my current laptop, a 15.6 inch desktop replacement with a core 2, a high end graphics card and a 1080p screen gets 6 hours of battery life. In a laptop most of the power is consumed by the drives and screens. An 11 inch (low resolution, too) computer with an SSD and no optical drive should last longer than 5 hours, thats pretty much what would be expected as a minimum.

 

Compared to the previous version of the macbook air, its definitely a huge, huge improvement.

[danielmramos]

I have to agree that it has its pros and cons. The hardware itself mostly sounds astounding. The core 2 is just fine for the size of the machine. It is overpriced, but not overly so. If the 11 inch model were $700, I might be tempted to buy one.

 

The area they lost me was battery life. I'm sorry, but 5 hours is complete {censored} considering my current laptop, a 15.6 inch desktop replacement with a core 2, a high end graphics card and a 1080p screen gets 6 hours of battery life. In a laptop most of the power is consumed by the drives and screens. An 11 inch (low resolution, too) computer with an SSD and no optical drive should last longer than 5 hours, thats pretty much what would be expected as a minimum.

 

Compared to the previous version of the macbook air, its definitely a huge, huge improvement.

 

 

You have to consider that they said they were quoting real world battery life as opposed to theoretical maximum. Also, I didn't mention the weight. It may be that you have good battery life, but the new MB Air achieved those numbers while keeping its weight really low. That is quite a feat.

[MilanMac]

Ok, I will admit the new MB Air is pretty cool, but come on! WTF, no USB3? WTF, you can't tell me they didn't have room for an SD card slot? I guess they expect everybody to stick with USB2 flash drives. Isn't that just a bit TEN YEARS OLD! Come on Apple, you are supposed to push the envelope. Core 2 duo? Don't they know that this is 2010?

Last night I went up to look at the smaller model. It is as close to an Apple Netbook that you can get. I really started to fall in love with it. It was light weight, responsive and ohhhhh so thin I was about to pull out my wallet and get one but then I looked at the sides of the unit to see what connectivity I'd have.... WTF... it only has USB? and not the newer USB 3 either, and no card slot My heart sank as I cursed the Apple engineers who were obviously smoking crack when they decided to just give the smaller MBA just a old USB slot. Apple came close to making a sale but until they learn that connectivity is important I will not give them my money. I know others who feel the same way. Apple should have learned this lesson when people walked away from the old MBA because it had no firewire. It's a shame because it was a nice substitute for a Mac Netbook.

[FKA]

just been playing around with an 11" 4GB RAM.

I like it, possibly enough to buy one!

It's small, light, robust enough for me to hulk around on the tube and quite fast!

It would be for when I'm on the move, not to worried about only having USB!

[MilanMac]

Yeah I really hope that Apple does more with 11" models. An 11" MB Pro would be awesome!

[projekt k]

i completely agree and they take a major step back on every OS. For one if a core 2 duo works in there I am sure an i3 works in there. Both are similar, i3 is more energy efficient and stays cooler plus it's new. What really bothers me about this isn't because the processor truly matter to me anymore but because of their prices. The only thing they have at proper value is the Mac Pro. At 2300 a Mac Book Pro should have closest to best i7 not the commonly seen one. Hell I see an Asus right now refurbished for $769 With 2.53 GHz Core 2 Duo, 6 GB of DDR2 ram, nVidia with 1 GB of Video Memory, 500 GB 5400 RPM HD with a slot for a second drive if needed, Express Card expansion, firewire, usb 2.0 this is nice for the price. Sure it's outdated but it does what some people want... like ME lol and I am sure I can hackintosh a partition to Leopord or Snow so I can at least have both OS's running. I know that getting wireless to work on most laptops for hackintoshing is a huge shot in the dark. But the fact is I am almost positive I can get the graphics card fully supported and run software like Logic and Final Cut if i need to.

 

What I am saying is apple is always taking steps back and I think nobody should buy there systems until they start loading their machines with up to date components.

[flakmonkey]

I did have a serious think about buying a Macbook Air, but the lack of connectivity was a big issue and I found the non-replaceable battery a bit of a worry to be honest. Given that there is no conventional hard drive spinning away in there "up to 5 hours wireless productivity" isn't too impressive either. Word on a couple of Mac forums is that Apple are very unhappy with the latest generation of Intel mobile processors, hence the Core2 duo. It's also interesting that Apple are dipping their toes back into ARM waters with the A4 processor in the iPad - if they can get that up to 3GHz (I have no idea how feasible that is) who knows what will happen. The main reason I didn't pull the trigger on an Air is that compared to my 5 year old Powerbook G4 12" it represents a major step backwards in everything but speed, and speed isn't all that important to me in a portable. I can't help but think that what was really needed was an updated version of the little 12" Powerbook; it's no accident that these things still fetch very respectable used prices.