MacBook Air

Kryten

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Apple - MacBook Air

I quite like it.
























I shall now proceed to stab myself in the testicles with forks.

I think I'm going strange, or gay, or something, but I quite like it. It's tiny.
I gaurantee it will suffer from ASS issues (Apple Screen Syndrome) something chronic and will probably break if someone does something as daring as type on it, but if they've actually gotten past these problems that have plagued previous Apple products they might be onto a winner with that, which will mean that Proper Computer laptops are for once chasing after a Mac's ideas, rather than the other way round.

But the point is purely the size - oddly enough it's not a bad price either, for an Apple. Normally you'd have to mortgage 3 family houses and sell your prize winning hound, but you'd only need to sell one property to buy this one.

I might even get one to play with at work soon, and I'll try and break it then and provide a proper review :D







The above is the nicest thing I've ever said about any Apple product, ever, and will not be likely to say anything nice about them ever again. As you know, I'm HUGELY anti-Apple - lack of true innovation, stupid prices, poor quality for what you pay for and company ethics that would make a mass murderer blush all contribute to my dislike of them. I'm not going to start an Anti-Apple thread or anything like that, most of you know my views already and are free to have your own - but even these people are to be congratulated for doing something this useful. Not many are actually happy carrying around the full size laptops we've got currently.

I think Moo from IRC summed it up nicely btw:

[19:09] <moo`> apple's slogan should be "We make beautiful shit"

Soo, Apple have done the one thing we all thought impossible.

They have the ability to polish a turd.
 

Starman

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Normal Apple overpriced shit that the stupid masses will buy cos its so pretty and shiny.
 

Deebs

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Got an iPhone then pete?
 

Kryten

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Looked into it a bit more and a few annoying features:

No ethernet port.
1 USB port.
PARALLEL ATA hard drive - 4200rpm.

Even my old drives are 5400 and my current (but aging) Dell has a 7200rpm Sata drive in.

Price is starting to look less good than perhaps it should be.
 

Ch3tan

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Ahh but you can choose to have a 64gb solid state drive instead of the ATA drive.

It does look nice, but it's a gimmick really.
 

Kryten

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I just feel that by now, this is how laptops should be looking. The average laptop is still fairly bulky by anyones standards and still a pain to carry around all day.
Add an optical drive to that and more expansion and it'll be a clear winner. Needs that solid state drive as standard though. You can see by the inclusion of the 4200rpm ATA drive how standards are low to keep that entry level price looking tempting.
There's no way in hell that a 2.5" ATA drive will survive life for long in that machine, even if it was cased in rubber and titanium.
 

DaGaffer

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Its a bit pointless really. Sure, its thin and pretty, but its weight that really matters. The Samsung Q30 I took on my travels was lighter, cheaper and had more USB ports than this (and even a firewire port), and the optical drive and a spare battery was included in the (I'm guessing much cheaper) price.
 

Kryten

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Quite like the Samsung lappies, quality wise better than the equivelent Acers.


Another downside I've just found out - Apple haven't learned from one of the many huge mistakes involved in the iPhone, and have in the Macbook Air, a battery, sealed inside the system, non user changable.

That's gonna be expensive in a few years time.
 

DaGaffer

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Quite like the Samsung lappies, quality wise better than the equivelent Acers.


Another downside I've just found out - Apple haven't learned from one of the many huge mistakes involved in the iPhone, and have in the Macbook Air, a battery, sealed inside the system, non user changable.

That's gonna be expensive in a few years time.

Yeah that's just fucking stupid. My Samsung came with a 3-hour standard battery and a double size six hour one that I could just dump in my backpack for when I needed it (and even that was light, about the weight of an iPod classic) . Having a sealed battery makes this a toy, not a real replacement for a 'proper' laptop.
 

Starman

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Same old trick as with the ipod, iphone - next year they will announced a new iphone and macbook with a removable battery. Bloody Apple will never learn.
 

Chilly

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To be fair, the packaging of the unit probably prohibits easily removable spare parts. Although no ethernet is plain gay.
 

DaGaffer

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To be fair, the packaging of the unit probably prohibits easily removable spare parts. Although no ethernet is plain gay.

Oh come on, if you can make a mobile phone with removable batteries you can do it with this. Its just the usual incremental revenue scam from Apple.
 

ECA

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Apple ! Presenting the new Macbook Air! That's because to buy one your brain would have to be made of air!
 

ford prefect

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I agree that macs tend to be made poorly, but someone has to say it... Mac OS is so far ahead of windows in so many ways its just not funny.

The OS is stable, never known one to need a reinstall, and for messing with video and other memory intensive tasks it blow windows away. Personally in the OS stakes, I would say MS are four to five years behind apple now.
 

Sparx

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Dont forget no DVD drive either, but they say you can wireless borrow another PCs drive

That means people will have to buy another PC just to burn, with only 1 USB port it'll make life so difficult
 

GReaper

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Whilst it looks like a nice product, is it really that great when you actually look into it? Yes it's nice and thin, but are the compromises worth it?

Slower/smaller hard disk, weak processor, no cd/dvd drive, no ethernet, a single usb port, internal graphics, etc. All of those reductions just to make it that little bit thinner and you still get the rather hefty Apple price tag.

Most Apple products are on the expensive side, but at least a few can be considered reasonable value for money. Sadly this product is merely a typical Apple flashy toy, and you pay a premium for it.
 

Chilly

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Oh come on, if you can make a mobile phone with removable batteries you can do it with this. Its just the usual incremental revenue scam from Apple.

They only charge $130 to replace the battery. Thats £60-£70 for parts and labour, doesnt sound like a scam to me. OK, so they could have dirtied up the casing a bit and given users the power to change the battery themselves. How much do you rekon an official replacement battery costs? Probably about £40-50, I know dell certainly charge that kind of money at retail or more.
 

DaGaffer

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They only charge $130 to replace the battery. Thats £60-£70 for parts and labour, doesnt sound like a scam to me. OK, so they could have dirtied up the casing a bit and given users the power to change the battery themselves. How much do you rekon an official replacement battery costs? Probably about £40-50, I know dell certainly charge that kind of money at retail or more.

So its a £20 labour charge that you wouldn't otherwise have. Sounds like a ripoff to me. But to be honest, that's not the point. Laptop batteries start to degrade pretty much from the moment you start using them. You don't necessarily want to replace the battery when its completely dead, so you get a spare before you reach that point. Plus, if you're actually using your light, thin sub-notebook in the real world, you know, like travelling and stuff, the ability to swap in a spare battery to keep working, (watch movies, whatever) is an absolute boon. It feels like this is a device designed to be used around the home or office (close to a wireless network), which makes its thinness much less valuable; I don't really care about having the lightest/thinnest lappy when I'm at home/work, but I do care about it when I have to carry the damn thing, and that's when this is at its least useful. Don't get me wrong, I actually really fancy the idea of a Mac sub-notebook but this is misconceived.
 

ford prefect

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I wouldn't make too big a thing of the processor. Comparing mac processing to windows processing is like comparing chalk and cheese. Mac gets a lot more punch for your mhz.

It would be nice to have a battery uyou can change yourself, however £60 or 70 seems a reasonable price, a few years ago you would have paid close to that for a new laptop battery from the likes of dell anyway.
 

MYstIC G

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Got an iPhone then pete?
He might not but I do. It's actually weirdly satisfying. I would point out though it was a present and I'd have never bought it otherwise.

Also now I've gotten used to it's UI, the way iTunes works actually makes a degree of sense. Although I'm glad I've got my new quad core to run it on because iTunes is still a dog.
 

Rubric

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I agree that macs tend to be made poorly, but someone has to say it... Mac OS is so far ahead of windows in so many ways its just not funny.

The OS is stable, never known one to need a reinstall, and for messing with video and other memory intensive tasks it blow windows away. Personally in the OS stakes, I would say MS are four to five years behind apple now.


Ah, *shakes head* classic.
 

Kryten

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Prefect : I agree, OSX is lightyears ahead of windows, but it's still not as user friendly as Mac or mac users would like others to think. Thats something that needs development on both sides.

Worth pointing out that the most input Apple had on OSX/Leopard etc was the logo.
Which is no bad thing, it'll run on a PC with variable ease and theres plenty of near identical OS's available :/
 

Tilda

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ASUS EeePC pisses all over that, price, usb ports, OS, size, weight, battery replaceablity.
 

Sharma

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More lifestyle bullshit from Apple really.

Incredibly overpriced, lifestyle rubbish.

I have this arguement with my brother all the bloody time, he states "well why are macs getting more and more popular?" my response is usually along the lines of "Well because dicky little kids who want to be with the 'in' crowd torture their hideously overpaid parents to buy something that costs over £1000 and a new model will come out the following year.

I'd rather do my yearly upgrade cycle which costs about £400 thanks.

I'd rather use a computer that does what I tell it to rather than being "user friendly" and inevitably tells me what to do.

That laptop is a load of bloody garbage when theres so much better alternatives on the market but it'll end up selling because of the lifestyle kids who think it's cool to spend way too much money on a substandard piece of kit because OMG ITS WHITE AND COOL.

</rant>

Apple are shit.
 

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