Truth be told, I never paid too much attention to the Apple Nation. Sure, I kept up-to-date on many of the products they release, but not because they were from Apple. It was more that I wanted to see what's the latest mp3 player and the iPod is one of the top choices, etc. This is just to say that I never paid much attention to Macworld other then read a news article here and there after the fact.
Since I got the Macbook Pro, I've been finding out a little more about Apple stuff mainly because I've been looking for software and utilities and since you can't go to any Apple-related site without hearing about Macworld, I actually paid some attention to Steve Jobs' announcements. This year there doesn't seem to be much revolutionary new products coming from Apple as compared to last year when they announced the iPhone. At the same time, though, the Apple fanbois made everything sound like Apple has just invented fire.
Macbook Air? It's a pretty neat product and while it might be something new in the Mac universe, sub-notebooks are hardly a new thing here in the rest of the world. Almost as soon as it was announced, Gizmodo did a comparison of Apple's sub-notebook with 5 other sub-notebooks. At most in the sub-notebook category, it has some evolutionary refinements, but the Apple Nation was cheering as if they've never seen a light portable notebook before...
fanboy? Yup, that's me! Personally, I think what will turn out to be the big news from the MacWorld will be the new Apple TV and movie rentals... but we'll see.
ReplyDeleteI think there's a couple reasons that people are excited about the Air - first is that, as you noted, it is the first subnotebook (running OSX) that Apple folk have had access to - pent up demand and all. The Apple Nation *hasn't* seen a light portable notebook before. :)
The other thing is that it goes a long way toward removing many of the sacrifices you tend to make when going subnotebook. Clocking in at 3 lbs with a 13" screen is pretty amazing - even taking the thinness of the machine out - staying in the ballpark of machines 33% heavier than it in terms of specs. Add the thinness helps it's portability - not as much as a smaller footprint - but then you're sacrificing screen size and keyboardability.
Throw in the good battery life (hopefully it lives up to this), led backlit screen, the multitouch pad and a quite reasonable price for a subnotebook and I think it's a pretty darn interesting laptop.
Heh, as an addendum, I must note that it's probably about 50/50 with the people I've spoken to (Apple folk, all of them, my wife included), that pretty much felt the same as you about the air. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteI dunno, the target market for ultraportables are typically businessmen on the go. And for them, packing a spare battery or 2 for their laptops is par for the course. By making the Air's battery non-removable, they just killed that market. Unless Mac-using businessmen's requirements are way different, that's a pretty big deal. Especially since RL usage now indicates that the Air's only getting somewhere between 3-4 hours of battery life.
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