08.01.25fri
MacBook Air
As you may have heard Steve Jobs recently introduced Apple’s newest laptop, the MacBook Air. This latest offering is an ultra-portable, which appears to be a misunderstood market.
But the Air is nothing more than a thin, stripped down version of a MacBook and more expensive. – MyAppleZone.com
As with virtually all competing ultra-portable laptops, the price goes up as the feature list goes down. If you don’t get it, this isn’t marketed at you. It’s marketed towards the millions of users who want portability over everything else.
Now, there are only 3 things I look for in a laptop; Able to play my DVDs, play my music, and surf the Internet. The Macbook Air disappointed me on all three. – Hardware Junky (boomshiki)
This blogger truly misses it on all three. He complains about the missing ethernet port, commenting that he likes speed when surfing YouTube. I am amazed that someone who uses a laptop at all wants to be tethered to the ethernet cable. Isn’t the point of a laptop the ability to move around? The same point can be made with the lack of additional USB ports. If I’m plugging in a number of devices, I’m going with a desktop.
The second complaint was the mono speaker, which is not acceptable for listening to music. My laptop has stereo speakers, it is not acceptable for listening to music. Again, is this really what you buy an ultra-portable laptop for? Luckily for boomshiki, Apple offers a great solution... Airport Express. Look it up. It’s an amazing device.
Thirdly, his complaint moved on to the lack of an optical drive. My primary machine of choice is a 15“ MacBook Pro, which has the SuperDrive (CD and DVD burning capability) built-in. In the last year, I have burned a total of two CDs (for my friend Wes since I can’t plug my iPod in his truck), and I used a DVD once to install Office. That’s it. I think I could survive without it.
My aforementioned friend, , also commented on the lack of optical drive. His take was that travelers want to watch DVDs when they are on the plane. I just don’t see a lot of people at the airport watching movies on their laptops. I see them playing solitaire! But not using their laptops as portable DVD players.
Continuing on...
in short, the MacBook Air is not for everyone. – Huffington Post
After quoting four notorious Mac haters in this three paragraph article, this is the conclusion Huffington came up with. Duh. No one product is for everyone. Not even the iPod, which is why Apple makes four variations.
The MacBook Air is simply a laptop designed and marketed towards the consumer who wants something ultra-portable. Clear and simple. Honestly, that person is not me. But there is obviously a large segment of the laptop buying public that this is marketed towards. If that weren’t the case there wouldn’t be five other manufacturers making a similar product, costing close to, if not more than, the Air. Most of them also lack a built-in optical drive.
Update: PC World recently announced that it too considers the Air to be a failure for Apple. Surely this proves that the MacBook Air will be a huge success!
, also commented on the lack of optical drive. His take was that travelers want to watch DVDs when they are on the plane. I just don’t see a lot of people at the airport watching movies on their laptops. I see them playing solitaire! But not using their laptops as portable DVD players.