I played with a MacBook Air today

[dnuggett]

Originally posted by: OptimisTech

Originally posted by: Kaido
First impression? To quote my wife (who thought it was stupid until she got her hands on it):

"The commercials don't do it justice."

It's absolutely incredible. The speed was surprisingly peppy; Word 2008 opened faster on the Air than it did on my crazy-fast Hackintosh. The screen is marvelous...makes me miss my 15" LED MBP. I can't get over how light and thin it is...it's something I could toss in my bag without a second thought, next to my notebooks.

There's not a lot I didn't like. I'm not a fan of the black keys on silver that everyone else seems to like, it looks funny. Not a big deal though, it's just a color. The price, of course, is ridiculous. $1499 would have been better. I hope they pull an iPhone and drop the price down in the future. I don't see the lack of the DVD drive as a drawback; this is a secondary machine and discs aren't used that much anymore.

I would have liked to have seen an ExpressCard slot or at least a 4-pin Firewire slot, but that's not what the machine is aimed at. Looking at the design hands-on, there's really no room for the ExpressCard port. Again, the commercials don't do the size justice.

Verdict: Awesome, expensive.

I don't know the actual circumstances of your test drive, but keep in mind that any brand-spankin' new mac will seem quicken then one that's actually been used for while. I played with one for a few hours last week to install some software and configure the networking and after a while it did feel noticeably slower then my MBP. I had to admit it did feel like a slick piece of tech though.

My only negative impression (and I know this is subjective....) is that it just felt FRAGILE. It felt like I could snap it half if help it by the wrong end.

That's a different take then I have read. I have heard it called very durable, more so than the x300.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: dnuggett

Originally posted by: OptimisTech

Originally posted by: Kaido
First impression? To quote my wife (who thought it was stupid until she got her hands on it):

"The commercials don't do it justice."

It's absolutely incredible. The speed was surprisingly peppy; Word 2008 opened faster on the Air than it did on my crazy-fast Hackintosh. The screen is marvelous...makes me miss my 15" LED MBP. I can't get over how light and thin it is...it's something I could toss in my bag without a second thought, next to my notebooks.

There's not a lot I didn't like. I'm not a fan of the black keys on silver that everyone else seems to like, it looks funny. Not a big deal though, it's just a color. The price, of course, is ridiculous. $1499 would have been better. I hope they pull an iPhone and drop the price down in the future. I don't see the lack of the DVD drive as a drawback; this is a secondary machine and discs aren't used that much anymore.

I would have liked to have seen an ExpressCard slot or at least a 4-pin Firewire slot, but that's not what the machine is aimed at. Looking at the design hands-on, there's really no room for the ExpressCard port. Again, the commercials don't do the size justice.

Verdict: Awesome, expensive.

I don't know the actual circumstances of your test drive, but keep in mind that any brand-spankin' new mac will seem quicken then one that's actually been used for while. I played with one for a few hours last week to install some software and configure the networking and after a while it did feel noticeably slower then my MBP. I had to admit it did feel like a slick piece of tech though.

My only negative impression (and I know this is subjective....) is that it just felt FRAGILE. It felt like I could snap it half if help it by the wrong end.

That's a different take then I have read. I have heard it called very durable, more so than the x300.

I thought it would be fragile, but it felt fairly durable in my hands fwiw.

 

[erikistired]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: bsobel

Originally posted by: fisher
i asked this before, if you have more than one usb device is tossing a usb hub into your bag that big of a deal? i was worried about having only 2 usb ports on my macbook pro, but i've never had a problem with it.

Its just one more thing to carry (true its easier than carrying my 12# dell, albeit it has 8 or so USB ports on it). Already carrying the power supply, Kindle (its charger), two phones (those chargers), EVDO usb card, etc. So 'one more thing' just annoys me. Im sure wireless usb will show up shortly (and it does have BT so mouse and such will work that way Im sure)...

Do unpowered hubs work pretty well with the Air? I'd be using a wireless USB remote, a USB 2.5" hard drive (bus-powered), and a wireless USB mouse on a regular basis. Having a hub to carry around when I need to use all 3 at the same time would be okay...as long as it was unpowered

bluetooth!

 

[Parasitic]

Man a 45W MagSafe adapter?

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: fisher

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: bsobel

Originally posted by: fisher
i asked this before, if you have more than one usb device is tossing a usb hub into your bag that big of a deal? i was worried about having only 2 usb ports on my macbook pro, but i've never had a problem with it.

Its just one more thing to carry (true its easier than carrying my 12# dell, albeit it has 8 or so USB ports on it). Already carrying the power supply, Kindle (its charger), two phones (those chargers), EVDO usb card, etc. So 'one more thing' just annoys me. Im sure wireless usb will show up shortly (and it does have BT so mouse and such will work that way Im sure)...

Do unpowered hubs work pretty well with the Air? I'd be using a wireless USB remote, a USB 2.5" hard drive (bus-powered), and a wireless USB mouse on a regular basis. Having a hub to carry around when I need to use all 3 at the same time would be okay...as long as it was unpowered

bluetooth!

I hate bluetooth mice

 

[erikistired]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: fisher

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: bsobel

Originally posted by: fisher
i asked this before, if you have more than one usb device is tossing a usb hub into your bag that big of a deal? i was worried about having only 2 usb ports on my macbook pro, but i've never had a problem with it.

Its just one more thing to carry (true its easier than carrying my 12# dell, albeit it has 8 or so USB ports on it). Already carrying the power supply, Kindle (its charger), two phones (those chargers), EVDO usb card, etc. So 'one more thing' just annoys me. Im sure wireless usb will show up shortly (and it does have BT so mouse and such will work that way Im sure)...

Do unpowered hubs work pretty well with the Air? I'd be using a wireless USB remote, a USB 2.5" hard drive (bus-powered), and a wireless USB mouse on a regular basis. Having a hub to carry around when I need to use all 3 at the same time would be okay...as long as it was unpowered

bluetooth!

I hate bluetooth mice

i used to. i love my logitech v470 tho, it's uber.

 

[aphex]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: fisher

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: bsobel

Originally posted by: fisher
i asked this before, if you have more than one usb device is tossing a usb hub into your bag that big of a deal? i was worried about having only 2 usb ports on my macbook pro, but i've never had a problem with it.

Its just one more thing to carry (true its easier than carrying my 12# dell, albeit it has 8 or so USB ports on it). Already carrying the power supply, Kindle (its charger), two phones (those chargers), EVDO usb card, etc. So 'one more thing' just annoys me. Im sure wireless usb will show up shortly (and it does have BT so mouse and such will work that way Im sure)...

Do unpowered hubs work pretty well with the Air? I'd be using a wireless USB remote, a USB 2.5" hard drive (bus-powered), and a wireless USB mouse on a regular basis. Having a hub to carry around when I need to use all 3 at the same time would be okay...as long as it was unpowered

bluetooth!

I hate bluetooth mice

Thats because you haven't tried the Kensington Trackball BT Mouse

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: aphex

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: fisher

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: bsobel

Originally posted by: fisher
i asked this before, if you have more than one usb device is tossing a usb hub into your bag that big of a deal? i was worried about having only 2 usb ports on my macbook pro, but i've never had a problem with it.

Its just one more thing to carry (true its easier than carrying my 12# dell, albeit it has 8 or so USB ports on it). Already carrying the power supply, Kindle (its charger), two phones (those chargers), EVDO usb card, etc. So 'one more thing' just annoys me. Im sure wireless usb will show up shortly (and it does have BT so mouse and such will work that way Im sure)...

Do unpowered hubs work pretty well with the Air? I'd be using a wireless USB remote, a USB 2.5" hard drive (bus-powered), and a wireless USB mouse on a regular basis. Having a hub to carry around when I need to use all 3 at the same time would be okay...as long as it was unpowered

bluetooth!

I hate bluetooth mice

Thats because you haven't tried the Kensington Trackball BT Mouse

I hate Trackballs too :laugh:

 

[umrigar]

Compare the Air to this $400 laptop!

http://www.engadget.com/2008/0...-laptop-now-available/

 

[aphex]

Originally posted by: umrigar
Compare the Air to this $400 laptop!

http://www.engadget.com/2008/0...-laptop-now-available/

Eh? Not sure I understand the comparison.

Thats a 15.4" 5.3-pound laptop which features a 1.5GHz VIA C7-M processor, and 512mb of ram. And it runs gOS.

 

[randomlinh]

Originally posted by: umrigar
Compare the Air to this $400 laptop!

http://www.engadget.com/2008/0...-laptop-now-available/

two completely different markets. you need to compare that to the $500 dell budget laptop. and the dell wins because that POS has a POS processor.

 

[Kaido]

All in all, I think it's an awesome laptop and would be great as a second machine to complement a powerful desktop. If I wasn't into editing HD Digital Video, I would probably pick one up.

I would like to see a price drop and a 128gb SSD, but those two don't exactly go hand in hand