What is your opinion on the MacBook Air?

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/15/the-macbook-air/3#comments

Do you think it will sink or swim? Win or Fail?

 

Another thread? Ugh...

It has already been decided it will most likely sink/fail.

 

My A+ Certification teacher felt the need to show the whole class the guided tour through this product, everyone except for her (shes a mac junkie) thought it was completely retarded and basically she stopped watching it because she felt dumb.

 

personally, i kinda like it. i think people are getting to hung up on things. Its ment to be an easily portable machine for meetings or presentations, or notetaking in class. its not meant to be a desktop replacement by any means.

 

I don't think it'll be too successful... but people will buy it. Why? Because it's an Apple product and because it's "cool" to have something that other people don't.

 

I like some of the things about it, but it has some flaws that will keep it from being a major success, not to mention that the ultraportable market, the one this seems to be targeting, is not a big one.

I see this, and I think Apple saw this as well, as a mobile secondary computer that targets a very specific group of people, and was never meant to hit the big market anyway.

 

I like the design of it majorly, however there are some major flaws with it. The target audience for this laptop is for people who have a main computer at home, and requires their stuff to be obtainable on a trip or something. This market, to me at least, seems pretty small, but like Sam said, I think that Apple knows this, and wasn't trying to target a large audience.

I wish they just made the keys silver though.

 

It is great for note-taking, but college students won't be able to afford it!

 

Alas... the MacBook continues to rule over campuses across North America.

 

Exactly, and I will be getting a Macbook soon as well as I enter college .

 

It'll sell to the people that are afraid of doing things themselves, which is a lot of people. Most people don't know how or want to change their ram, or battery, so that's not an issue for them.

This is aimed at the general public, and the people that are on here and writing articles have a difficult time seeing through their eyes.

 

That and the HP dv series....

I think it will fail. Badly. It simply does not have a target market thats worth talking about. Really, its difficult to see who this is for. The ultraportable people won't get this because its not an ultraportable, and the TZ offers a lot more (albeit with a ULV cpu) for not much more cash. This is simply too expensive and too fragile for students, who will stick to their MBs and ThinkPad and HPs. The business people - uhh, no mobile broadband, its extremely fragile, the battery life isn't that excellent and theres no way to swap out the battery on the go, so uhh, no it doesn't get them either. So who really does it hit? Uhh, nobody. Excellent....

However, priced at the level of the MacBook, it would be pretty good. And as a sheer feat of engineering, I'd have to say its one of the greatest notebooks I've ever seen, with the Sony X505 coming a close second, since it was essentially the same thing in its time. And it had good battery life and a swappable battery if I remember properly.

 

I think the MacBook Air will be successful enough to justify it's own existence, but I don't think it's going to outsell the MacBook or even the MacBook Pro. It'll probably become like the Mac Mini, which doesn't seem to disappear, yet is the last to receive any type of update.

Personally, I think most of the disappointment is that most people were expecting a smaller MacBook Pro in the same vein as the 12" PowerBook. However, Apple never intended it to be that which is why it isn't a 13.3" MacBook Pro but an independent family as the MacBook Air. I think Apple views the MBA as changing the notebook experience to focus on wireless and convenience where you can not notice the weight and wipe it out anytime you want to. Personally, when I look at the MBA, I see a stepping stone to an Apple tablet, just that this one has a keyboard. If Apple could remove the keyboard and make a tablet, I think the MBA could be quite successful in it's form factor.

 

The MacBook Air makes absolutely no business sense. A 13.3" MBP would not only sell a hell of a lot more than the MBA will, but it would be much, much cheaper to develop, since the chassis will be essentially carryover from the MB, the casing would be an aluminum version of the MB, the KB would be from the MBP, etc. And it would be the second best selling notebook in their lineup after the MB. But no, throw that away, toss up a brick that doesn't suit anyone and makes the business OS X users clutch onto their 12" PB G4s that much harder.....Uhh, yea, thanks for nothing....Apple better do a 13" MBP for WWDC, otherwise they'll be screwed.

 

Whew, you need to take a chill pill dude. I totally disagree with you (I'm sure you don't care ) but what gives you to say that the Air is a brick that does not suit anyone? That's a broad statement. You have no idea what suits anyone, it just doesn't suit you. There's really no reason for your stressful comments, just don't buy Apple's new notebook if you don't like it. I on the other hand have found that it does suit yours truly but only the SSD model.

 

The demographic that will buy the Macbook Air is fairly limited, IMO. But I also have enough faith in the Apple marketing/research team to say that they probably know that and have planned their distribution/sales model accordingly. Alas, most of you are underestimating both the utility and cool factor of the Air. Appearances are important in the corporate world, and for business travelers not only does the Macbook Air offer an adequate variety of features (Who uses more than one usb port on a flight anyway? I certainly don't.) in the smallest package to date but it is extremely cool. Segway is still around, is it not?

I, personally, would have liked to see a 12-13 inch MBP and might even have considered ditching my 6 month old 15'' MBP for one.

 

For now the MBA is gonna blow, other than the OS which many seem to love (still rather use windows, MAC's are just too simplistic when you know how to and like to tweak windows) but as they eventually improve on the MBA i'm sure it will gain popularity IMO. But the market for them will still be very small. For now though i'll take a sony TZ over the MBA any day. Oh and one more thing thinnest notebook ever claim is false, sony came out with a notebook thinner about half a decade ago in 2003

 

i dont get why we need something so small that you need adaptors for everything now.id just would have been happy with a macbook but smaller and a 11'.

the remote drive is kinda cool tho.

i bet when the new macbooks come out they will have a alum and backlighting keyboard plus led screen.

 

Yeah, but realize this is not new at all. NFS and SMB will allow you to share optical drives over a network.

That sony is almost as thin. .4"-.8". The MBA is .16"-.76".
And there are a lot of ways to modify *nix systems. Just gotta know how. I mean... Unix. It can be tweaked as far as your imagination can go As long as your really good in unix.

 

i just did some more looking and your right, but your still sacrificing alot such as the disc drive, ports, etc. when it comes to the MBA, I want to like the MBA, but besides its extremely thin design and backlit keyboard the MBA is just sad in comparison to other Ultra portables

 

The trend seems to be going where everything will become wireless. Eventually, even USB thumb drives need not be plugged in to be able to access them (there is a flash media that has WiFi built in to it to upload photo's from a digital camera to your computer available, just can't remember what it was called). CD/DVD drives are gradually fading in general usage too, where software titles, movies, and audio discs can be downloaded from the Internet. Also, the technology to recharge devices without cables is almost upon us. We could simply place the laptop on a magnetic pad and the battery would begin charging.

So, in actuality we are beginning to see many manufacturers reduce the number of ports. We'll soon enough embrace notebooks with no CD/DVD drive, no USB ports, no VGA/DVI output, no wired mice P we already have those), etc. Apple is just moving to that realm a bit too early though.

 

The eventual replacement of USB is going to be Wireless USB which I believe was ratified over a year ago. It's kind of disappointing that the MacBook Air didn't include Wireless USB since it could probably do for that standard what the original iMac did for the original USB and Firewire.

 

who knows if it will fail or not, either way, the definition of failure here is subjective because even if apple is able to penetrate the market with such a device and start a future product trend, they win.

however, based off the limited info coming out of engadget & gizmodo and the forums (the non-replacable battery, soldered on DIMMS, IDE hda) it appears to be a typical first gen product from apple, a piece of crap.

if i was hunting for a similiar device i'd be much more willing to invest in a thinkpad x61..even the tablet can be had for near $1800.

 

Oh, it'll fit a few individuals, but it doesn't hit a single demographic. It actually looks as though they missed every single target market with this one.

And yes, it suits me, just not at the price they have it at. For reasons why it doesn't fit any potential demographics, I quote my own post:

 

Y'know, you've got some good points. Apple did not set any sales targets, like they did with the iPhone, so technically, unless it sells none, there is no failure. They may not sell many, but the ultraportable market is not that big anyways, and on top of that, the MacBook Air is for a small market and Apple knows it.

And good point, considering this is a first generation product...I mean, not a very good comparison, but considering how much the iPod has improved since its first generation, this MacBook Air is very awesome for the first generation....it will only get better .