Macworld Forums: Hands on with the MacBook Air - Macworld Forums

Jump to content

  • (9 Pages)
  • +
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • Last »
  • You cannot start a new topic
  • You cannot reply to this topic

Hands on with the MacBook Air

#1 User is offline   Macworld Icon

  • Story Poster
  • Icon
  • Group: MW Bot
  • Posts: 12,873
  • Joined: 30-November 07

Posted 15 January 2008 - 01:24 PM

Post your comments for Hands on with the MacBook Air here
0

#2 User is offline   fribhey Icon

  • Member
  • PipPip
  • Group: Members
  • Posts: 821
  • Joined: 21-May 04

Posted 15 January 2008 - 01:36 PM

i read that it has NO user replaceable battery.... really dumb move for a laptop apple....
0

#3 User is offline   spiderbat Icon

  • Member
  • PipPip
  • Group: Members
  • Posts: 162
  • Joined: 23-March 01

Posted 15 January 2008 - 01:46 PM

Oh! A Mac without a FireWire port!
There may be many sound explanations for this choice,
nevertheless, I can't help feeling unsettled...
0

#4 User is offline   pdmarsh Icon

  • Member
  • PipPip
  • Group: Members
  • Posts: 58
  • Joined: 27-February 05

Posted 15 January 2008 - 01:53 PM

So, did you have a chance to start up a flash-based drive model? I just wondered how much faster it booted than the hard drive-based model.
0

#5 User is online   bsfa Icon

  • Member
  • PipPip
  • Group: Members
  • Posts: 39
  • Joined: 02-March 07

Posted 15 January 2008 - 01:55 PM

Can you please check out the (subjective) difference in speed between the flash and the HD based models?
Bert
0

#6 User is offline   iJavaJoe Icon

  • Member
  • PipPip
  • Group: Members
  • Posts: 27
  • Joined: 30-January 06

Posted 15 January 2008 - 01:56 PM

I've looked at the MacBook Air and can't find if the battery, hard drive, and memory are user replaceable, anyone know?
0

#7 User is offline   Jason Snell Icon

  • Advanced Member
  • Icon
  • Group: Moderators
  • Posts: 2,601
  • Joined: 11-December 00

Posted 15 January 2008 - 02:02 PM

It's locked up tight. It doesn't seem that anything is user replaceable. It's a sealed system. The reason it comes with 2GB stock is that there ain't no way you're gonna add RAM later, so far as I can tell.

Sorry to those who asked about flash booting -- we didn't see a flash-based model and were not given the opportunity to run any tests. it was literally a "pick it up and feel it" sort of thing. We weren't left to our own devices.

#8 User is offline   sirgabealot Icon

  • Newbie
  • Pip
  • Group: Members
  • Posts: 1
  • Joined: 15-January 08

Posted 15 January 2008 - 02:43 PM

are the speakers similar to those of the macbook?
any worries about the 1.6 and 1.8 processor? will they be able to compete with the macbook 2.0 and 2.2 processors as well as the macbook pros 2.2 and 2.4 processors? this makes it super hard for me to decide between this and the Macbook Pro
0

#9 User is offline   jkross22 Icon

  • Newbie
  • Pip
  • Group: Members
  • Posts: 11
  • Joined: 15-January 08

Posted 15 January 2008 - 02:53 PM

Without the ability to upgrade or even swap out memory, batteries, etc. makes this laptop even more difficult to justify than it's high price tag already made it.
Looks like a premium of several hundred dollars for the pleasure of carrying a few pounds less and a cool looking machine.
Isn't this the antithesis of Apple? Expecting a high price for very little innovation?
0

#10 User is offline   nyip11 Icon

  • Member
  • PipPip
  • Group: Members
  • Posts: 246
  • Joined: 16-August 06

Posted 15 January 2008 - 02:56 PM

The ATA disk runs at 4200 rpm so I don't think it'll be fast.
0

#11 User is offline   PetitPaul Icon

  • Newbie
  • Pip
  • Group: Members
  • Posts: 10
  • Joined: 13-October 05

Posted 15 January 2008 - 02:58 PM

Could you ask an Apple representative if MacBook Air trackpad gesture will come (soon) as a system upgrade to MacBooks and MacBook Pro? If not, then this must be a hardware related feature...
Also... Absence of a superdrive on the MacBook Air, I believe is not a only a question of physical space. Absence of support for either Blue Ray and/or HD DVD support/drives, even as build to order, on other Macs, and lack of interest of Apple for both its iDVD and DVD Studio Pro softs, all say alot about Apple futur vision about optical drive medias.
In other words for Apple, it's an already dead (or at least dying) media, even for HD content. Apple was first to ditch the disquette, remember. The fact that they are selling separate USB superdrives are so much reminiscent of the separate disquette drives Apple once sold, for a while...
End of an era...
0

#12 User is offline   Deckard Icon

  • Member
  • PipPip
  • Group: Members
  • Posts: 34
  • Joined: 05-August 01

Posted 15 January 2008 - 03:29 PM

PetitPaul, I don't believe Apple is heralding the end of an era for optical drives. Quite the contrary. They simply couldn't shoehorn an optical drive into a case as small as the one on the MacBook Air.

The reason they didn't introduce Blu-ray drives into the new Mac Pro is two-fold. One, they're waiting for the format war between Blu-ray and HD-DVD to wind down. It now looks like Blu-ray will be the winner by mid year. Second, I'm sure they want to include a Blu-ray burner as well, so prices need to come down. We'll see a Blu-ray version of the SuperDrive within a year. Just as the transition from CD to DVD took some time, so will the one from DVD to Blu-ray.
0

#13 User is offline   veggiedude Icon

  • Member
  • PipPip
  • Group: Members
  • Posts: 587
  • Joined: 30-August 04

Posted 15 January 2008 - 03:30 PM

If Apple is going to phase out CD/DVD drives, then how do we upgrade to 10.6/10.7/10.8... ???
How will Final Cut Pro Studio be sold? Download options?
They gonna give out flash RAM? I don't think so.
0

#14 User is offline   rlavere Icon

  • Member
  • PipPip
  • Group: Members
  • Posts: 256
  • Joined: 28-August 04

Posted 15 January 2008 - 03:34 PM

I know I'm going to get flamed mercilessly for saying this, but this thing reminds me of the ill-fated Cubea??all form, no function. No FireWire? Forget digital video. No user-replaceable battery...IN A LAPTOP? You must be kidding. Slow hard drive? Ridiculous at this price point.
Yeah, it's thin. I get it. So what?
0

  • (9 Pages)
  • +
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • Last »
  • You cannot start a new topic
  • You cannot reply to this topic

4 User(s) are reading this topic
0 members, 4 guests, 0 anonymous users