[Grunnagle]

Your right! I was typing away and forgot to unlock my caps!! My bad!! ;-)

[sumisu]

jweller said:

"I'm sitting here in Tokyo right now surrounded by guys with little IBMs and Panasonic subnotebooks - these are their main/only machines and they are all quite happy with these small keyboard, underpowered laptops because they have to carry them back and forth on the train every day."





How would you possibly know this about a bunch of strangers sitting around you?

Because they are my students in a course I'm teaching and we were talking about big laptops when I had to pull out my monster IBM/Lenovo T60 lab "server" - they all laughed. Told them it was also our standard issue laptop at HQ.

[pressprof]

Nice review, Jason, very helpful. I'm perhaps one of the few looking seriously to buy the MBA with the solid state hard drive. Why? Because I almost never use my optical drive, work almost entirely in the "office suite" of programs plus email AND I use voice recognition software because of hand injuries. The ol back is not so good either so I have been craving a lightweight Mac for a long time. Now with Macspeech dictate coming out, this could really be the ticket. I do hope the processor and RAM will be enough to run the voice recognition smoothly.

[jordanburger]

Hey,
I think the MacBook air like all the other Macs will be great!
1 Quick question, what build of OS X does it come pre-installed with, is 10.5, 10.5.1 or the awaited 10.5.2?
If it is or isn't 10.5.2 anyone no when 10.5.2 will be released as an update for those with 10.5.1 or 10.5?
Thanks.

[kawika]

Happens to the best of us.

[tony12345]

Snakeman said:

Also I have severe concerns regarding the robustness of the MBA as I think it is getting to the point of structural instability or the internal components are so close to the frame that they will be easily damaged by bag impact etc. Jason.....just as an add on question....what is your opinion regarding the 'robustness' of the MBA? Looks like it could be snapped or bent with minimal leverage.

I live in Japan and the MBA?s adverts are already being shown on TV, so it is obvious that part of Apple?s marketing plan is on being successful in the Japanese ultra-portable market. But, I wonder if Apple has done their thorough research of the Japanese market though for it to be successful over here?

Firstly, from what I have seen, sub-notebooks ranging from 11"-12" seem to be more popular. I tend to see more business travellers using this size in cafes and restaurants. Space is at a premium, so ?compactness? over ?thinness? is of more value in the Japanese market, in my humble opinion.

Secondly, I wonder if Apple understands the experience of travelling in Tokyo to work and back during rush-hour each day? One word sums this up: sardines! Yep, the Japanese are famous for being ?polite? but when it comes to rush-hour, that suddenly goes straight out the train window. If I was a frequent traveller in Japan, I would definitely think twice about purchasing the MBA and question whether it is ?too? thin to travel around with (and even if it is not ?compact? enough). It looks pretty delicate from the photos I have seen to withstand the rush-hour crush of Tokyo. Did the design team focus too much on creating a ?work-of-art? over the practicalities in travelling with a notebook, especially in certain cities? The horror of finding your MBA in two halves in your leather briefcase once you get home from a stressful day is not something I would like to contemplate upon.

So, yes, I too would like to know the ?robustness? of the MBA.

[Conrad Satala]

can you use a 320 gb portable usb hard drive easily with macbook air?
thanks
Conrad Satala

[alexonline]

Hi Petricola,

The speed of the wireless connection would depend on the Wi-Fi router network you're using -if it's an 802.11n model and the MBA connects with 802.11n, it will be faster than an 802.11g Wi-Fi router and the MBA connecting with 802.11g.

Still, if you have to transfer several gigs of data, the other option is to simply copy it to a USB hard drive. Yes, that does mean copying it to one device onto to have to copy it to another, instead of simply travelling from one hard disk to another hard disk, but it should be much faster than copying over a wireless network.

You could also buy the MBA Ethernet adapter which plugs into the USB port and transfer the data from Mac-to-Mac that way, it should be faster than 802.11n/g/b especially because it's a wired connection - no wireless interference to have to worry about slowing things down.

Ok, hope this helps, it's to the best of my knowledge - if anyone knows better please correct me!

Cheers

Alex.

[rlav]

What a wonderful, thorough review, without the nasty typos that have been plaguing Macworld.com recently. I'm eagerly awaiting your follow-up observations.

[rlav]

bq. The 3.5 mouse rating says more than the final platitude, "worth it for me." Who needs to spend that kind of money for poor performance?
The reviewer, having actually tried the product for a while (unlike you or I) decided that he wanted to keep using it. But he's still well aware of all the drawbacks of the product, which led him to give it 3.5 mice. That seems fair and balanced to me. I think it's crazy to put more weight on the number of mice than the content of the review, especially when the reviewer has been so thorough and honest.

[rlav]

bq. I look at the MacBook Air as Apple's first step into this user-space. Their first iteration of this all new product offers the least for the highest price. Overtime the cost will come down, the features and power will increase with each rev. So I welcome Apple's first attempt to offer-something in this user space that is unique and will evolve into something more powerful and affordable -- eventually.
I hope that's going to happen, but first impressions are important. The Newton was a great product, and its handwriting recognition was pretty good, too. But negative reports on its first release tainted it for ever. The Cube was a beautiful, compact, moderately powerful computer, and would have made a lot of sense for people who didn't want to go the all-in-one route, but didn't need a tower; unfortunately, it was too expensive to make sense for anyone except those for whom design is all-important or people with very limited space (some retailers in Japan like it for that reason). I have a horrible feeling that the MBA is similar in that regard. I can forgive the missing features and the slower, smaller hard disk, but I think the price needs to recognize that the product is a compromise (even though Steve Jobs doesn't like that word). If initial sales are slow because of the price, a moderate reduction after 6 months won't achieve anything, the MBA will be abandoned, and Apple will steer clear of non-mainstream laptops for a few years. And that will be bad for everyone.

[west29]

I'm bound to say that a lot of people seem to think 'why not' rather than 'why'. The very fact that there is this strength of reaction says that this will be a popular product. It will outstrip the expectations naysayers but fall short of the faithful. Remember the iPhone.
For me the really important point is the usability comment about making the Air easy to sync. I'm astounded that Apple haven't used it as a way of selling something more / bigger by making an iTunes like way of synching a subset of media and data files from a bigger machine or Time Capsule. Give me easy ChronoSync and I'm sold.

[spinoza2]

I don't have my MBA yet, so I can't say anything about its robustness, but I can say something about the Vaio ultralight: my wife learned the hard way its limits when she pulled it out of her backpack one day and found the screen cracked. We surmised it happened because she had her pack filled with books and the plastic case of the Vaio could not withstand the compression in the pack. I was reminded of this when I stopped in a local computer store a couple of weeks ago and happened by the large selection of ultralights (Panasonics, Sonys, Toshibas, etc.). It struck me how plasticky and toy-like they seemed, and then I realized how spoiled I had become after two years of owning a solidly industrial MacBook Pro with its sleek aluminum case. From the reports I've read on the MacBook Air, also of a similar sturdy aluminum, I'm assuming it continues Apple's emphasis on robust design that can handle the rigors of heavy mobile use... at least in a way that will withstand sharing a backpack with books better than our old Vaio. I should also note that I made the switch from a Vaio to a Mac after the (plasticky) AC adapter port on the laptop broke after only a year of normal use. By that time I had become fed up with both the cheapening quality standards of PC manufacturers and with Windows. I've never looked back...

[tony12345]

spinoza2 said:

I don't have my MBA yet, so I can't say anything about its robustness, but I can say something about the Vaio ultralight: my wife learned the hard way its limits when she pulled it out of her backpack one day and found the screen cracked. We surmised it happened because she had her pack filled with books and the plastic case of the Vaio could not withstand the compression in the pack. I was reminded of this when I stopped in a local computer store a couple of weeks ago and happened by the large selection of ultralights (Panasonics, Sonys, Toshibas, etc.). It struck me how plasticky and toy-like they seemed, and then I realized how spoiled I had become after two years of owning a solidly industrial MacBook Pro with its sleek aluminum case. From the reports I've read on the MacBook Air, also of a similar sturdy aluminum, I'm assuming it continues Apple's emphasis on robust design that can handle the rigors of heavy mobile use... at least in a way that will withstand sharing a backpack with books better than our old Vaio. I should also note that I made the switch from a Vaio to a Mac after the (plasticky) AC adapter port on the laptop broke after only a year of normal use. By that time I had become fed up with both the cheapening quality standards of PC manufacturers and with Windows. I've never looked back...

I agree, the industrial design of the Macbook Pros is solid indeed (the design is exactly the same as the originating Powerbook G4 series). I travelled around the world with my 12" Powerbook (of which I am using now) and, one time, while on the Transiberian-express train journey I left my closed Powerbook on the bottom bunk-bed in my cabin, and a fellow traveller (without knowing my PB was on the bed) pulled down the metal-steps that came crashing straight down onto the top of my PB. I was horrified. I was expecting the screen inside to be cracked as I opened it, but the only damage was a small drill-like dent on the top -- that’s all. 3 years+ later, it is still working. I think the aluminium that Apple uses is pretty strong, but all the Powerbooks and Macbook Pros are at least 1-inch thick which assists in providing that ‘robustness’.


With the Macbook Air -- even though it uses the same aluminium -- it is a new design that is very thin. Also, is the LED screen made of glass? I am also wondering, with Apple’s focus on using aluminium and glass nowadays, whether the glass is shatterproof from everyday vibration and knocks. Don’t they use glass for the front of the iPhone? Any cases of the glass being shattered from having the iPhone in pockets?