Macbook Air

[dann]

So macrumor broke the rumor of the Mac Book Air being announced at the keynote today. Just curious what others think. Engadget has a write up and better pics: http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/01/b ... acboo.html

A challenger to the Asus eeePC and like devices? I wonder what the price point would be!

[Patrick]

It will probably sell for double the price of the eeePC. Hey, come on, isn't it worth $700 for the Apple label alone? Speaking of Apple, I took my wife to dinner at that Italian place 2 doors down from the new Apple store at the Lehigh Valley Mall. We stepped in for a couple of minutes and were amazed at all the Kool Aid drinkers. Man Vista really is opening the door for competition. Linux really needs someone to step with a massive advertising campaign.

[greggh]

It will probably sell for double the price of the eeePC. Hey, come on, isn't it worth $700 for the Apple label alone?

$700 in your dreams! Jobs will slap a price tag of at least a Grand on it. And the Mac sheeple will pay it gladly.

[dann]

Haha! You're both way off. Starts at $1700, that's over 3 times the most expensive eeePC. But then again, you're paying for quality and innovation, not to mention aesthetics.

[jturning]

$1799, but it's a pretty compelling piece of hardware. Super thin, LED backlighting, backlit keyboard, N wireless, gesture recognition, environmentally friendly and recyclable, 5 hour battery life.... Nothing that would make me give up my freedom, but pretty slick at a reasonable price given the hardware innovation. Of course, lets see if it has any temperature or hardware issues? Although pretty good at their engineering, they have had some manufacturing issues with some of their hardware. I don't think the battery not being replaceable is that big of a deal as we mostly keep them plugged in, and if you're a road warrior you probably have a large external to plug in.

Bugz

[Wally Balljacker]

Wow, that thing looks slick. If I had the cash to drop, I wouldn't hesitate.

Hey, Allan, how about buying a couple, and sending one my way. :p

[greggh]

But then again, you're paying for quality and innovation, not to mention aesthetics.

Nah. You're paying for that warm glow you get from knowing that you're a superior person, because you're using a superior Apple product. Macbook Air my arse, they should have branded it the Macbook Smug.

[snarkout]

Not to be contrary, but it *is* substantially nicer than the Eee. I have no freaking idea what market segment it's aimed at, though. I guess really wealthy travelers, or people who can write off expenses easily. It's not beefy enough to be a real lappy, and not really small enough to be an ultra. The pricetag is so far outside what I had imagined, though, that I'm having difficulty believing it.

On another note, I *do* think "TimeCapsule" is an idea that has been too obvious for way too long.

[Patrick]

Some people have issues with it already:
http://apcmag.com/7839/macbook_air_top_ ... ng_with_it

[snarkout]

I read that earlier. To be fair, that's not people having issues with it, it's one person making some fairly lame arguments against it and a few very salient points. In any event, I find it an odd duck, for sure. I assume there are going to be an assload of issues with revA, and while I think it's not actually over priced for what you get, I do think the pricepoint is insane for what it is. Needless to say, I'd be overjoyed to be gifted one, but wouldn't even consider buying one.

[davijordan]

How upgradeable is the Macbook Hotair Emperors new clothes edition? The way Apple seems to drop support for items, I would not see getting one except at a garage sale or a thrift shop. With technology rapidly changing, it might be obsolete anyway within a six months. I expect to see 1 terabyte solid state drives in the near future. Also the keyboard will be obsolete being replaced with voice recognition input devices. All the os's will be artificially intelligent based virtual machines.

[spotslayer]

$1799 is entry level $3000 for everything

[Wally Balljacker]

$1799 is entry level $3000 for everything

Hmmm, for that price, you could buy a Mac Pro with an eight-core Xeon, 2GB of RAM, a high-end ATI graphics card, and a terabyte of storage. Or about 5 similarly configured PCs for the same price.

[davijordan]

Used Celeron laptop Free
Memory upgrade $ 5
Gnu/Debian Operating system Free
Application software Free
Mouse, case, nic, and etc. $20

Not worried if it breaks and
saving $1769...... Priceless

[spotslayer]

Used Celeron laptop Free
Memory upgrade $ 5
Gnu/Debian Operating system Free
Application software Free
Mouse, case, nic, and etc. $20

Not worried if it breaks and
saving $1769...... Priceless

Now that's what I'm talkin about.