Macbook Air - yay! or nay?

I went and checked out the new Airs in KRCS the other day. They are indeed rather fantastic. Realistically, they don't suit everyone's needs, but there are lots of people out there that require a tiny, lightweight computer with instant-on and more power than a netbook. They look fucking awesome too :033:

I have a Mac Pro. I still use my Mini as my media server. I gave my step-dad my unibody MacBook because his laptop broke. I much prefer to use OS X, but I still have Windows 7 installed on the Pro.

 

Apparently it works quite well via Wine.

 

You make it sound as if Macs are the only true source for reliability.

When I was looking for a laptop, I wanted something very similar to what you currently want: A durable, reliable, mobile, efficient, and cool-running machine.

I eventually settled on a maxed out IBM Thinkpad T43p. It's a very portable, ergonomic, and solidly built machine. The keyboard is incredible, the GPU and CPU are designed around both performance and mobility, and it has nice optional features like a built-in fingerprint reader and UXGA (1600x1200) display.

I was able to find one on eBay (with SXGA+ display and no fingerprint reader) for $300. It also came pre-installed with some very useful IBM software for file encryption, hard drive shock prevention, and tools that allow you to edit the properties and enable/disable all of the various ports the computer has.

So, long story short, IBM > Apple. Too bad they sold off their PC Market division to Lenovo (who I've heard maintains quality, but is owned primarily by the Chinese government). :/

 

You've been drinking way too much of the Apple kool-aid. Get a grip, mate.

 

nay

 

Ah OK dude. I misunderstood you! My mistake. ;-)

 

I have a Lenovo S10-3t netvertible (netbook that can fold into a tablet), and the build quality on is the most impressive I've seen in any laptop I've owned. Nothing about it really feels cheap or could break the first time I drop it. They really did a good job with cooling it seems too. Sure Atoms don't generate much heat, but the fan is typically whisper quiet and nowhere on top is it hot to touch and only under a full load does the bottom feel slightly warm. I would highly reccomend Lenovo to someone who is looking for quality.

As for the question at hand there are many options to the MacBook Air and almost all of them are cheaper. If you hate Windows that much install Ubuntu. I've used it as my main OS on my desktop since 9.10 and on my netbook partially for 10.04 (touchscreen drivers) and fully since 10.10 released. If you hate Ubuntu too, you can probably do a hackintosh type setup. Some links that might help you: (I really like the Acer one in the 2nd link).

http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/10/26/the-top-5-pc-alternatives-to-the-macbook-air/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20019572-64.html

 

My take:

My school was filled with Macs when I was a kid. I've used: Apple][, ][e, 1984 classic, Classic with ram upgrades, Quadras, 68k based macs all over the place, PPC every generation and so on. You name it I've likely used it before the fruit flavored G3s came out. After that I went onto higher education and they were PC only environments really. OS7 is likely my favorite release for nostalgic reasons.

The Air is a great concept and I'm sure it works for some people. My beefs and rebuttals:

No optical drive - meh, I use Daemon Tools to share mounted images over Samba all the time since 2005 or so when I finally got my home wired for cat5e. Sure it takes a bit of time but it is easy, convenient and so on. My laptop DOES have a DVD-ROM but it had riplock until late so I didn't want to take 40 minutes to rip a DVD when my desktop could do it in 10.

SSD - sweet. I wouldn't want anything else in a laptop. Current laptop has a 500gb hdd with a second 128gb I'm working into making a Hackintosh...very slowly. They eat battery life life you wouldn't believe. Give me 128gb on a SSD and I'll learn to love having a NAS and only a game or two installed on my laptop at a time as well as all the apps I need.

No/extremely limited upgrade potential - as mentioned some of you don't do the upgrade route at all and we all know laptops are hardly built with upgrades in mind. I've seen 1 Dell laptop with an extremely easy to access CPU you could upgrade - if the BIOS and mobo support it and if one even exists. Likely they do but it'd just be a clock boost and not an entire core revision upgrade. For me this is a huge no no when I can't access the battery or ram or SSD. Stuff fails. Stuff fails early. Stuff fails 50 years down the road. I personally don't have the cash for a new laptop every couple of years but I do for a new battery, that really cheap 8gb ram upgrade or maybe a faster SSD that uses even LESS power! Huge negative here, especially if you don't want the grubby kids at the Apple store working on your hardware. On the other hand if you have plenty of money and don't mind being technologically illiterate this isn't a negative at all and probably a benefit.

Built in battery - oh fuck you Apple. Right in your ass. This is worse than having too small a battery or having a battery "upgrade" that looks like your laptop has hemorrhoids. What do you do if the battery gets recalled? I suppose you take it to the Apple store and have it swapped out. However when dealing with HP recalls I usually have had them ship me the battery, I swap it out and send the bad one back to them. Then again the nearest Apple store is about an hours drive from here and I really value my time, particularly if time requires me being in a car using gas.

The size - I fuckin love it. My 17" behemoth of a laptop is more a desktop replacement even though I'm typing this on my desktop. A stupid decision all around for mobility but for editing video and pictures I get all the drooling looks. Solution? Just get a nice, large 24-30" display and call it a day. You're an Apple kool aid drinker, you must be able to justify the expense (or not and play some TF2).

Ultimately I wouldn't buy one for the sole reason that it is an Apple product and I value not paying the infamous "Apple tax" for a shiny white case. Plus the hardware selection of what goes in the thing is far, far, far too limiting for any MacBook model for me to consider them. Hell that is the reason I didn't go consider Dell the last time I was buying. I'd have to go with a much more expensive base model to get the dedicated graphics I was looking for.

Really though the decision to buy a Mac cannot be based on anyone's wants/needs other than your own. This isn't a decision that has a clear cut yeh/neigh to it that can be weighed with the help of the masses. The Apple fans are rabid over their product and the rest of us are either rabidly anti-Apple (like I once was) or don't buy them for the Apple tax. Probably a small minority that have other reasons too. If it works for what YOU need, great, buy one. But I don't anticipate anyone here actually swaying an opinion.

 

ZING!

 

Ive got a Mini mini and have grown to like mac Os. Cant say Id be rushing out and getting a Mac book Air. If i want a laptop Id get another EEEpc and put Ubuntu or Jollicloud on it. At the end of the day Mac Os is just a polished .nix system and I had better compatibility on Linux then Apple (I only got rid because I rarely use a lappy now and I couldn't get Itunes working which I needed for my Iphone).
Someone said Mac Os rarely crashes and when it does its other programmes well its always the same for me when using Ubuntu. Yes Mac looks better but then it should I paid alot for it!
One thing is certain for me, I wont be rushing back to use a Windows machine.

But if i can get an Ipad 3g cheap I may go for that.

 

Believe it or not, I used to be a hardcore windows fan. As soon as XP came around I started looking at alternatives (I didn't like the way Windows was headed after 2000) and so I tried Fedora (RPM distro).

It was a nightmare with RPM dependency hell. I left and went back to Windows. Then finally at one point someone pointed me to Ubuntu saying it was a DEB based distro which works much better. Tried it out, loved the fact that it "Just works" and that I didn't need to compile from source everything. Never looked back.

 

Am I the only person who believes apple products are terribly overpriced??

In this case, the design is admittedly awesome, but how much does it impact your daily life?
I value performance over design, so I would never get this computer.

 

Is this a rhetorical question?

 

It comes down to your needs. If you wanted a small, portable laptop with a full size keyboard, there aren't many option out there. It's not the fastest machine, but if you travel a lot, size DOES matter.

 

Mercedes are expensive in comparison to a Ford.
Bang & Olufsen is expensive in comparison to Sanyo.
Paul Smith is many times more expensive than sodding GAP, and several thousand times more stylish.

Macs may seem expensive, but then Apple don't build shit, low quality computers. All the MacBook Pros and iMacs have IPS screens, not the low quality crap you find in most laptops. If you rip a Mac Pro or iMac apart and price it up against comparable parts, they aren't actually that overpriced. Yeah, there is a decent amount of 'Apple Tax' but I think it's worth it for both the internal and external design of the systems.

I still think Jobs is a complete megalomaniac though and Apple will be better off when there's a new CEO.

 

I rather wait and work to have all the money I need in my pocket to buy a quality product, than carry around a piece of bulky plastic. In this case, portability matters to me as I will be traveling quite often. I'm not going to think twice this time, I've made up my mind. Quality » quantity.

 

Apple have only done great things with Jobs at the wheel. I dislike Jobs, but Apple would be nothing without him.

 

Tell that to the other Steve!

 

circular thread!

As for quality, all my friends with MacBooks have had to use their applecare at some point or another for some component failure or another.
My Dell Vostro from two years ago (8600GT) hasn't been turned off for more than a few hours total in about 8 months.



So, netbooks can be pretty graphically powerful these days with that ION, eh? Hmm!

 

$400 asus 1201n/t

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYOY3r4hEfI

no need to blow 1000.

plays 1080p too.