Technology Rant: MacBook Air
I will admit this off right the bat: I have grown up using Windows machines my entire life. Having said that, I also want to say that I have nothing against Apple. In fact, I recently purchased a MacBook Pro and I am loving it so far (though I’ll love it more once Vista is on it too). But now to the point of this post:
The MacBook Air is not a great product. At all.
First though, the design is fantastic and unbelievable and very far ahead of anything in its class (The VooDoo Envy 133 is close). Aside from that, it is a ho-hum machine lacking in the features that other notebooks in this class have (think Toshiba and Lenovo/IBM). I read a c|net article today that included this little gem:
Apple made a very studied decision to exclude certain features. This makes the Air an Air. Apple could have included more ports and a little more of this and pinch of that–but then it would have been just another subnotebook.
So, I expect Apple to maintain the uniqueness of the Air for the next refresh.
But improvements are always welcome. And here are a few things that potential buyers can expect to see when a new Air is rolled out.
Really? Really??? She just implied that less features and lack of capabilities is what makes the MacBook Air unique. Adding more features would have made it “just another subnotebook.” She is so far into what some call the “Steve Job’s reality distortion field.” Somehow through a cool looking design and a big keynote speech, Apple was able to convince people that having less features was something to be desired. Wow. That is an impressive feat.
The MacBook Air is not fast, and it doesn’t have enough memory or hard drive space. It lacks an optical drive and an ethernet port. It only has one USB port that has to be flipped down and won’t fit some USB drives. It also lacks a standard connection for an external display and the battery only lasts 5 hours. That is the same amount as my MacBook Pro that could run laps around the MacBook Air. But look on the bright side: it starts at just $1,800…wait…that price sucks.
The moral of the story: don’t just assume that everything Apple does is pure awesomeness. It’s not.
July 08 2008 05:54 pm | Personal and Technology