Gave up on Ipad, switched to Mac Air

Thanks for that review, I'm thinking about doing the same. Love my iPad but it hasn't replaced my work laptop.the MBA looks like the happy medium between laptop and iPad. The instant on and rocking battery life is what I like best about the iPad.

The MacBook air could be the deal to knock out two devices. Gotta check one out before I make the decision. My kids will be happy, they can fight over the iPad.

 

In the same boat but I have hefty requirements and by the time I was finished speccing out my Mac book air, it was over $2k! I already have a 15" Mac book pro with 8gb ram, non glare screen, 500 gb, etc, and I run both windows and Mac on it. I am currently using 228 gb of hard disk space so I would need the largest size ssd available okn the mba at 256 gb as well as 4 gb ram and the faster processor if I wanted the better battery life and lightness of the mba.

I decided to hold off until Christmas. I figure by then I will be able to pick up something sleek and with comparable hardware specs from another manufacturer for much less. I could then just slap the Mac os on that. If nobody else steps up by /2011, I will at least save some money with the sales during the holiday season. Hopefully...

So, quick question. If a pc manufacturer has a laptop capable of running Mac os and it comes with a multitouch trackpad, I would be able to do all the Mac os gestures on it, right? I mean, just need to make sure it has a multitouch trackpad, right?

 

How does "Mac Air" differ from "MacBook Air"? I tried a Google for "Mac Air" but only
get links to MacBook Air.

Someone else mentioned this the other day and I was confused then as well.

Jedi

 

Same thing.

 

So why is everyone talking about it as being "new"? The MacBook Air has been out
for well over a year - close to 2 years....

I just thought it was some new version of the iPad - not just the same old MacBook Air.

Apple marketing at work, apparently.

Jedi

 

It's a significant upgrade...
Ssd
Battery life
Form factor and CPU packaging
Blockbuster of a video card
Screen innovations including stiffening
USB ports

Ssd form factor and overall packaging and new methods of internal grounding could also be considered an innovation, I suppose.

Still, your viewpoint has merit. It all depends how much cool aid you drink.

 

How old is your $3k Thinkpad and what are its specs? Apart from lightness and sleekness, how else does your Mac Book Air beat it?

I think it's only a matter of time before someone releases a super-slim laptop with a detachable keyboard, or a keyboard that can stow out of the way behind the screen if it's not needed. One way of doing this is by simply redesigning the hinge so it can be rotated all the way around to the back of the screen. The machine could then be used as a laptop or a slate or a screen. This would allow it to be used for work, gaming, casual computing, or simply viewing and sharing media.

Until you can access the cloud from places like airplanes, devices such as external hard drives and cameras also need to become wireless and attach to the laptop with high-speed connections without sucking too much power. I wonder if they looked into incorporating wireless USB into the Mac Book Air. I would love to have my camera and external hard drive plugged into a wireless usb hub inside a bag, and simply be able to access the data on them from my laptop without having to deal with USB cables. The ability to remotely power them on and off would be great. Remote tethering to your mobile phone without having to drain the battery by using bluetooth would be another huge benefit, although I can see the industry pushing sim card slots and separate data access plans, like the leased netbooks you can get today.

Wireless HDMI streaming would also be great...for the occasions when you want to sling the picture over to a bigger TV.

Imagine a supersleek, powerful machine with great battery life. Able to access data. Wireless internet from anywhere. You could download a movie off the web to your wireless hard disk, then stream it to your media center or directly to your big screen--all without having to mess with wires. I am certain this is going to happen--I just hope it's a couple of years away, and doesn't strangle us with hundreds of competing standards that take 20 years to resolve via the courts.

Right now, I give the Mac Book Air a 6/10. Sad thing is, every other similar device out there is about a 3.

A couple of years from now, when similar devices are priced $500 or less, we will have some great computing choices. I really like how Mac products move the goal posts along and inspire the industry to do better. A lot of Apple's "innovations" seem really, incredibly obvious to me, and it is simply amazing how long it takes the industry to reluctantly move along until Apple comes along and changes the game. For instance, I never understood why the older monitors didn't come with retractable built-in handles. It would have cost less than 60 cents to include them. Apple did it. Same with colored inserts/parts to improve the look of bland, molded plastic parts. The burgeoning industry around iphone accessories is another case in point. Before, everyone was trying to adapt generic bags and cases and holsters to their specific needs.