MacBook Air - What's the point?

[Timotheos]

Qion, that blog sums it up so well! I hope it works well.

If it does work and they bring the rest of the mac laptop range upto that standard then their laptop design will once again be years ahead of every other companies design like it was 5-6 years ago - not that their current design has been surpassed yet, anyways.

[icemanjc]

What I don't get is, since it has an iPod hard drive, why can't they have a 160 GB option. Hopefully that will come soon.

[Qion]

Originally Posted by icemanjc

What I don't get is, since it has an iPod hard drive, why can't they have a 160 GB option. Hopefully that will come soon.

...so that the SSD looks larger?

[michaelsanford]

I'm a grad student, run around all the time from teaching to office to home to girlfriend's house to train to...you get the point. My iBook G4 also needs replacing.

As a primary computing device, as a MacBook can be for many people, the Air will fail. But that's fine, because that's not what it's for. It's designed for people who have a Mac Pro or iMac at home, as I will soon. I would love the Air, carrying around my laptop in an interoffice mail envelope is the prefect camouflage against library laptop thieves! And hey, if I lose it, it'll just get mailed back to my office

Seriously, though, initially I was disappointed with the meagre 80 GB hard disk offer, but then I thought back to my decision on iPod. If an iPod battery lasts 8 hours, is there much point to having an iPod that can hold 5000 hours of music? No (unless you travel without your music source, but I suspect that this is not the case for the vast majority of iPod users). So, assuming that you have your permanent files on a primary iMac, you'd only likely move some choice music, maybe some photos and working files over to the Air. If you're the kind of person who needs instantaneous access to 5 TB of data from an airline seat, well, I'd like to meet you because I think you're a myth!

[ApeintheShell]

People need lots of storage for their laptop. Especially when they are making an iMovie of their dog and need the remix of "Who Let The Dogs Out" while they tell you all about in the middle seat. Hmm, maybe that was a commercial.

[michaelsanford]

I agree that some people do indeed, and those people will probably use a MacBook Pro. I mean, if you're making a video, how would you capture the video it to an Air in the first place (sans the FireWire).

I'm a big space hog, I've got over 2 TB connected right now (USB and NAS), but I don't need access to that stuff while on the go. But, that's just me.

I do think, though, that the change from 80 to 80 GB SSD is a joke. A cool joke, but a joke.