So now all the hype is over about the MacBook Air it is possible to get some real discussion going regarding this precedent changing laptop. So, for those people that live under a rock and don’t know, the Apple Air is a new laptop that was released by Apple at Macworld 08. Why is this laptop so talked about? Well because its of astounding size. Measuring from 0.16″ to 0.76″, which is as Steve Jobs said, “Half of the worlds current thinnest laptop”. I won’t go into any more detail, you can just Google it to find an overwhelming amount. So the question being answered here today is, who is the MacBook Air aimed at? 
When the Air was first officially announced by Steve Jobs at Macworld he was talking about its specifications. To be honest I was questioning wether he had made a mistake when talking about them. This supposed awesome new notebook only has a 1.6 GHz Processor (or 1.8 GHz if you upgrade). For something that is going to change the world of notebooks, this isn’t a great start. The current generation MacBook comes with a 2 GHz processor (Upgradeable to a 2.2 GHz). It is obvious from here that this is not a gamers laptop at all. The good thing about the Apple Air however is that it comes with 2 GB RAM standard. A downside to this however is that you cannot improve the amount of RAM given. So, why the bad processor and good amount RAM? Not sure, maybe for rendering without speed?
The next thing about the MacBook Air is the lack of components. It does not come with an optical drive, nor a firewire port and only comes with one USB Port. This defiantly rules gamers out. Only one USB port means that you will most probably need to buy a hub and the lack of optical drive means, you will need to buy a USB powered drive. This laptop has state-of-the-art wireless technology built in however, This enables super fast connections to wireless networks and the problem of the optical drive? It’s fixed because now you can use another computers drive to read the information and send it right to your Air. Neat, but I predict it will be quite problematic going from a Windows machine to a Mac machine.
Next I want to talk about the Hard-drives. The standard hard-drive is the 80 GB one from the current iPod. An iPod drive to run a computer and only 80 GB? This rules most extensive users of computers out. No video editing here, nor gaming nor 3d production. Makes you wonder; who is this laptop for? The upgraded version of the laptop has a much much faster drive. a 64 GB solid-state drive. So by upgrading your paying for more speed less memory, This is getting all too confusing. A fast drive to store what? Once you have your Mac OS on there and other various programs there is not a lot of room left to ‘move’. And guess what, its only $999 USD to ‘upgrade’ to this drive! Seems like an expensive ‘upgrade’ to me.
So, we have this notebook which has non-expandable RAM, ONE usb port, small hard-drive’s, expensive upgrades and oh yea did I mention ONE USB PORT? All those components that the MacBook Air doesn’t include, you get to buy and use them in your USB Port. World’s thinest notebook…. with components hanging out!
Now to figure out who this notebook is aimed at. Certainly not gamers (not even sure why gamers would be using Macs in the first place), not video editors or developers, not someone that spend a lot of time on their computer. So who would it be? Well I will let you guys comment on who you think it’s aimed at. But I’m going to guess its for business executives who live off 20 kB spreadsheets, people who travel lots and upload all their data onto a main machine at home, or maybe those people getting their first computer. This still doesn’t seem to justify the price of the notebook, $1799 USD for the basic model and $3098 USD for the upgraded model. Now put on top of this the price of maybe an ethernet adapter, a wireless internet adapter, a USB Hub and an Optical drive and the lack of size doesn’t really convince you to fork out that much?
Well I’ll let you people decide - who is this laptop for? Please comment down the bottom your suggestions and lets see if we can get a discussion happening. If you liked this post please Digg it and even Subscribe and you stumblers, well, you know what to do ;). Thanks for reading this post (any mistakes I make please tell me, I’m kind of rushing to get more content out!) , I know its just another Air post, but I hope it opened a new perspective for you! Thanks, Matt.
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January 27th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Hey Matt - great post. The Macbook Air in my opinion is designed for those rather “higher class” people of our society who are using it simply as a “on the road laptop”. With the price that high and the features that low, as you stated thoroughly, it is unrealistic to think that even the average user could use it as their sole device.
Keep up the informative and intuitive posts Matt.
Chris’s last blog post..Pink iPod Nano
January 27th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
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January 28th, 2008 at 4:30 am
I am one of those business guys your refer to. I have a MBP for my main computer. Ninety-nine per cent of my work involves email, word processing and viewing pdf’s. I have no interest in gaming. It’s just not my thing. Although I love my MBP, it is large and heavy and therfore not fun to travel with. I would love to get my hands on the MBA for a second computer.
January 28th, 2008 at 7:29 am
So the MBA seems like the perfect solution for any business goer, just need to watch out that you don’t snap it traveling :P. Would you keep the MPB as a second computer that u keep at home and use at home instead of the MBA?
January 29th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
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January 29th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
“World’s thinest notebook…. with components hanging out!”
Oh so true. As soon as you venture into anything that will remotely account for the lack of storage space or ease of use for those who are mislead to believe it is a good sole computing system, you are looking much more white Apple plastic to account for. As soon as the components aren’t INSIDE the computer, there is even MORE to misplace - let alone the wafer thin laptop.
Business people that require the main selling point of this laptop - the size - are the only ones that are likely to benefit from this manilla envelope laptop. Just watch for the flow of adverts to be released..
February 3rd, 2008 at 9:46 pm
[...] compact. I won’t go into to much detail about that, as there are plenty of other blogs that list the Macbook Air’s features. With technology ever increasing, we can only see our gadgets getting smaller thanks to the [...]
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