Customer Rating: 
Summary: Compromises? Not In My View.
Comment: I did a fair amount of soul-searching before pulling the trigger on this purchase, in large part because of all the "compromises" apparently required to make as thin as this one is. For me, the MBA replaced a ThinkPad T-40, which has been as sturdy, consistent, and feature-laden as it is unattractive. My worry was that, though I was sure I would like the size and appearance of the MBA, maybe I would miss the T-40's feature set. Worse, I might miss a particular feature while traveling. So, I almost didn't buy the MBA.
I needn't have worried -- the MBA is simply incredible. As others have mentioned, the case is quite sturdy. Apple's engineers ingeniously relied on some of the internal components themselves as part of the skeleton for the case. This sounds scary, except that they were designed to serve both functions. The keyboard is crisp and comfortable (and keep in mind that I'm coming from a very well-regarded keyboard in the ThinkPad). The trackpad gestures more than make up for all of the extra keys the ThinkPad has. Although it takes some getting used to, the three-finger swipe, the two finger "right-click", pinching/expanding, etc., are all intuitive, comfortable, and fairly addictive. I've even started missing them on my desktop. The screen is really impressive -- a *big* improvement from my previous laptop. And battery life has been just fine -- definitely not the advertised five hours, but consistently well over three.
What do I miss? Honestly, not much. I've started using downloaded movies when I travel, including iTunes rentals. They all look just as good as a DVD did (on a laptop, at least) and are better for battery life. When I use an external mouse, I use a Bluetooth wireless model, so it doesn't take up the USB port. I was never a battery-swapper anyway, so that's not an issue. (I'll probably gripe about the built-in battery every couple of years when I replace it, then forget it the rest of the time.) And I can't save everything I have on the hard drive, though it holds everything that I would ever need on-the-go. I don't even miss the Ethernet port, as I travel with an Airport Express, and have for years. For me, the only real downside is the speed of opening applications. Opening most apps is noticeably and annoyingly slower than with my desktop (or, presumably, than all of the other Apple notebooks). However, once open, they do just fine. I now leave them open, which Apple says is fine, and speed is more than adequate.
As a disclaimer, I should mention that I'm a lawyer, so my usage doesn't involve heavy graphic or media work. I tend to run the Microsoft Office suite, Safari, iTunes, iPhoto, watch movies, and use the internet. For those types of things, the MBA comfortably meets my needs. I've even added VM Ware's Fusion program (running Windows XP) and, once loaded, it does the job as well. A speed demon this computer isn't, but if you use general productivity software and Apple's consumer applications, you'll probably be very happy.
Customer Rating:
Summary: love it now, but afraid i won't as much after the newness wears off
Comment: The good: I thought it wouldn't be as sturdy as it is, but it is! The screen is great. very thin and truly ultraportable, though not quite as light as you might think. overall, a truly beautiful laptop. i also think the price is excellent--a very fair price for such a nice ultraportable computer. most any serious computer user can afford this beauty. the power chord is great.
the bad: no optical drive, means no dvds, not cd installs, unless using another computer, by which it can use file sharing to transfer the data over wireless, which is FAR from ideal. this is a big downer, as everyone will want to watch a dvd sometime, expecially on the plane or on a trip... you should definitely buy a usb thumb drive or two, a usb hub, a usb ethernet device, and a nice case to go along with the purchase. u can buy an external cd/dvd player/burner, but lugging that along kills the form factor and portability of the unit. battery life is about 3-4 hours, for me, per charge, which is OK, not great considering i'm just surfing and using imail 3/4 of the time. throwing in a neoprene case or something should have been included for an 1800 dollar laptop. i have no problem buying one seperately, but throwing in a 5-10 dollar case would have been considerate, and other high-end laptop mfgrs throw this in.
the ugly: video capabilities are weak, just sufficient enough to get by. i can't edit movies with imovie nearly as well as i can with my macbook pro (1.8 ghz). and i'm afraid as more programs become more graphics intensive, this may be a big problem after a few years. harddrive speed is noticably inferior--the read access time and write performance are palpably slower than my other notebooks. harddrive space is limited as well, and considering there's no dvd/cd player, it magnifies the problem.
I could easily give this 4 stars, but will give it a 3 because it simply can't serve all my needs, no way. it's terrific as a primary laptop used for email and other light tasks, but if you're a serious computer user, it alone is nowhere near enough. it's probably worthy of 4 stars for it's overwhelming pro's, and 5 stars as a secondary/special use laptop, but the con's i mentioned earlier are legitimate and wonder how it's going to to fare with the next generation OS and programs, considering it's pathetic integrated video card. whereas, i know my macbook pro will be ready for whatever i throw at it for 5 more years.
on a side note, i also own a Dell M1330, and it's just 1.5 lbs heavier, but gives me alot more (cpu, hd, ram, and video!) power for almost half the price. also a sleek, pretty machine, but definitely not on my MBA's level aestheticly, and is not quite "ultraportable." still, if you're a pc user, i'd recc'd it. i have goen through a dozen notebooks over the past 6 years, handing them down to friends and family, and i now down to three (macbook pro, air, m1330, plus a desktop imac, and 1 desktop pc). don't get me wrong though, i currently adore my macbook air, it serves it's purpose very well. that said, my dell m1330 and my macbook pro are more indispensable and "important" to me.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Super laptop, if you are looking for a true portable, not sole computer
Comment: Let me start with a simple disclaimer, first I worked for Apple (a long time ago) for 11 years, I also worked for Microsoft for 6 years and I'm pretty comfortable in both camps but I truly love Apple for it's design and combined hardware/software implementations. I go through laptops pretty frequently and have owned UMPC's and full heavyweight desktop replacements. Having said all that, I think the MacBook Air is a home run IF you fit the right profile. The profile is that you want a device that you can carry around easily every day from meeting to meeting, home to work, travel, etc. This is not the laptop for your sole machine, instead it's truly the best device I've every owned for taking notes, staying on top of email, doing some on the fly spreadsheet or database creation, watch ripped or downloaded movies, and generally working through a "normal" business day. If you're looking for a game machine, power photo processing or video processing laptop, or 1 PC to suit all your needs this isn't the right product. But for me, it's close to 100% perfect, the battery life is good enough to get me through more than a couple of meetings, I can watch a movie that I rented on iTunes or ripped on a flight, I can easily do all my email on a week long trip, and basically take the machine with me wherever I go without a big penalty in weight or size. The display is super, the keyboard is wonderful, and I'm personally fine with not having a user replaceable battery. Bottom line is that, if you are clear about what you need, and understand the trade off's, the MacBook Air is a winner of a portable device.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Fantastic little laptop!!!
Comment: I have had this little miracle for a couple of weeks and I absolutely love it, in fact I take it with me anywhere I go. Alot fo people are negative about this product because of it's lack of a DVD drive and an ethernet port, I very very rarely use them so it fits me just fine. You should note that the Air was not intended as an all in one computing solution but as an extension of your system. An iMac and Macbook Air would fit perfectely together for around the price of the MacBook Pro.
The fit and finish is spectacular, it feels light yet solid. Other laptops in this weight range feel flimsy, none of that here.
Performance is much better than i had anticipated, the 2GB of ram really do make a diference. It does suffer with very very high resolution 1080P videos but other than that it's pretty snappy. Much more so than any other portable in its range.
I would recomened you stick to this configuration, the higher processor is not worth the extra 300 USD and the SSD drive is definately not worth an extra 1K!!!
What are you waiting for? add the damn thing to your cart already!!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Macbook Air, despite issues, if you buy it you will love it!
Comment: I purchased a 1.6Ghz 80GB HDD based MacBook Air about 2 weeks ago. Honestly I was not sure that I would keep the device but I had to review it for myself based on some not so positive reviews and the fact that I own a large amount of Apple stock and have been concerned about the recent drop in the stock price.
My business is to help companies make better products with better overall strategic plans and I have learned from past experience that many "professional" reviewers really don't get it. Often they write great reviews for terrible products and while not as often they also write terrible reviews for great products. In a past life I directly managed the widely successful Iomega Zip drive so I speak from a level of experience on this issue. In short it was easily worth a 10% restocking fee to me to find out what I thought the real truth is.
In my acuitize consulting business we have found that after extensive direct in person customer interviews working with a wide variety of companies with an even wider variety of products that customers really care about only a few key items for each of the products or services they buy. We call these items the "defining parameters" of any true 10X product or service. While there are lots of items that must be accomplished well for a true 10X product we find that there are only 3-5 things that must be done to perfection to achieve 10x success.
So what do I now believe?
The quickest answer is that within an hour of my first use there was no way that I was taking the system back. Words cannot do justice to the sheer brilliance of the industrial design of this product. It simply "feels" great when you use it and it is so thin and light you become worried that you forgot it on a business trip. The screen is simply brilliant and far better that any screen I have ever seen on any other laptop I have used or seen to date. The keyboard, while I am probably the world's worst typist, also "feels" great when you use it. I have found myself using the system all over my house at all times of day due to the wonderful backlight keyboard & display (& size). I'd rather go without paying my heat bill than taking back the air!
The Good
- The industrial design and size/weight.
- The screen
- The keyboard
- The overall feeling of a supremely engineered product
- It's a Mac and it comes with Leopard and iLife 08
- The tradeoffs they made to fit the size/weight requirements are fine with me and largely non-issues (& my issues can be fixed)
- If you buy it you will love it (ps - I am not connected with Apple in any way)
Interestingly while I have a number of issues with the product I think they could all be easily fixed into the future making the "Air" a true 10x product. By the way I think you will find my "issues" are largely different from what most reviewers write as the issues.
My issues;
#1 - The price is simply way too high for wild market acceptance
While I would love to do the research to determine the real price points required can you imagine the sales of this product if it were a $499 product ramping up to a $999 product as opposed to the $2K-$3K product it is today? High volumes will lower manufacturing costs that should allow Apple to do this in the future (an inherently this system should be cheaper to build anyway). By the way for me the dramatically increased price and lower storage capacity make the solid-state storage option a non-factor for me (I continue to be amazed at what appears to be close to a 50/50 sales mix of the solid-state option to the HDD based option). Give me a 128GB solid sate drive at a $500 or lower cost and then I will be interested. Up until then, and speaking as a shareholder rather than a user, I love the mix of sales of the higher end system.
#2 - Migration and Syncing is a disaster
This one amazes me and one I think is a huge disappointment especially from a company like Apple that seems to think this stuff out ahead of time. It is based on the premise that the vast majority of MacBook air buyers (especially at the current prices) already will own another "main" Mac. Migration assistant needs to be greatly modified to enable simply and easily dealing with moving only your critical stuff to the air to fit in the limited space available (now it's an all or nothing approach). Migrating your stuff from another Mac is an enormous pain and waste of time. Interestingly I think they completely solved a parallel issue to this in the removal of the optical disk drive by enabling remote drive access. I did buy a $99 superdrive but after 2 weeks it's still in the plastic wrapped box and I doubt I will ever use it.
On a similar issue an what presents a much larger ongoing problem is synching between the air and your "main" Mac. It is simply a pain to try and keep my Air and iMac synched with the same critical stuff. From the examples that Apple already set with the iPod and AppleTV with "great" synching capabilities it amazes me they dropped the ball on this feature for the Air. Apple representatives have told me to use .Mac but I find this an unacceptable answer. My #1 software priority would be a great wireless simple software synching functionality as per AppleTV and the iPod.
Interesting what was my largest pre-purchase factor was the smallish 80GB hard drive (I really wished it was 120 or 160GB at least). Now I have found that after a painful couple of days of moving my critical stuff that 80GB is in fact fine for me - just make it easy for me to move my stuff on and off of it.
#3 - I hate the dongle for video presentations (I am afraid I will lose it or leave it behind)
I assume that a lot of traveling professionals are like me and need from time to time to connect the air to an external projector. While to Apple's credit they do provide the cable as standard I hat the dongle idea. I think this could be solved by simply shipping the air with a neat internal and inexpensive protective case-in-a-case that can go in your laptop bag that has a standard place for the power adapter and dongles. On a similar not the low cost remote should have also been included primarily for remote presentations if not for watching movies (at $2K or $3K leaving a $2 cost remote out was a extremely poor strategic decision.).
My bottom line is that, even with these shortcomings, if you can afford it buy the "Air" you will love it!
Summary: Compromises? Not In My View.
Comment: I did a fair amount of soul-searching before pulling the trigger on this purchase, in large part because of all the "compromises" apparently required to make as thin as this one is. For me, the MBA replaced a ThinkPad T-40, which has been as sturdy, consistent, and feature-laden as it is unattractive. My worry was that, though I was sure I would like the size and appearance of the MBA, maybe I would miss the T-40's feature set. Worse, I might miss a particular feature while traveling. So, I almost didn't buy the MBA.
I needn't have worried -- the MBA is simply incredible. As others have mentioned, the case is quite sturdy. Apple's engineers ingeniously relied on some of the internal components themselves as part of the skeleton for the case. This sounds scary, except that they were designed to serve both functions. The keyboard is crisp and comfortable (and keep in mind that I'm coming from a very well-regarded keyboard in the ThinkPad). The trackpad gestures more than make up for all of the extra keys the ThinkPad has. Although it takes some getting used to, the three-finger swipe, the two finger "right-click", pinching/expanding, etc., are all intuitive, comfortable, and fairly addictive. I've even started missing them on my desktop. The screen is really impressive -- a *big* improvement from my previous laptop. And battery life has been just fine -- definitely not the advertised five hours, but consistently well over three.
What do I miss? Honestly, not much. I've started using downloaded movies when I travel, including iTunes rentals. They all look just as good as a DVD did (on a laptop, at least) and are better for battery life. When I use an external mouse, I use a Bluetooth wireless model, so it doesn't take up the USB port. I was never a battery-swapper anyway, so that's not an issue. (I'll probably gripe about the built-in battery every couple of years when I replace it, then forget it the rest of the time.) And I can't save everything I have on the hard drive, though it holds everything that I would ever need on-the-go. I don't even miss the Ethernet port, as I travel with an Airport Express, and have for years. For me, the only real downside is the speed of opening applications. Opening most apps is noticeably and annoyingly slower than with my desktop (or, presumably, than all of the other Apple notebooks). However, once open, they do just fine. I now leave them open, which Apple says is fine, and speed is more than adequate.
As a disclaimer, I should mention that I'm a lawyer, so my usage doesn't involve heavy graphic or media work. I tend to run the Microsoft Office suite, Safari, iTunes, iPhoto, watch movies, and use the internet. For those types of things, the MBA comfortably meets my needs. I've even added VM Ware's Fusion program (running Windows XP) and, once loaded, it does the job as well. A speed demon this computer isn't, but if you use general productivity software and Apple's consumer applications, you'll probably be very happy.
Customer Rating:
Summary: love it now, but afraid i won't as much after the newness wears off
Comment: The good: I thought it wouldn't be as sturdy as it is, but it is! The screen is great. very thin and truly ultraportable, though not quite as light as you might think. overall, a truly beautiful laptop. i also think the price is excellent--a very fair price for such a nice ultraportable computer. most any serious computer user can afford this beauty. the power chord is great.
the bad: no optical drive, means no dvds, not cd installs, unless using another computer, by which it can use file sharing to transfer the data over wireless, which is FAR from ideal. this is a big downer, as everyone will want to watch a dvd sometime, expecially on the plane or on a trip... you should definitely buy a usb thumb drive or two, a usb hub, a usb ethernet device, and a nice case to go along with the purchase. u can buy an external cd/dvd player/burner, but lugging that along kills the form factor and portability of the unit. battery life is about 3-4 hours, for me, per charge, which is OK, not great considering i'm just surfing and using imail 3/4 of the time. throwing in a neoprene case or something should have been included for an 1800 dollar laptop. i have no problem buying one seperately, but throwing in a 5-10 dollar case would have been considerate, and other high-end laptop mfgrs throw this in.
the ugly: video capabilities are weak, just sufficient enough to get by. i can't edit movies with imovie nearly as well as i can with my macbook pro (1.8 ghz). and i'm afraid as more programs become more graphics intensive, this may be a big problem after a few years. harddrive speed is noticably inferior--the read access time and write performance are palpably slower than my other notebooks. harddrive space is limited as well, and considering there's no dvd/cd player, it magnifies the problem.
I could easily give this 4 stars, but will give it a 3 because it simply can't serve all my needs, no way. it's terrific as a primary laptop used for email and other light tasks, but if you're a serious computer user, it alone is nowhere near enough. it's probably worthy of 4 stars for it's overwhelming pro's, and 5 stars as a secondary/special use laptop, but the con's i mentioned earlier are legitimate and wonder how it's going to to fare with the next generation OS and programs, considering it's pathetic integrated video card. whereas, i know my macbook pro will be ready for whatever i throw at it for 5 more years.
on a side note, i also own a Dell M1330, and it's just 1.5 lbs heavier, but gives me alot more (cpu, hd, ram, and video!) power for almost half the price. also a sleek, pretty machine, but definitely not on my MBA's level aestheticly, and is not quite "ultraportable." still, if you're a pc user, i'd recc'd it. i have goen through a dozen notebooks over the past 6 years, handing them down to friends and family, and i now down to three (macbook pro, air, m1330, plus a desktop imac, and 1 desktop pc). don't get me wrong though, i currently adore my macbook air, it serves it's purpose very well. that said, my dell m1330 and my macbook pro are more indispensable and "important" to me.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Super laptop, if you are looking for a true portable, not sole computer
Comment: Let me start with a simple disclaimer, first I worked for Apple (a long time ago) for 11 years, I also worked for Microsoft for 6 years and I'm pretty comfortable in both camps but I truly love Apple for it's design and combined hardware/software implementations. I go through laptops pretty frequently and have owned UMPC's and full heavyweight desktop replacements. Having said all that, I think the MacBook Air is a home run IF you fit the right profile. The profile is that you want a device that you can carry around easily every day from meeting to meeting, home to work, travel, etc. This is not the laptop for your sole machine, instead it's truly the best device I've every owned for taking notes, staying on top of email, doing some on the fly spreadsheet or database creation, watch ripped or downloaded movies, and generally working through a "normal" business day. If you're looking for a game machine, power photo processing or video processing laptop, or 1 PC to suit all your needs this isn't the right product. But for me, it's close to 100% perfect, the battery life is good enough to get me through more than a couple of meetings, I can watch a movie that I rented on iTunes or ripped on a flight, I can easily do all my email on a week long trip, and basically take the machine with me wherever I go without a big penalty in weight or size. The display is super, the keyboard is wonderful, and I'm personally fine with not having a user replaceable battery. Bottom line is that, if you are clear about what you need, and understand the trade off's, the MacBook Air is a winner of a portable device.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Fantastic little laptop!!!
Comment: I have had this little miracle for a couple of weeks and I absolutely love it, in fact I take it with me anywhere I go. Alot fo people are negative about this product because of it's lack of a DVD drive and an ethernet port, I very very rarely use them so it fits me just fine. You should note that the Air was not intended as an all in one computing solution but as an extension of your system. An iMac and Macbook Air would fit perfectely together for around the price of the MacBook Pro.
The fit and finish is spectacular, it feels light yet solid. Other laptops in this weight range feel flimsy, none of that here.
Performance is much better than i had anticipated, the 2GB of ram really do make a diference. It does suffer with very very high resolution 1080P videos but other than that it's pretty snappy. Much more so than any other portable in its range.
I would recomened you stick to this configuration, the higher processor is not worth the extra 300 USD and the SSD drive is definately not worth an extra 1K!!!
What are you waiting for? add the damn thing to your cart already!!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Macbook Air, despite issues, if you buy it you will love it!
Comment: I purchased a 1.6Ghz 80GB HDD based MacBook Air about 2 weeks ago. Honestly I was not sure that I would keep the device but I had to review it for myself based on some not so positive reviews and the fact that I own a large amount of Apple stock and have been concerned about the recent drop in the stock price.
My business is to help companies make better products with better overall strategic plans and I have learned from past experience that many "professional" reviewers really don't get it. Often they write great reviews for terrible products and while not as often they also write terrible reviews for great products. In a past life I directly managed the widely successful Iomega Zip drive so I speak from a level of experience on this issue. In short it was easily worth a 10% restocking fee to me to find out what I thought the real truth is.
In my acuitize consulting business we have found that after extensive direct in person customer interviews working with a wide variety of companies with an even wider variety of products that customers really care about only a few key items for each of the products or services they buy. We call these items the "defining parameters" of any true 10X product or service. While there are lots of items that must be accomplished well for a true 10X product we find that there are only 3-5 things that must be done to perfection to achieve 10x success.
So what do I now believe?
The quickest answer is that within an hour of my first use there was no way that I was taking the system back. Words cannot do justice to the sheer brilliance of the industrial design of this product. It simply "feels" great when you use it and it is so thin and light you become worried that you forgot it on a business trip. The screen is simply brilliant and far better that any screen I have ever seen on any other laptop I have used or seen to date. The keyboard, while I am probably the world's worst typist, also "feels" great when you use it. I have found myself using the system all over my house at all times of day due to the wonderful backlight keyboard & display (& size). I'd rather go without paying my heat bill than taking back the air!
The Good
- The industrial design and size/weight.
- The screen
- The keyboard
- The overall feeling of a supremely engineered product
- It's a Mac and it comes with Leopard and iLife 08
- The tradeoffs they made to fit the size/weight requirements are fine with me and largely non-issues (& my issues can be fixed)
- If you buy it you will love it (ps - I am not connected with Apple in any way)
Interestingly while I have a number of issues with the product I think they could all be easily fixed into the future making the "Air" a true 10x product. By the way I think you will find my "issues" are largely different from what most reviewers write as the issues.
My issues;
#1 - The price is simply way too high for wild market acceptance
While I would love to do the research to determine the real price points required can you imagine the sales of this product if it were a $499 product ramping up to a $999 product as opposed to the $2K-$3K product it is today? High volumes will lower manufacturing costs that should allow Apple to do this in the future (an inherently this system should be cheaper to build anyway). By the way for me the dramatically increased price and lower storage capacity make the solid-state storage option a non-factor for me (I continue to be amazed at what appears to be close to a 50/50 sales mix of the solid-state option to the HDD based option). Give me a 128GB solid sate drive at a $500 or lower cost and then I will be interested. Up until then, and speaking as a shareholder rather than a user, I love the mix of sales of the higher end system.
#2 - Migration and Syncing is a disaster
This one amazes me and one I think is a huge disappointment especially from a company like Apple that seems to think this stuff out ahead of time. It is based on the premise that the vast majority of MacBook air buyers (especially at the current prices) already will own another "main" Mac. Migration assistant needs to be greatly modified to enable simply and easily dealing with moving only your critical stuff to the air to fit in the limited space available (now it's an all or nothing approach). Migrating your stuff from another Mac is an enormous pain and waste of time. Interestingly I think they completely solved a parallel issue to this in the removal of the optical disk drive by enabling remote drive access. I did buy a $99 superdrive but after 2 weeks it's still in the plastic wrapped box and I doubt I will ever use it.
On a similar issue an what presents a much larger ongoing problem is synching between the air and your "main" Mac. It is simply a pain to try and keep my Air and iMac synched with the same critical stuff. From the examples that Apple already set with the iPod and AppleTV with "great" synching capabilities it amazes me they dropped the ball on this feature for the Air. Apple representatives have told me to use .Mac but I find this an unacceptable answer. My #1 software priority would be a great wireless simple software synching functionality as per AppleTV and the iPod.
Interesting what was my largest pre-purchase factor was the smallish 80GB hard drive (I really wished it was 120 or 160GB at least). Now I have found that after a painful couple of days of moving my critical stuff that 80GB is in fact fine for me - just make it easy for me to move my stuff on and off of it.
#3 - I hate the dongle for video presentations (I am afraid I will lose it or leave it behind)
I assume that a lot of traveling professionals are like me and need from time to time to connect the air to an external projector. While to Apple's credit they do provide the cable as standard I hat the dongle idea. I think this could be solved by simply shipping the air with a neat internal and inexpensive protective case-in-a-case that can go in your laptop bag that has a standard place for the power adapter and dongles. On a similar not the low cost remote should have also been included primarily for remote presentations if not for watching movies (at $2K or $3K leaving a $2 cost remote out was a extremely poor strategic decision.).
My bottom line is that, even with these shortcomings, if you can afford it buy the "Air" you will love it!
Apple MacBook Air MB003LL/A 13.3 Inch Laptop (1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 2 GB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive) Reviews: Page 7 of 8
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