In-Depth Review of the MacBook Air With Photos 244
Engadget has the first really in-depth review of the MacBook Air that I have seen with plenty of great photos and specifics. They do a great job of highlighting the highs and the lows with plenty of concrete examples to back their claims up. It seems that while the MacBook Air is a great step towards ultra-portable computing, overall the pricepoint is just too high. Which is not surprising from a new Apple gadget I guess.
Re:NOT Bad placement (Score:5, Informative)
Re:NOT Bad placement (Score:5, Informative)
Great! (Score:2, Informative)
Great post!
nice try (Score:5, Informative)
Dell Latitude X1 is smaller (albeit slightly thicker), has a gigabit ethernet port, comes with a external DVD burner, has two USB ports and and SD and a CF slot. The battery is easily removed and replaced or upgraded.
The MacBook Air has a dualcore 1.6 GHz processor where the X1 has a single core that clocks 1.1 GHz. Also the Air can take 2GB versus the 1.25 GB of the X1.
The X1 comes with an obligatory copy of Windows XP, but I upgraded it to Kubuntu Feisty. The MacBook comes with an obligatory copy of Mac OS X.
I have been developing KDE4 on my X1 just fine. The extra speed would be nice, but for a portable machine battery life is more important.
If the X1 were still in production, it would clearly be the better laptop.
Nice try, indeed (Score:3, Informative)
Meanwhile, people are quibbling that the MBA is slightly slower than other Mac dual core laptops...
Re:nice try (Score:5, Informative)
Its *great* for use on an airplane because the seat in front of you can be back and you can still fit it on the tray. Its great for tossing in a bag.
There is no way on Earth you could use it as a full-time laptop unless you had midget hands and only used Office.
Boot from USB?? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Worth reading if you still care (Score:3, Informative)
Thinness is the ultimate measure only because Steve Jobs said so. Being slightly thinner than most while still having a full sized screen and keyboard does not make it an ultra-portable. Neither does a custom CPU package or an undesirable hard drive form factor.
Battery is Easy to Replace... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Price-point? (Score:2, Informative)
Except that raising and lowering interest rates in 0.25-percent increments is exactly what the Fed does. I.e., reporting it that way is not, in fact, wrong.
Oh, and "Fed" is an abbreviation, not an acronym, so "FED" is wrong.
Re:nice try (Score:3, Informative)
MBA: 1.94×32.5×22.7 = 1431.235 cc
X1: 2.5×28.6×19.68 = 1407.12 cc
But the thickness of the MBA tapers from 0.76" = 1.930 cm to 0.16" = 0.406 cm. The average thickness is thus 0.46" (1.168 cm, so the X1 is 2.14 times thicker), and the actual volume is more like 861.692 (so the X1 is 1.63 times larger).
And quite frankly that's not the only flaky part of the comparison. The author makes claims such as "the processor in the MBA totally owns the one in the X1, but you can change the battery of the X1 so it is more powerful". Talk about spinning it!
No Kensington Lock (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Why bother? Get an Eee. (Score:1, Informative)