Apple Launches Two Crazily Skinny MacBook Airs

[kingssman]

[citation][nom]tomasf[/nom]LOW PRICE???? are you being serious???? get real. they are way overpriced[/citation]
Your paying for the thinness.

I'm just curious if there's a market for a "thin" notebook. With competition coming from netbooks (which also have no CD drive) and tablets along with our more computer capable phones,,, other than OS features, there's almost little need for a tiny surfing machine.

Now for a portable presentation computer, a place to dump my digital camera pics/vids on vacation without bringing a huge bulky laptop I can see.

OH!! airline travel.... I traveled with my 17" laptop which pretty much was its own carry on item leaving no room for other things like cloths. Going with a 11" full thin laptop can get most "work" done while leaving plenty of room to fit enough cloths in a carry-on bag for a weekend without paying the huge fees for having a piece of luggage

 

[eklipz330]

if you're complaining about the price... it wasn't made for you.

apple knows there's a market there, people will buy this.

 

[tu_illegalamigo]

May as well have an Ipad for half the price, or any decent tablet running ubuntu. (anyone know any good tablets?)

 

[tomasf]

i agree with khimera2000. i hope the drive is not soldered in the motherboard

 

[tomasf]

there are lots of optios for that tihng you are looking for in the market at half the price of this mac air 11". they are called netbooks and come from many companies.
[citation][nom]kingssman[/nom]Your paying for the thinness.I'm just curious if there's a market for a "thin" notebook. With competition coming from netbooks (which also have no CD drive) and tablets along with our more computer capable phones,,, other than OS features, there's almost little need for a tiny surfing machine.Now for a portable presentation computer, a place to dump my digital camera pics/vids on vacation without bringing a huge bulky laptop I can see.OH!! airline travel.... I traveled with my 17" laptop which pretty much was its own carry on item leaving no room for other things like cloths. Going with a 11" full thin laptop can get most "work" done while leaving plenty of room to fit enough cloths in a carry-on bag for a weekend without paying the huge fees for having a piece of luggage[/citation]

 

[tomasf]

you are rigth, its not for me. why? beacause im not presunctuos yuppy. I know enough about computer to know that apple does not make the best laptops and computers aout there. btw, i´m a graphic designer who constantly upgrade his system to be up tu date wiht the best hardware avaible, and that is just not possible with apple.
[citation][nom]eklipz330[/nom]if you're complaining about the price... it wasn't made for you.apple knows there's a market there, people will buy this.[/citation]

 

[Stardude82]

Very aggressive pricing considering what Sony wants for their 11.1" Atom machines. You do lose a bunch of ports, but you can play Crysis on it. M11's and other competitors are twice the thickness.

 

[tayb]

[citation][nom]Pyroflea[/nom]Lol, I thought Apple wasn't interested in netbooks. Sure you could argue this is a laptop, but it's a < 12" laptop with no DVD drive and next to no expansion ports. I'd call it a netbook personally, regardless of the hardware it's packing.[/citation]

Netbook = Underpowered pile of crap. This is not a netbook.

This would be considered an "ultra portable."

On the article... it is pretty easy to see why Apple went with the Core 2 series. The Nvidia GPU. The Core i3 would certainly offer superior performance compared to the Core 2 but you gain CPU performance at the expense of GPU performance. I'm not sure there is much of a benefit in terms of total system performance and you'll also lose out on battery life as the i3 draws more power.

Still, at $999 I'm not interested. Even if I had a $999 gift card to Apple I would get a Macbook, not this.

 

[Pei-chen]

[citation][nom]tomasf[/nom]you are rigth, its not for me. why? beacause im not presunctuos yuppy. I know enough about computer to know that apple does not make the best laptops and computers aout there. btw, i´m a graphic designer who constantly upgrade his system to be up tu date wiht the best hardware avaible, and that is just not possible with apple.[/citation]
Shouldn't you be looking at a Lenovo W710 or MacBook Pro 17" instead of MacBook Air?

 

[Pei-chen]

There is nothing like an enginner's product that can impress people.

 

[Vladislaus]

[citation][nom]smeker[/nom]I think it has to do with power usage and heat distribution. The new i3 are more power demanding and they also generate a lot more heat. You would not want to hold that Aluminum Mac Air in your lap with an i3/i5 in it...[/citation]
Actually no, the LV i3 has about the same TDP as the sl9600 used in the old macbook air. The temperature is also almost identical between the two.

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

I'm very interested in the 11" model. Well, the fiancée is. She's got a 13" MacBook Air at the moment but loves the idea of an even smaller model that could fit in her handbag easier. I'm even considering getting one of the 13" ones to replace my 15" MacBook Pro although I'll probably wait a bit and get a new 15" in a year or so's time and put my own SSD in it. If they'd released a 15" version of the Air though, I'd be all over it in a heartbeat.

 

[exodite]

[citation][nom]tomasf[/nom]i hope the drive is not soldered in the motherboard[/citation]
There's no real 'drive'. It's exactly what the wording implies, NAND flash chips soldered to the motherboard.

Here the actual description, directly from the horse's mouth:

MacBook Air continues its legacy of firsts with something entirely new for any Mac: flash storage. As standard. In fact, the new MacBook Air is designed completely around flash storage. But in a totally different way. Typically, flash storage is housed in a package that’s the same size as a conventional hard drive. Yet the flash chips themselves occupy a very small portion of that housing. Getting rid of the hard drive enclosure and using only the parts that matter — the actual flash chips — frees up about 90 per cent more space. And just like that, there’s room for other important things, like a bigger battery. Now you have a notebook that weighs practically nothing and runs for hours on a single charge. That’s mobility mastered.

 

[smeker]

[citation][nom]Vladislaus[/nom]Actually no, the LV i3 has about the same TDP as the sl9600 used in the old macbook air. The temperature is also almost identical between the two.[/citation]
I dont think they are using the same sl9600....

 

[exodite]

[citation][nom]exodite[/nom]There's no real 'drive'. It's exactly what the wording implies, NAND flash chips soldered to the motherboard.[/citation]
Actually, scratch that.

Looking at the actual motherboard it's (still) the RAM that's soldered to the board. The NAND chips are, together with what looks like a controller of some sort, on a stick not dissimilar to a DDR stick. Might this be the memory-socketed flash solution that were in the news not long ago or an Apple-propriety solution?

Anyway, this bodes a little better as far as performance goes but replacing or upgrading is nonetheless going to be a pain even if it's not outright impossible.

 

[Vladislaus]

[citation][nom]tayb[/nom]Netbook = Underpowered pile of crap. This is not a netbook.This would be considered an "ultra portable." On the article... it is pretty easy to see why Apple went with the Core 2 series. The Nvidia GPU. The Core i3 would certainly offer superior performance compared to the Core 2 but you gain CPU performance at the expense of GPU performance. I'm not sure there is much of a benefit in terms of total system performance and you'll also lose out on battery life as the i3 draws more power.Still, at $999 I'm not interested. Even if I had a $999 gift card to Apple I would get a Macbook, not this.[/citation]
Could you please explain what does the CPU has to do with the GPU? Because there are laptops with the LV i3 and the Geforce 320M. The i3 doesn't draw that much power than the SL9600. The max TDP on the i3 is just 1W higher but the processor when isn't fully loaded consumes less than the c2d. Since I doubt that this laptop will be using most of the time cpu intensive applications, battery life would be better.

 

[chickenhoagie]

so whats the point in this being so skinny? sure it looks cool and different, but what is its purpose..? i just dont understand..you spend an extra $500 because its skinny. I just..wow

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

[citation][nom]Vladislaus[/nom]Could you please explain what does the CPU has to do with the GPU? Because there are laptops with the LV i3 and the Geforce 320M. The i3 doesn't draw that much power than the SL9600. The max TDP on the i3 is just 1W higher but the processor when isn't fully loaded consumes less than the c2d. Since I doubt that this laptop will be using most of the time cpu intensive applications, battery life would be better.[/citation]

In such a small form factor the GPU used would be part of the chipset. Since Intel has blocked nVidia from making any Core iX chipsets, you can't get any with an i3 and an integrated 320M. There's not enough space for a dedicated GPU in these things so you're stuck with integrated options. NVidia could offer them a package with Core 2 Duo support and a decent integrated GPU that could fit in there. The alternative (aside from AMD stuff) would be an LV i3 and an Intel GPU and we all know how well even the best of those compare to AMD and nVidia's offerings.

 

[Vladislaus]

[citation][nom]smeker[/nom]I dont think they are using the same sl9600....[/citation]
You're telling me they are using a weaker processor than the last macbook air?

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

[citation][nom]Vladislaus[/nom]You're telling me they are using a weaker processor than the last macbook air?[/citation]

No, the 13" is the same as before. The 13" MBA has an option for a 2.13GHz processor the same as the last gen.

First and second gen MBAs were 1.6GHz/1.83GHz. Third gen were 1.83GHz/2.13GHz. The 11" now is now 1.4GHz/1.6GHz and the 13" is 1.83GHz/2.13GHz. So there are no CPU performance gains, only GPU and (hopefully) HDD gains. The HDD in the previous MBAs was shocking but the SSD was pretty good - nowhere near a third party drive though. Time will tell what these flash drives will manage.

 

[lejay]

[citation][nom]burnley14[/nom]I'd probably not buy it regardless, but having an i3/i5 with Optimus would make these way more appealing.[/citation]
And larger... Maybe Apple should make a larger version of their macbook... Oh, wait.

 

[Konman]

$999 - without the external DVD/Blu-Ray disk player and without the DVI/Mini-Display port converter.

Obviously they released this to help compensate for the failure of the I-Pad and to make investors happy while keeping the Mac drones connected to the I-store (I bet the easiest thing to do on this thing is to charge your credit card while shopping on the I-store).

Nevertheless. . . they still deserve the thumbs up and bragging rights for trying to develop a thinner computer.

 

[palladin9479]

Hmm ok Apple is now selling netbooks at $999 for the light model and $1599 for the useful model. Apply fans would buy it....

 

[jimmysmitty]

[citation][nom]Pyroflea[/nom]Lol, I thought Apple wasn't interested in netbooks. Sure you could argue this is a laptop, but it's a < 12" laptop with no DVD drive and next to no expansion ports. I'd call it a netbook personally, regardless of the hardware it's packing.[/citation]

BUT ITS REVOLUTIONARY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thats exactally what I see it as. Its a over priced glorified Netbook. The consumer might as well save some money, buy a Netbook for $300 and then spend the other $900 on a desktop or normal laptop that would eat this alive.

Two for one.

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

[citation][nom]Konman[/nom]$999 - without the external DVD/Blu-Ray disk player and without the DVI/Mini-Display port converter.Obviously they released this to help compensate for the failure of the I-Pad and to make investors happy while keeping the Mac drones connected to the I-store (I bet the easiest thing to do on this thing is to charge your credit card while shopping on the I-store).Nevertheless. . . they still deserve the thumbs up and bragging rights for trying to develop a thinner computer.[/citation]

Whether you'r a Windows or OS X lover, what planet are you on?? "the failure of the I-Pad"? Read the news a little. The iPad's got a record setting adoption rate and the current rate is set to pass gaming hardware and mobile phones to become the 4th biggest consumer electronics category. http://www.cnbc.com/id/39501308.