Is This the New, Even Thinner MacBook Air?

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[citation][nom]shuffman37[/nom]No HDMI, no card slots, no built in high end gpu, not worth $1200. I can buy a core i7 notebook that'll eat this thing for lunch and still have money to buy an extra battery and games. Can we have more than just good ole' usb 2.0 expansion? I saturate my usb3.0 daily along with my Sata3.0 spec connections.[/citation]

Why would you want a high end GPU in this? That would be a waste of battery power and space to cool the GPU. This type of sub notebook puts a premium on weight and size, not computing power. Hopefully Apple can add more ports in addition to the USB ports. The Sony X series manages to include both Ethernet and VGA ports in a 0.55" height laptop. Unfortunately the Sony X series seems pretty pricey at $1300-1500 for only a single core atom processor. But otherwise the X series has excellent battery life and is very, very thin, which is really one of the main goals.

I think you missed the whole of a laptop like this. There are plenty of people with no interest in gaming that want to be able to access the web do basic productivity tasks on road. There is always going to be a trade off between portability and functionality with a laptop like this and many people would very happy to give up some features (card slot, optical drive) in order to maximize portability.
 
Yeah, thinner notebooks...
Wait why do I care?

Here I am wanting an optimus and there are people willing to pay a grand more for a 16th of an inch less :roll:
 
[citation][nom]fellskrazykayaker[/nom]Why would you want a high end GPU in this? That would be a waste of battery power and space to cool the GPU. This type of sub notebook puts a premium on weight and size, not computing power. Hopefully Apple can add more ports in addition to the USB ports. The Sony X series manages to include both Ethernet and VGA ports in a 0.55" height laptop. Unfortunately the Sony X series seems pretty pricey at $1300-1500 for only a single core atom processor. But otherwise the X series has excellent battery life and is very, very thin, which is really one of the main goals.I think you missed the whole of a laptop like this. There are plenty of people with no interest in gaming that want to be able to access the web do basic productivity tasks on road. There is always going to be a trade off between portability and functionality with a laptop like this and many people would very happy to give up some features (card slot, optical drive) in order to maximize portability.[/citation]
Other people hope to do a bit of rendering and watching video's while on their laptop. A core i3, i5, i7, or a phenom P-series is a great option over a single core processor. You can get a 5570/5670 with a dual/quad mobile processor that costs under 800$ and has a 6hr battery life.
 
[citation][nom]wotan31[/nom]Wrong. Core i3 is not faster than mobile C2D. Core i3 is like a retarded Celeron. It's horribly slow, and only a fool would choose it over a C2D.[/citation]
I've seen many CPU benchmarks that put the i3 ahead of most c2d processors. Only the the more powerful C2D T9900 and the T9800 and P9700 are faster than the i3-370M (I've never seen benchmarks of the i3-380M so the i3 perhaps has beaten all C2D). Also the i3 that matters is the low voltage i3-330UM, and that one is also faster than the fastest low voltage C2D, the SU9600.
 
[citation][nom]dalta centauri[/nom]Other people hope to do a bit of rendering and watching video's while on their laptop. A core i3, i5, i7, or a phenom P-series is a great option over a single core processor. You can get a 5570/5670 with a dual/quad mobile processor that costs under 800$ and has a 6hr battery life.[/citation]

I think it'd be great if you could get a core i7 and 5670 in there. I doubt you're going to get all that in a 2 lbs, 11" form factor. Sure, for the same money you can get a more functional laptop but I thought we were talking about ultra-portables, no? I could see an i3, that'd be nice. But i7 and 5670? Seems like it would draw too much power and require a much heavier and larger battery. I think the kind of people who would be interested this type of laptop could care less about processing power and only care about weight and battery life.

Perhaps there more powerful laptops at this thickness and weight for less? I'm not sure. Maybe, I'm just not aware of them. Personally, this is not the type of laptop for me but I know lots of people who would want this.
 

Small and weigh little would end up becoming a netbook.
Just the same, if you're browsing the internet or just typing up papers/reading/watching/playing a Popcap game for fun then a netbook is a perfect solution. I was happy to find out my 250$ netbook played Return to Castle Wolfenstein :lol:
My mother on the other hand has a nice 500$ laptop that I bought for her, normally she does pictures, watches videos, and the unholy Facebook addiction that she ends up spending 1-3hours on. The laptop is normally always plugged in, and manages to be faster then her old HP computer that cost more...
(Surprisingly the netbook has a single core @1.6, 320gb HDD space [160gb & 160gb External], 2gb DDR2, and runs with Windows 7 just fine.)
 


I have a netbook too with same specs but it's just over 1 inch thick with the standard 3 cell battery and even thicker with my 6 cell (about 6 hour life) battery which makes it weigh about 3.5 lbs. It also only has a 1024x600 resolution screen.

I think for someone who travels, a slightly larger physically LCD @ 11.6", thinner (let's say .5-.6 inches), and higher resolution say 1366x768, with 8-10 hours battery life, and much more powerful CPU (say LV Core 2 Duo or LV i3) would make a better travel computer. This is all theoretical. Would I pay $1200 for it? Probably not. But realistically it probably fits somewhere between a base model Adamo (4lbs- $1000) and the current MacBook Air (3lbs $1500). I would actually hope it's priced lower than the current 13" MacBook Pro ($1200) which a more fully functional computer but thinness generally costs a premium. Again Sony's X series laptops run $1300-1500 for an Atom processor in a thin 11.1" package.
 
[citation][nom]fellskrazykayaker[/nom]I have a netbook too with same specs but it's just over 1 inch thick with the standard 3 cell battery and even thicker with my 6 cell (about 6 hour life) battery which makes it weigh about 3.5 lbs. It also only has a 1024x600 resolution screen.I think for someone who travels, a slightly larger physically LCD @ 11.6", thinner (let's say .5-.6 inches), and higher resolution say 1366x768, with 8-10 hours battery life, and much more powerful CPU (say LV Core 2 Duo or LV i3) would make a better travel computer. This is all theoretical. Would I pay $1200 for it? Probably not. But realistically it probably fits somewhere between a base model Adamo (4lbs- $1000) and the current MacBook Air (3lbs $1500). I would actually hope it's priced lower than the current 13" MacBook Pro ($1200) which a more fully functional computer but thinness generally costs a premium. Again Sony's X series laptops run $1300-1500 for an Atom processor in a thin 11.1" package.[/citation]

Yah, but Sony sells some very overpriced hardware too.

And I'm sure an Asus (not a slouch in quality either) notebook with the same specs/features as a Mac Air would be around half the price.
 
So I'm paying a $600-950 premium for a netbook with a big screen that's supermodel thin? If that's your thing, more power to ya, I guess.

My next portable's either going to be a netbook or a midrange standard laptop- for $1200 I could easily get one of each.
 
[citation][nom]mchuf[/nom]Yah, but Sony sells some very overpriced hardware too. And I'm sure an Asus (not a slouch in quality either) notebook with the same specs/features as a Mac Air would be around half the price.[/citation]
Yep, you can buy the Asus UL30JT that come with the i3-330UM, 4GB of RAM, GeForce 310M, 3 USB ports, LAN, HDMI, VGA, card reader, DVD recorder. True that is half a centimeter thicker than the macbook air and half a kilo heavier, but it's still a good compromise between features and portability. Of course there are still "PC" notebook that are even thinner and lighter than the asus the mac, but like the mac are very limited.

The price of the ASUS is 790€ in my country (1092$ US). The Mac Book Air with the Core 2 Duo SL9400 costs 1411€ (1951$ US), and the one that has the SL9600 costs 1713€ (2369€). The ASUS is literally half the price.
 
[citation][nom]Vladislaus[/nom]Yep, you can buy the Asus UL30JT that come with the i3-330UM, 4GB of RAM, GeForce 310M, 3 USB ports, LAN, HDMI, VGA, card reader, DVD recorder. True that is half a centimeter thicker than the macbook air and half a kilo heavier, but it's still a good compromise between features and portability. Of course there are still "PC" notebook that are even thinner and lighter than the asus the mac, but like the mac are very limited.The price of the ASUS is 790€ in my country (1092$ US). The Mac Book Air with the Core 2 Duo SL9400 costs 1411€ (1951$ US), and the one that has the SL9600 costs 1713€ (2369€). The ASUS is literally half the price.[/citation]

I think the some of the Asus UL laptops are a really good compromise between weight, thickness, performance, and price. I'm a big fan of Asus (my last 4 motherboards have been Asus). I'd love to see them do something in the ultra-thin class like the MacBook Air or Dell Adamo.
 
[citation][nom]Pyroflea[/nom]Now with even less features?That's what I want, a laptop that doesn't even have a damn disc drive. Or expansion slots of any type. Except 2 USB ports. Score.[/citation]
Disc drive? Do people still use those? It hasn't had that since it's first version. Why not mention that it doesn't have a floppy drive?
 
[citation][nom]Benihana[/nom]Disc drive? Do people still use those? It hasn't had that since it's first version. Why not mention that it doesn't have a floppy drive?[/citation]
If people don't use CD/DVD drives how come the MacBook and MacBook Pro has one?
 


Because those are not considered netbooks/tablets, therefore they come with a cd/dvd slot.

Not everyone uses a CD/DVD drive, I have been using a netbook for over a year and have been using flash drives for the most part. Disks are just too bulky, by having a large flash drive you no longer need disks.
 
[citation][nom]OvrClkr[/nom]Because those are not considered netbooks/tablets, therefore they come with a cd/dvd slot.Not everyone uses a CD/DVD drive, I have been using a netbook for over a year and have been using flash drives for the most part. Disks are just too bulky, by having a large flash drive you no longer need disks.[/citation]
I myself have a desktop here, and haven't used discs since about June 2008. That was with Ubuntu. I have a DVD-RW here, but it hasn't been used in ages. I even installed Win7 via. USB! Nowadays I just load up anything I want to transfer onto 2.5" HDDs via. external SATA docks. :)
 
[citation][nom]OvrClkr[/nom]Because those are not considered netbooks/tablets, therefore they come with a cd/dvd slot.Not everyone uses a CD/DVD drive, I have been using a netbook for over a year and have been using flash drives for the most part. Disks are just too bulky, by having a large flash drive you no longer need disks.[/citation]
The difference is that even a netbook has more ports than the MacBook Air. The MacBook Air doesn't have a card reader and only has one USB port.
 
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