Macworld San Francisco keynote by Jobs in a few hours. Will he announce my new laptop? (MacBook Air? WTF?) Everyone at World Headquarters is on the edge of their seats. Stay tuned...
MacBook Air indeed. Ridiculously thin. It's wedge shaped (from the side, with the front edge being thinner) with a thickness of 0.16" to 0.76".
13.3 inch widescreen display
80 GB 1.8 inch hard drive
Optional 64GB SSD
1.6 (or 1.8) Core 2 Duo
Multi-touch (a la iPhone) trackpad
1 USB 2.0 port & micro DVI
802.11n + Bluetooth 2.1/EDR
2 GB RAM
5 hour battery
$1799
As soon as the apple store comes back up I am ordering.
64 GB SSD is an optional replacement for the 80 GB drive, not an addition. And it's $999. Can't really swing that although it would be nice. (An SSD is a Solid State Drive - no moving parts. Like RAM, but it doesn't go away when you power down.)
MacBook Air.
Store is back up but now I can't pull the trigger.
Very cool. I'm a huge fan of small laptops. Not sure it's enough to get me to switch.
I don't really understand the micro-DVI connector (with micro-DVI to DVI adapter). I can understand, sort of, VGA support. But support for composite and S-video? Why not have an HDMI port and drop the plethora of retro interfaces? (/videogeek)
Didn't do it. I think I'm better off either saving a couple hundred and getting a MacBook, or spending a couple hundred more and getting the Pro. I want that multi-touch trackpad though. Probably they will update the Pro with one - but when?
If I was taking my computer to and from work every day, or working from coffee shops, or flying a lot I think I would get it. I like that it's small I just don't really need it to be small since it basically just sits on my desk.
I think that's the right choice. But maybe I'll just go and take a look at one some day this week....
Pretty clever Mac ad on the front page of nytimes.com today that combines the top and the right banner spaces.
Very clever. I go out of my way to avoid Vista. E.g., if you buy a Dell from the "Small Business" page, you can pick XP. I have a friend with Vista who has 1 GB of RAM. It's painfully slow.
air mail
Today the MacBook Pros were updated with the new Intel chips and the same multitouch trackpad as on the Air. That's the one I was waiting for. I think I made the right choice. Still haven't pulled the trigger because I can't decide on the glossy or matte screen. But should have the order in soon.
MacBooks were updated too. That's probably what I really should buy but I think I'm going to get the Pro anyway. I guess if you keep a machine for 5+ years it's okay to spend a little more on it.
did you get it? i like the thin one. what's a multitouch trackpad?
Nope. Still in endless debate loop. I'm actually leaning toward getting an iMac now. I was at my father's over the weekend and he has one. I thought it was really nice. Great to have a big screen compared to always working on my laptop. And 95% of the time I'm sitting at my desk so portability doesn't matter too much - and when it does I'll still have my old laptop. And the 20 inch iMac will be cheaper than getting the MacBook Pro (and I can put a 1TB hard drive in it compared to only 250 GB in the notebook.)
Might change my mind again though.
Multitouch trackpad is similar to the iPhone touch screen capabilities (except executed on the trackpad, not on the screen.) This is something Apple is just starting to put into their laptops and more features will be coming based on it in the future. For now it means that you can do the iPhone pinch and expand motions to shrink and expand windows and images on screen, as well as a rotate motion to rotate images, and you can swipe left and right to go back and forward in certain apps (like in Safari.) Many more gestures are on the way. Could be very cool but the jury is still slightly out.
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- jim 1-15-2008 5:22 pm
MacBook Air indeed. Ridiculously thin. It's wedge shaped (from the side, with the front edge being thinner) with a thickness of 0.16" to 0.76".
13.3 inch widescreen display
80 GB 1.8 inch hard drive
Optional 64GB SSD
1.6 (or 1.8) Core 2 Duo
Multi-touch (a la iPhone) trackpad
1 USB 2.0 port & micro DVI
802.11n + Bluetooth 2.1/EDR
2 GB RAM
5 hour battery
$1799
As soon as the apple store comes back up I am ordering.
- jim 1-15-2008 9:28 pm
64 GB SSD is an optional replacement for the 80 GB drive, not an addition. And it's $999. Can't really swing that although it would be nice. (An SSD is a Solid State Drive - no moving parts. Like RAM, but it doesn't go away when you power down.)
MacBook Air.
Store is back up but now I can't pull the trigger.
- jim 1-15-2008 9:51 pm
Very cool. I'm a huge fan of small laptops. Not sure it's enough to get me to switch.
- mark 1-15-2008 10:18 pm
I don't really understand the micro-DVI connector (with micro-DVI to DVI adapter). I can understand, sort of, VGA support. But support for composite and S-video? Why not have an HDMI port and drop the plethora of retro interfaces? (/videogeek)
- mark 1-15-2008 10:37 pm
Didn't do it. I think I'm better off either saving a couple hundred and getting a MacBook, or spending a couple hundred more and getting the Pro. I want that multi-touch trackpad though. Probably they will update the Pro with one - but when?
If I was taking my computer to and from work every day, or working from coffee shops, or flying a lot I think I would get it. I like that it's small I just don't really need it to be small since it basically just sits on my desk.
I think that's the right choice. But maybe I'll just go and take a look at one some day this week....
- jim 1-16-2008 1:30 am
Pretty clever Mac ad on the front page of nytimes.com today that combines the top and the right banner spaces.
- jim 1-17-2008 7:27 pm
Very clever. I go out of my way to avoid Vista. E.g., if you buy a Dell from the "Small Business" page, you can pick XP. I have a friend with Vista who has 1 GB of RAM. It's painfully slow.
- mark 1-17-2008 10:18 pm
air mail
- dave 1-18-2008 10:49 pm
Today the MacBook Pros were updated with the new Intel chips and the same multitouch trackpad as on the Air. That's the one I was waiting for. I think I made the right choice. Still haven't pulled the trigger because I can't decide on the glossy or matte screen. But should have the order in soon.
MacBooks were updated too. That's probably what I really should buy but I think I'm going to get the Pro anyway. I guess if you keep a machine for 5+ years it's okay to spend a little more on it.
- jim 2-26-2008 6:13 pm
did you get it? i like the thin one. what's a multitouch trackpad?
- linda 3-11-2008 9:46 pm
Nope. Still in endless debate loop. I'm actually leaning toward getting an iMac now. I was at my father's over the weekend and he has one. I thought it was really nice. Great to have a big screen compared to always working on my laptop. And 95% of the time I'm sitting at my desk so portability doesn't matter too much - and when it does I'll still have my old laptop. And the 20 inch iMac will be cheaper than getting the MacBook Pro (and I can put a 1TB hard drive in it compared to only 250 GB in the notebook.)
Might change my mind again though.
Multitouch trackpad is similar to the iPhone touch screen capabilities (except executed on the trackpad, not on the screen.) This is something Apple is just starting to put into their laptops and more features will be coming based on it in the future. For now it means that you can do the iPhone pinch and expand motions to shrink and expand windows and images on screen, as well as a rotate motion to rotate images, and you can swipe left and right to go back and forward in certain apps (like in Safari.) Many more gestures are on the way. Could be very cool but the jury is still slightly out.
- jim 3-11-2008 10:29 pm