Something In The Air

This is an old post!

This post is over 2 years old. Solutions referenced in this article may no longer be valid. Please consider this when utilizing any information referenced here.

… or maybe the water.

Unless you were living under an Internet rock, you likely know that today was Keynote Tuesday. That is, the day Apple CEO Steve Jobs tells us loyal apple fanbois what we will be spending our money on this year.

The star of this year’s show was the Macbook Air, a thin, light laptop designed to fit somewhere inbetween the Macbook and the Macbook Pro. At first I was wow’d by the Air. Jobs, as always, is the consummate showman and I will admit that I bought into the reality distortion field for a little bit. Then the “air” cleared and I began to think about what the Macbook Air really is. So let’s take a look at the Macbook Air and where it fits.

  • Maximum thickness of 0.76”. The Macbook is a quarter inch or so higher at 1.08”.

  • Weight of 3 lbs. The Macbook, a slightly heavier 5 lbs.

  • Battery life is slightly longer at 5 hours. The Macbooks average between 3-4 in my experience. However, the battery is not removable, whereas I could carry several Macbook batteries with me.

  • For $1200 more, you can get a solid state drive.

  • 2GB of memory, and only 2GB of memory. The Macbook comes in at 1GB standard, but can be upgraded to 4GB.

In my opinion, these are the areas where the Air wins. Now, let’s look at where it loses.

  • 1.6ghz / 1.8ghz Core 2 Duo. The Macbook slides in at betwen 2.0 and 2.2 ghz.

  • Storage is an 80GB 4200rpm PATA drive, whereas the Macbook boasts an 80GB 5400rpm SATA drive. Granted you can get a 64gb SSD drive with the Air, but for $1200 I can’t believe that anyone other than the biggest fanboi will be buying those for that price.

  • The Macbook can be upgraded to as much as 4GB of memory. The Air is stuck at 2GB, and since it’s sodered onto the board, it’s stuck there forever.

  • 1 USB plug? No onboard Ethernet or FireWire? No mic plug?

  • No optical drive. Granted, you can buy an external drive, and you can use that boot from another computer thing, but that doesn’t help you if you have no other computer.

Now, Brian Moon often tells me that I don’t think from the point of view of an average user because I’m not an average user. While it’s true that I’m not your average user (as a computing professional, I have needs generally beyond most consumer computing gear), I like to think that I can look at all choices and choose the best one. In this case I just can’t understand where this product is being targeted.

I just don’t understand how anyone could want to trade off all the features you get with the regular ol’ Macbook for what is essentially a small gain in dimensions and weight, and the “wow!” factor, especially when all those added features on the Macbook come in at $300 less for the top-end Macbook model. At that price, you could upgrade the memory and buy an extra battery and still come in less than the base price of the Macbook Air, with the only tradeoff being that it’s 0.32” thicker and 2lbs heavier.

I can’t believe that any informed consumer is going to choose a feature poor Macbook Air when the standard Macbook, at between $300 and $750 less, is just so obviously a better deal. Brian Tiemann said it best: “a ridiculously overpriced, feature-poor, and generally useless pig of an idea.”

Also, I wonder if Steve Jobs knew Randy Newman was going to go all Michael Moore on everyone. Someone please be sure he never sees a microphone again!

About the Author

Hi, I'm Rob! I'm a blogger and software developer. I wrote petfeedd, dystill, and various other projects and libraries. I'm into electronics, general hackery, and model trains and airplanes. I am based in Huntsville, Alabama, USA.

About Me · Contact Me · Don't Hire Isaiah Armstrong

Did this article help you out?

I don't earn any money from this site.

I run no ads, sell no products and participate in no affiliate programs. I do not accept gifts in exchange for articles, guest articles or link exchanges. I don't track you or sell your data. The only third-party Javascript on this website is Google Analytics.

In general I run this site very much like a 1990s homepage or early 2000s personal blog, meaning that I do this solely because it's fun! I enjoy writing and sharing what I learn.

If you found this article helpful and want to show your appreciation, a tip or donation would be very welcome. Feel free to choose from the options below.

Comments (0)

Interested in why you can't leave comments on my blog? Read the article about why comments are uniquely terrible and need to die. If you are still interested in commenting on this article, feel free to reach out to me directly and/or share it on social media.

Contact Me
Share It

Interested in reading more?

What I Use

What I Use: 2022

Since it’s been a good six years since I did one of these, here’s what I am using in the year 2022 as far as tech and tech-adjacent things.
Read More
Apple

The 2018 MacBook Pro Sucks

I’ve been an Apple fan for a long time. My first laptop was a Powerbook 5300cs, purchased secondhand at the Auburn University Surplus Auction. I’ve been using Apple equipment exclusively since 2007. My desktops and laptops are all Apple, I use AppleTVs exclusively for streaming, I carry iPhones and iPads. If it has a shiny Apple logo on it, I’ve probably bought one. So it pains me to write this post, but… The 2018 MacBook Pro sucks. There. I said it.
Read More
Hammerspoon

Wallpaper Swapping with Hammerspoon

Hammerspoon is a pretty nifty tool. It’s kind of difficult to explain what it does, but the best I can do is that it allows you to use Lua to script actions on your Mac and, crucially, respond to events. For instance, I use Hammerspoon to lauch all my applications when I get to work and lay them out on the screen in the order that I like. I can do this because I was able to attach a location listener to work’s location, and execute Lua code on arrival. The amount of things that you can do with this tool is pretty stunning. It’s become an indespensible part of my macOS experience.
Read More