[icruise]

So say John Gruber and Gizmodo.

It's real. The fabled MacBook Air actually exists. It's ultra-thin, has a normal state drive and, except for a couple ports, it's all about wireless connectivity. It's an stunning .16 inches thick at the bottom and .76 inches on the top. The black keyboard is LED backlit, sightly recessed MacBook-style, with rounded edges all around. The latch is magnetic and has a gorgeous 13.3-inch screen with ambient-light sensor and, get this, multitouch trackpad.

Discuss.

[icruise]

I just want to know how much it costs and how many body parts I'll need to sell to get one.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

No optical drive? Interesting.

greg

[olePigeon]

I love the multi-touch pad. That's awesome. I can't wait for new MacBooks.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton 

No optical drive? Interesting.

greg

$99 option. Plus, it has software so you can "borrow" an optical drive from a Mac or PC.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by icruise 

I just want to know how much it costs and how many body parts I'll need to sell to get one.

$1799

[MacNNUK]

"10:26 am New Ad for MacBook Air. Plays off of the ability to fit in an envelope."

Well I hope the envelope they use to send it to me is a padded one !!

[The Placid Casual]

For the spec, and what you lose, I think the price just killed it before it started.

[icruise]

13.3-inch full size display, full keyboard, multi-touch gestures, 0.16-inch thickness, iSight... 1.6GHz C2D, 2GB RAM standard, 80GB drive, 64GB SSD option, 802.11n standard Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR...

2GB RAM standard? Wow.

[icruise]

Originally Posted by The Placid Casual 

For the spec, and what you lose, I think the price just killed it before it started.

What do you lose, aside from a bunch of weight and thickness? I never use my optical drive.

[Geofries]

Is that price confirmed?

[icruise]

Originally Posted by Geofries 

Is that price confirmed?

That's what Engadget says.

[Geofries]

That price is a no.

[icruise]

This "remote drive" thing is a great idea.

We have a new feature built into the MBA called remote disc."

"You'll see in the finder called Remote Disc -- it will show you all the Macs and PCs that have some special software on them, and you can pick one of those machines and ask to borrow its optical drive.

I think the price is fine for the product segment. Compare it to the ultrathin PC notebooks.

The 64GB solid state disk is very interesting, but I wonder what the price is.

[olePigeon]

Well, it's $1000 cheaper than the Sony VAIO TZ.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by icruise 

What do you lose, aside from a bunch of weight and thickness? I never use my optical drive.

• HD space (halved)
• Processor power (halved)
• Graphics card
• The ability to connect more than one thing to your computer (you can't have an iPod and a mouse in simultaneously)

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by icruise 

The 64GB solid state disk is very interesting, but I wonder what the price is.

$1000. It's not on the front page yet, but you can get to the MBA page by going to apple.com/macbookair.

[icruise]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

• HD space (halved)
• Processor power (halved)
• Graphics card
• The ability to connect more than one thing to your computer (you can't have an iPod and a mouse in simultaneously)

What are you comparing it to? I wasn't aware that they made a portable with a 3.2Ghz processor. And I hardly ever connect anything to my laptop, but there are hubs should you want to.

[icruise]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

$1000. It's not on the front page yet, but you can get to the MBA page by going to apple.com/macbookair.

Well screw that.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by icruise 

What are you comparing it to? I wasn't aware that they made a portable with a 3.2Ghz processor. And I hardly ever connect anything to my laptop, but there are hubs should you want to.

Duh, you're right. For some reason I had 1.4 GHz in my head — and I didn't mean quite halved, but rougly. I was thinking of the MBP for comparison.

[MacosNerd]

$1,800 for the 1.6GHz
$3,098 for the 1.8GHz

While the 1.8GHz has a solid state drive that's still wicked pricey

[Chuckit]

It's only $200 plus the price of the SSD — which is, as Steve said, pricey.

[Chongo]

The ad
Apple - MacBook Air

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

• HD space (halved)

I reckon it's a lot slower too. And nothing is probably user-upgradeable...

[fisherKing]

i have been holding my breath for years, waiting for something apple to replace my 12" powerbook.

is this it? i like it, can deal with no firewire (my external drives also have usb), no optical drive...

but the glossy screen....yuck. and 4200 rpm drive...hmmm. the ssd is WAY too expensive (for me, anyway).

guess i will go see this thing in action...

[iFan]

Since there are two threads...

Cool design, but completely useless for power users or even college students. And the price is so off-putting. They want more for less. Not just smaller size, but reduced everything.

[Goldfinger]

I'm very interested in the benchmarks. There's a reason why IBM dropped those 1.8" drives in their X-series...

[lpkmckenna]

I'm very impressed. I think this machine is a steal at $1799.

[gloubibou]

Flickr: Photos from crashboombang.geo

Pierre Bernard
Houdah Software s.à r.l.

[Noonster]

Looks really nice just not sure about the price tag :o

[MarkLT1]

The price is a bit high for my blood..

But the real deal breaker for me? Integrated battery.. so when I have 40% of my battery life in 2-3 years, its going to be quite the endeavorer to replace it.

[driven]

This is indeed a very nice machine, and perhaps an awesome second computer. I'm trying to replace my PowerMac though with a portable so I think I'm better with the (now extremely large and thick) MacBook Pro. I wish the MBP had the multi-touch mouse pad though.

[Nebrie]

I put my order in! Though I'm now starting to have second thoughts about spending $300 on that extra .2ghz

[bluehuman]

If'n I had me sommma thet-thar Unobtainium for a pro-sezzor, some lithium-Unobtainium for the battery and some scrith for the caseworks, I reckon I could make the One True Laptop thet'd be All Tham Thangs Tuh All Tham Peoples.

But lacking those materials, this machine meets specific needs of a specific section of the market.

I really don't understand the urgent need to trash something before you've given it a chance - unless you go to the Church of TestTube (or whatever its name may be). If it's not good enough for you, don't buy it.

[icruise]

Originally Posted by MarkLT1 

The price is a bit high for my blood..

But the real deal breaker for me? Integrated battery.. so when I have 40% of my battery life in 2-3 years, its going to be quite the endeavorer to replace it.

So you can't get an extra battery? That might be a dealbreaker for me as well...

I've really gotten used to having three batteries with my 12" Powerbook. I still get pretty good battery life with all of them, so I generally only use one or two in a day, but the third is there in case I forget or don't have time to recharge the others. Damn.

[Chuckit]

The only thing that would tempt me about the MacBook Air is the solid-state drive. That is covetable. I'm not totally infirm, though, so I don't need a tiny, tiny notebook. My PowerBook is small enough as it is.

(Well, I should clarify that I do think the size is nifty. It's just not cool enough to be worth the same price plus a bunch of tradeoffs.)

[lpkmckenna]

External batteries will appear. I don't think it's a big deal.

[icruise]

Bah, I have no interest in using an external battery with it. That defeats the purpose of having something so small and thin IMHO.

[Wiskedjak]

I think it's great that Apple finally released a sub-notebook. I do find their whole "wireless" idea a little bit of a stretch, however. It's no more or less "wired" than any other laptop. The only real innovation I see is the ability to borrow an optical drive from another Mac or PC.

I also find it funny that Apple wants to convince us that they're "ahead of the curve" by shedding the optical drive.

Otherwise, it's about time and the price point and specs seem appropriate for a sub-notebook.

[driven]

Well ... it's more wireless when you consider wireless or nothing. There is no ethernet port, internal, external or otherwise.

[DigitalEl]

I lust for it, but it's too expensive for me.

Not "too expensive," mind you... Just too expensive for me.

More beautiful stuff from Cupertino. Wow!

[striker100]

The MacBook Air is certainly cool. perhaps too cool. I was hoping more for a direct competitor to the Sony SZ and Dell XPS M1330 form factor with similar specs. The Sony SZ is light and small enough for me, I don't need the "thinest" notebook in the world. I guess if you're a power traveler I can see where it would be great and I certainly appreciate the technology and coolness factor which Apple does so well.

[ibook_steve]

My thoughts:

1. The flip-down ports door: This is number one on my list because I actually helped start the design investigation of this while I was at Apple in late 2004. I can tell you that this is *much* more complicated to design than it looks considering the requirements for mechanical stability and high-speed signal integrity. They've minimized the number of ports (only audio, 1 USB, and micro-DVI) and the door originally was going to be in the back instead of the side, but all that was probably a lot of work to design. Quite cool.

2. The price: I'm in the middle of the road on this. Going with $1799 reminds me too much of the Cube's initial price, and we all know where that went. But $1000 for SSD! Over $3000 for the 1.8 GHz config because of this! (You can't choose the standard drive over the SSD in the custom configuration. I just checked. Darn.) Right now, it's a little too rich for my blood, though the Reality Distortion Field® is working overtime.

3. Optical disk (or lack thereof): Thank goodness they didn't try to include it somehow, like on the bottom (lift your machine to access the drive!). The external and remote drive options are very cool. It will be interesting to see if it would be possible to do any realtime stuff (aka watch a DVD or burn a DVD) with Remote Disk.

4. Non-removable battery: Doesn't bother me too much with the possible battery life they are quoting.

Not too bad. Of course I want one, but I'll be curious to see what all of you have to say about it when you do get one.

(On a completely unrelated side note, I'm not happy about Time Capsule. Recently bought Airport Extreme and external drive hoping for wireless Time Machine backup (dropped from Leopard, probably because of Time Capsule), but Time Capsule kind of quashes that from ever happening.)

Steve

[DigitalEl]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak

I also find it funny that Apple wants to convince us that they're "ahead of the curve" by shedding the optical drive.

People expressed the same skepticism when the bondi iMac shrugged off floppies.

[fisherKing]

realize i'm gonna have to go play with it, pick it up. see how the glossy screen is for me (i hate them in general, but seems the way apple is headed).

see that they're bundling logic express with this, a good sign for me (i want to run reason on it, certainly less resource-hungry than logic E).

i wonder how hot this thing gets.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by ibook_steve 

Over $3000 for the 1.8 GHz config because of this! (You can't choose the standard drive over the SSD in the custom configuration. I just checked. Darn.)

But you can BTO the better processor in the lower model, which gives you exactly the same effect.

[The Placid Casual]

I'd love to know what exchange rate they are using on the French store too... starting at 1699 EURO! That's $2600 for the base model! :o

This has 'cube' written all over it.

[icruise]

Originally Posted by DigitalEl 

People expressed the same skepticism when the bondi iMac shrugged off floppies.

I thought he was referring to the fact that many Windows notebooks have done away with optical drives for years, so Apple is in fact way behind the curve on this one (although I'm sure their implementation will be better).

[DigitalEl]

Originally Posted by icruise

I thought he was referring to the fact that many Windows notebooks have done away with optical drives for years, so Apple is in fact way behind the curve on this one

Hyperbole on a Macworld stage? Naw!

Then I defer to your experience, as I have none with PC laptops.

[freudling]

Soon, all laptops will be this thin, including Apple's MacBook and MacBook Pro. I love how thin it is. It just makes sense. And, although with thinness one may have to compromise on features, like ports and optical drive, the more wireless we go, the less we have a need for these things. Bluetooth keyboards and mice, wireless printers, wireless install discs, wireless data backups. All of this is here and I am using all of it now. Most all the ports on my MacBook Pro go unused, as does the optical drive. These things are becoming superfluous to design, and Apple is setting the pace.

The price tag? Too much, I would pay at most $1599. $1799 is a stretch, but I would challenge anyone to demonstrate this is not cutting edge better than the rest. I guess for that, you pay a premium. I love the 13.3" screen and the more beefy 1.6 Core 2 Duo that you won't find in other subs, since Intel custom made it for this machine. A lot of research and development went into this, and, although it is very, very expensive, I am sure people will buy them up. Then Jobs will lower the price to $1599, then I will buy one.