I am clearly not an Apple person. Indeed, I’m beginning to believe that Macintosh computers represent everything wrong with the world today. They, like much of the world and especially those who are media-obsessed, are all about style over substance. Reality must be suspended in order to swallow the hype, especially as presented by Steve Jobs. This is such an accepted phenomenon that it has been dubbed the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field (RDF).
This was last seen with the iPhone, which is somehow declared to be a “smartphone” yet isn’t. Because of that RDF declaration, Jobs claims the iPhone is a huge market success, with some unholy percentage of the smartphone market already, just behind RIM (Blackberry), and no one else having even 10% of the market. But to buy that you have to accept the iPhone as a smartphone, which it isn’t. And once you realize that it’s not then the RDF collapses and you’re left with a high-priced multi-media phone, a device which is defining its own niche and doing so quite well, thank you very much.
Maybe this is all a result of confusion over exactly what sort of company Apple is. Is it a hardware company (the Macintosh computers) or is it a software company (the OS X operating system)? It’s sorta both. If you want a Mac you’re going to get OS X, period, and if you want OS X you’re going to get a Mac, period. If you want a Mac to run a different operating system, fine, but you still paid for OS X, and if you want OS X and not a Mac well...tough! (Though if you’re clever enough you can assemble a Hackintosh.)
And now we have the new MacBook Air (MBA), for which Jobs activates his RDF and tells the world is a revolutionary new subnotebook.
Only it’s not. It’s too big. Skinny, yes. Relatively lightweight, yes. However skinny only applies to one of three dimensions, so it’s still big, bigger than is generally accepted for a subnotebook. So it’s not. And once you realize that the RDF collapses and you’re left with...what? I’m really not sure. The design shows an anorexic obsession with being thin, yet it’s only really thin near the front. At the rear it swells to almost an inch in thickness, not that much thinner than Apple’s other notebook computers. And as with anorexia, thinness comes at a cost, namely a loss of common notebook features.
Then there’s the usual Apple hurdle, price. The base 1.6GHz model costs $1799. It’s $300 if you want the “faster” 1.8GHz chip. It’s another $99 if you want a matching, external optical drive. Another $29 if you need a wired network connection, since the thing is all about wireless networking. There’s the hidden cost of battery replacement, since you can’t do it yourself. As of today it’s $129 for the battery with free install at your Apple store, but will that prevail over the life of the computer?
The MBA’s technical specifications are pretty vanilla. Both the “consumer-grade” MacBook (MB) and “professional-grade” MacBook Pro (MBP) kick its ass. Which returns us to price. For $200 more than the MBA you can get the base MBP. You have a larger case and a bit more weight (five pounds versus three) but in exchange you end up with a notebook computer that can take the place of your desktop. The MBA’s design and presentation (that RDF again) assumes you have a desktop computer to sponge off of, while the MBP is quite content to be all by itself.
Worse, from my point of view, is that you can spec out a “consumer” MB to match the MBA and save $550. You surrender skinny, gain two pounds, and you lose the LED backlighting and lit keyboard, and the multi-touch touchpad. Is all of that worth $550?
In return for saving that money, you get a faster processor, faster HDD, more connectors, a battery you can replace yourself, and a combo optical drive. If you hate white and want black (and really, who doesn’t?) then you still save $150 and get an even faster processor and double the HDD storage space. Oh, and a Superdrive.
So who is the MBA for? I imagine there are those who simply must have the latest styling statement from Apple. After all, there are those who actually believe Paris Hilton is sexy. Then there are those who do word work on the road. A lot of word work. And a lot of travel. And have a good sized budget for road toys. These people exist and for them, three pounds is always preferable to five pounds. They won’t care about optical drives because they aren’t installing stuff on the road. They’re writing, reviewing, editing, and transmitting. For them the MBA might seem like a godsend.
But for anyone else? Is losing two pounds and jettisoning all sorts of other features worth the price premium? Alternately, is the cost savings of $200 worth losing all the versatility of the full-sized MBP?
That’s the question for MacFanbois, though, because I can get an excellent Dell Vostro laptop that’s in the same weight/feature range as the MBP and costs under $800.
So I’m left with my original statement, that I am clearly not an Apple person.
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