I wouldn't let the lack of an official method to replace the battery deter me from buying one of these. Just like there are third-party kits that have arrived in the marketplace to replace iPod batteries, I'm sure that the aftermarket will rush in to fill this vacuum if it is at all possible for the consumer to take apart a Macbook Air.

I can't wait to see the MBA in person. I thought the TZ was small, but this is about 35% smaller (by volume), is cheaper, and runs more / better software.

You can already run just about anything on the Apple TV.

http://www.appletvhacks.net

Had a look at the advert, read a transcript of the keynote, checked the specs. It looks lovely. It really is nice. It is small, lightweight, easy to pack, nice wifi.

It is everything I don't want. Small hard drive, glossy screen, no optical drive, no firewire.

*sigh*

OK, my background. Migrated my desktops from XP to Mac soon after the Bootcamp beta became available (although in fact have never needed to use it), but have used a Dell X1 for a couple of years which I absolutely love; the main reason being its lightness. I use it solely for playing movies when travelling (I rip my DVDs to the HDD and use Daemon Tools to mimic an optical drive rather than take the external drive with me), browsing, MS Office, and watching streamed video on my home network. I'm really struggling to think of anything fundamentally I find wrong with the X1, although its age is starting to show (screen starting to bleed slightly, and I'm not convinced the HDD has much life left).

I've been thinking recently of upgrading the laptop, but nothing else has really grabbed me. Could this new Mac be for me? Is there anything comparable in the Wintel sector I should be looking at instead? The only reservation I can see with the Air is the connectivity issue - some places I travel to I need to use wired ethernet or even sometimes (ugh) dial-up, so I'd need to carry separate USB adaptors for those.

Also, is it as easy to rip DVDs to a Mac as it is to a PC? I currently rip using a combination of DVD Decrypter and DVD Region+CSS (legitimate DVDs here in HK come with a variety of region encoding, so I need a way of "cracking").

Finally, I can't find any specs about the size of the Mac AC adaptor - again, one of the things I love about the Dell is that the adaptor is both tiny and feather-light.

Cheers all.

A reason to have one?

-David

Perfect for my husband^ Just placed an order

The one obvious thing missing to me is mobile broadband, but I could see how they're waiting on WiMax or something. Doesn't someone offer a USB key mobile broadband card?

I dunno why they don't at least have the 160GB 1.8" HD as an option. I haven't found a source but I've been told the retail on the 64GB solid state is about the same $1000 as Apple is charging. You have to *really* want that speed and I would guess it has a bit better battery life. The other $300 in the difference of the two models you see on the store page is the faster processor. You can get either upgrade separately, though.

As with the iPhone, a *lot* of people will scream about the non-user-replaceable battery, and plenty of people will not care and buy it anyway. It isn't exactly a slam-dunk mix of the right compromises for everyone, I'm sure, but I'm guessing it'll have enough fans in the end. For my own use, for example, there's nothing missing I would care about on a daily basis. I'm lugging an optical drive back and forth to work every day that I use every couple months if that. Even watching movies on the plane could be overcome (rip DVDs, or as I'm sure Apple would prefer use that rental service), although a very long flight you'd reach the end of the battery unless you have access to power on the plane. If they finally license that damn power connector maybe you'll see a market in external battery boost for this thing.

Perhaps Steve Jobs can talk you out of it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/te...ref=technology

I can understand trade-offs to make it lighter, but only Apple could make trade-offs to make it thinner.

And only Apple could say laptop buyers may not appreciate the trade-offs because Apple knows you'll buy it anyway.

It is sexy, but not enough sexier than my Vaio SZ to make me drool all that much. Plus it would cost me another $300 to dump Leopard for Windows so that my necessary applications would run.

From a corporate perspective, Apple has another big winner. They have their niche well targeted. I'm just close enough to their demographic that I can feel the waves of lust and envy passing just outside my "space" without rushing out to buy.

Yes, there are USB EVDO adapters (and even WiMax).

But then you are kind of defeating the purpose of a thin machine. On a trip you'll need the USB Ethernet adapter, a VGA dongle, a USB mobile broadband card, the USB superdrive, possibly a USB card reader and a USB hub. If you go with something 0.06" thicker you get a machine with all of that built in AND an optical drive AND all the ports you need.

It's a REAL trade off, and I'm convinced there is a market for it, but I'm not sure the market consists of that many roadwarriors.

Yup. It's market is the computer as jewelry.

More open access to the underlying OS would have been nice. At this point i'm waiting for an upgraded mini as that will better suit my needs for an entertainment center computer.

There is a huge amount of fuss about not being able to replace the iPod batteries as they die before just about any other component.

Yup.

One stop shopping with handbreak, www.handbrake.fr

Maybe not most roadwarriors, but some. I dunno. I'm no roadwarrior, but when I do hit the road for work I could do without the optical drive, card reader, hub, video out and mobile broadband. If I did need something USB, I wouldn't likely need to have more than one attached at the same time. If I wanted a card reader, I'd want it to be external anyway because I'd want to be able to use it on more than one machine. Probably ditto for the mobile broadband, really, although I really think that should be built in. At this stage in our offices I would still need the USB ethernet adapter, but that's it. Or, actually, I could just take an AirPort Express, which I do anyway for the hotel room. That should work in the offices as well if I wanted. At over 2lbs less than my MacBook Pro, I wouldn't mind the tradeoff. But I'm not really in a position to change it right now, I don't think. I'm sorta trying to find a way. ;-)

I'm not saying it's the best tradeoff for everyone, not at all. I'm just thinking I can see how Steve/Apple came to the conclusion that this would be enough, because it seems like it would work okay for me.

Yeah, I don't need to bring along any of that crap. I just tether via Bluetooth to my phone if I don't have Wifi, and I haven't needed an optical drive in years except to install an OS, what with sharing. I've never replaced a battery in a laptop.

I get that some people's needs aren't met by the MBA. What I don't get is why all the caterwauling. Nobody has to buy one - Sony will be happy to sell those people a VAIO that looks like Frankenstein by comparison. For me, I ordered the second the Apple store came back online.