Wow the anti-mac vibe is strong here. The wya a lot of the mac detractors talk you would think that they live purely utilitatrian lives owning nothing but the pure basics that they need to survive.

Not every purchase is purely about function for all people. Sometimes it is nice to won nice things. If you can afford the MBA and it serves your needs then why not buy it. I have a Tag heuer watch - sure I could buy a cheaper seiko that maybe has multiple timezones but that is something I can live without or work around - I like the style of my watch and it does what I need it to do.

The MBA serves my needs perfectly - gaming, office apps, wireless, video watching and editing - all fine with MBA. Better integration into my home network (mac based). I will carry some peripherals as I do with my 12.1in Dell Lattitude 410 - mouse, optical drive, externall HDD. I travel frequently on long haul international and use onboard power with any problems (aside from the QF 763s) and in business class the larger screen is a benefit rather than a cost. I travel 2 hours per day by train and this would be great to work on the train as well.

It has limitations - but then so does a Honda Civic so I wont buy a Honda Civic. Equally I wont lecture someone who buys a Civic about all things I need that it doesnt have. Not sure why there is this burning desire from Mac detractors to repeatedly tell people that this computer is terrible.

Just one question - why the obsession with masturbation anritek? Two comments in your four last posts on this topic reflects perhaps your obsession .

Yeeehaaaaw, we're all a goin' to Omni!!

I have yet to see any "anti-Mac" post here that was serious.

I thought that we were having a discussion about the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Air. If on the other hand you are another Defender of the Faith orthodoxy I guess I understand how you see any discussion that questions anything Mac as being "anti".

Let me say it again, Apple and their efforts have been good for all consumer computer users and I sincerely hope that the Air serves well whomever here chooses to buy one. ^

With an Intel X3100? Well, I suppose - solitaire, Tetris, hearts...

Except WWAN.

Possibly - if you have all day and work in less-than HD resolutions. But then where do you store all of that edited video while on the road?

This gets my vote for understatement of the year.

When I see a group of geeks sitting on the curb slobbering and grinning from ear-to-ear all the while pulling their puds I gotta call it as I see it.

Have any of you True Believers noticed that until you started in with the personal stuff all of the criticism from the other side was aimed solely at the hardware - not the person.

Seriously, lighten up just a bit. ^

Love the Tag also. As for the MBA - as I stated above. I'm having some reservations. Will have to see when I get it.

Seriously indeed. People should save getting riled up like this for important topics like strippers. My current high speed data is either WiFi or USB modem (Verizon EvDO). I can also BT tether. Neither should be a problem with the Air. Basically, compared to my 13in PB Im giving up a USB port, a Firewire I never use, the capacity for a spare battery which I dont carry and an internal optical drive that I seldom use. Im also giving up the ability to carry the roughly 120 gb of music and Canon Raw images I have on my current PB which has a 200 gb drive. Im gaining not carrying 2 pounds. That is an easy trade for me. The smaller size is also nice. Well, actually Im not giving that stuff up since I will have the PB and can carry that if I need the hard drive space for some reason. Or put everything on there onto a 250 gb USB drive which weighs a couple onces and I can carry or not. Im pretty happy with the trade offs. It looks from the reviews above that the guts, CPU an bus, stuff like that are good. I can finesse the rest for the weight advantage.

Cool, as I said - I hope it does what you need it to do.

I guess that it just seems to me that with the Air, Apple was more concerned with the rather arbitrary title of "world's thinnest" and ignored some very important issues about functionality.

Looking at some other 3 lb laptops currently out there from Sony, Toshiba, etc. it looks like Apple could have made the Air just a little bit thicker and then included some of the more important missing ports and a user replaceable battery [perhaps even a slot-loading DVD drive].

There would be too much overlap with the Macbook.

These other 3lbs computers are also at a higher price point than the MBA.

They may also have smaller screens. Not sure about that but I think at least several of them do have smaller screens.

On the contrary -- the Macbook weighs twice as much as the MBA. What I was hoping for was Macbook functionality in a < 3lbs package. The Sony provides that (and my T-series cost under $1,500 new). If only it could run OS X.

Just be sure to carry a USB extension cable, Engadget already discovered that USB EVDO modem's don't fit in the folding USB port of the AIR

Really, for all the design effort Apple put into their products, they always manage to screw up at least one minor detail.

Yeah, that one really struck me as odd. Today I read both that and that Steve said one of the reasons they left the 3G out of the Air was because it would have locked you into one provider (not that they had a problem with this with the iPhone!) whereas a USB 3G modem allows you to choose. Well, not so nice if it doesn't fit! I'm sure it'll be a lovely niche for one of the accessory makers for a while, a tiny USB adapter, maybe at a 90-degree angle even, so that you can plug in something like that.

I also wanted to point out this comparison of light notebooks. It is clearly from a Mac-oriented site but breaks down the tradeoffs for each of the covered models pretty well, both pro and con. http://www.appleinsider.com/articles...notebooks.html

Thanks for the tip. I was actually wondering about that, the things is a bit wide. There may have even been an extension cable with the modem, if I can manage to find it.

Proof positive of what? I don't own a Mac, I have never owned an Apple computer, nor am I planning on buying one.

I'm pretty happy with my Dell XPS m1330. (and the rest of the windows and linux desktops that I build myself.)

If Apple made something that was competitive with my m1330, I might consider buying it.

-David

Walt Mossberg of the WSJ has a nice even-handed review of the Macbook Air. It dishes out the bad news with the good about this model.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120113632301711881.html

My point, were I not being clear enough, is that I would prefer to discuss the hardware rather than the people who own it.