Maybe I'd be slightly more productive with a Mac Pro and two 27'' screens. On the other hand, with the Air, I can code in bed (and I do).
But it's so much cheaper than any MacBook Pro with a SSD!
See http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/05/new-intel-ulv-proc...
E.g. the MacBook Pro 15" (i5) comes with a Nvidia GeForce GT 330M.
Does the i5/i7 and related chipset dependencies take up more space maybe? They seem overall more performant and better battery savers than the Core 2 Duo.
http://images.apple.com/macbookair/images/specs_flashdrive_2...
USB drive with Mac OS X?
http://www.jp.sonystyle.com/Special/Computer/Vaio/Z/index.ht... (quad SSDs available only in Japan)
I love OS X, but I feel like a retard for sticking with Apple hardware when they're outfitting "the next generation of Macs" with the previous generation of processors.
And I hate to think what more they could include if they weren't so obsessed with the tapered edge. More than 4 GB of RAM? A real SSD? WWAN?
I've been holding off on replacing my Dell, hoping Apple would announce a more powerful 13" model of some sort. My Dell has been technically excellent (LED backlit display, SSD, etc), but the build quality is distractingly bad. So, I've been seriously considering biting the bullet and getting a Macbook.
As impressive as the rest of the new Air seems, it's tough to justify buying ~2008 technology two months from 2011. It's hard to believe there's not a single 13" Macbook available with a Core i5 or Core i7 yet.
I guess Apple could also be faulted for wanting to standardize on decent graphics, but I just can't bring myself to see that as anything but a good thing!
It will be interesting to see how this changes with time. Sandy Bridge, Intel's upcoming CPU release, has graphics on die, but it will still be vastly outclassed by the nVidia 320M that's in the new Air. Unless Intel comes along with vast improvements with their 22nm refresh, Ivy Bridge, Apple's still going to be in the same bind - in 2012.
Jobs said they weren't interested in that market because too cut-price, but now it's died down a bit.
It will be interesting to see if Apple ease-of-use etc will be enough to win yet another market - I think it might.
