Why would anyone buy a MacBook Air?
We all remember the announcement of the MacBook Air with the image of sliding it out of an envelope showing us how thin it is. We were enamored of the thought of a Mac that is thinner than any other notebook out there and how portable it is. Then the reality set in and the high price coupled with the hardware compromises that Apple had to make with the Air began to get noticed by those who pay attention to such things but at the end of the day since it was the smallest MacBook available it still ruled the portable Mac roost. That all changed with the introduction of the new 13-inch MacBook and I can’t see why anyone would buy a MacBook Air today. Let’s take a look at the two notebooks and I’ll explain my reasoning.
MacBook Air
13-inch MacBook
Road warriors will be the first to jump all over a notebook that is thin and light. Carrying a notebook and accessories around while traveling is a chore at best and a nightmare at the worst. The MacBook Air at 3 pounds certainly makes it one of the easiest notebooks to carry around and it’s no question that Apple did a good job in this regard. When you look at what that light weight cost you in capability and price though you are wise to begin looking at alternatives.
The introduction of the new 13-inch aluminum MacBook is just that alternative. At less than an inch thick the MacBook packs a much larger wallop than the Air in a package not much bigger. When you compare the two notebooks feature for feature you begin to see how wide the capability margin is between the two (optional configurations used):
MacBook Air vs. MacBook
- Processor: 1.86 GHz vs. 2.4 GHz
- Hard drive: 120 GB 4200 rpm vs 250 GB 5400 rpm (SSD options available on both models)
- Memory: 2 GB vs 2 GB (4 GB available on MacBook)
- Optical drive: None vs. 8x double-layer SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
- Graphics: NVidia 9400M on both
- Battery: Integrated (37 W/hr) vs. user replaceable (45 W/hr)
- USB: One vs. Two
- Ethernet: None vs. 10/100/1000BASE-T (Gigabit)
To keep things fair I compare the high-end MacBook with the MacBook Air to give a feel for price comparison. The 1.86 GHz processor in the Air is a $200 option but I used it here to narrow the performance gap between the two models. Here’s what the pricing is currently for the two models as configured above:
MacBook Air: $1,999
MacBook: $1,599
If you think it’s not fair that I compare price with the faster Air processor here’s the price comparison with the slower 1.6 HGz processor:
MacBook Air: $1,799
MacBook: $1,599
Looking at this from any angle tells us that the Air is much more expensive for a lot less performance, primarily in the area of processor and hard drive speed. Add in the fact that you can bump the MacBook hard drive to 320 GB for $100, the memory to 4 GB for $150 and pick up a second battery for just $129 and you get the picture. Don’t get me wrong, the Air is 1.5 pounds lighter and is thinner than the MacBook. But is that slight weight difference worth the extra money, and at the expense of a big performance hit? Not to me and this is why I can’t understand why anyone would buy a MacBook Air today.
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Why you ask? Because it doubles as a cake slicer of course!
( http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/01/the-macbook-air-thin-enough-to-slice-a-cake/ )
Next time you are out and about with your Macbook, wanting to slice some cake, i bet you’ll be wishing you got a Macbook Air. :)
beacuse the screen of the MB-Air is much (much, much)better than the MB.
In fact, I cannot decide for any of the two. Will keep my MN-Pro 2007)
As everbrave stated, the LCD panel on the Air is much better quality… But if you needed the quality for business reasons – photoshop etc – then you’d probably go for a 15″ MacBook Pro.
Unfortunately there are always folk who will shout for Barabbas.
I’ll give you this much. This is a though choice. I was excited about the glass touchpad but I also worry about Mac’s 1.0 machines. I’d prefer to wait for the 2.0. The Air is a 2.0 now.
And the weight matters. I have been using 10.4/10.6″ screen notebooks since P1-133MHz (Toshiba). My first step upwards was the Powerbook 12″. It was too heavy. Then I went 12″ Windows for a year and now I have a 15″ MBP. I got the MBP over the MB because the weight difference was not significant but the performance difference really mattered at that time. I was running computationally heavy stuff for work.
Now I have a nice server at work running my stuff. All I need is a nice light laptop to browse the net, emails, RSS and Remote Desktop etc. Never used the CD so I don’t care about that.
So the question for me is not if I’ll get the MBA or the new MB. It is if I will give up OSX and get a netbook, produce a hackintosh or drop the cash for the new MBA.
In a world without netbooks, the Air would be an excellent idea.
Unfortunately, for Apple, the notebook world is a lot different today than it was a year ago. You can have small, thin, light and stripped down, at a stripped down price. Even Mac users have a hard time stomaching the price of the Air, especially when small computers can be had for peanuts these days.
I do applaud Apple for creating the Air, though. To me, it’s sort of like a concept car that came out of concept and actually went into production. It’s not the most practical computer in the world, but man is it pretty.
Apple needs to give the people what they want and shrink the Air down to a netbook sized device. Heck, they could even give it an Apple price tag. They could own the netbook market.
I believe the new aluminum MacBook has the same LED backlit display as the Air.
I see what you mean James; I also got my wife the Macbook which we tried to choose between both the Air and the Macbook, but at the end the Macbook out weighed the Air. I personally picked up a copy of the family Leopard and installed on my Macbook Pro and picked up the Gigabyte M912 last month and installed Vista and Leopard on it. So now I have the MacNano at 8.9″ LCD. :)
Unfortunately, no: the new MacBook display is still a TN matrix and far inferior to the screen on the Air. As everbrave states, it is really the one thing that makes choosing between the two a challenge. Performance is *adequate* either way, especially with the chipset refresh on the Air and, as you say, the weight difference is not big enough to really matter anymore.
So, why would anyone care about the inferior TN matrix in the MB? Well, one reason (for me, at least) it that reviewing pictures downloaded from a camera in the field is an exercise in frustration on a TN display. There is a tiny viewing angle where color and contrast are accurate enough to know whether pictures are usable or not.
Are you sure that the new MacBook’s screen is different? I have researched it and can’t find any reference that the screen is different than that in the Air. I did find a test graphic that is designed to highlight displays that are TN matrix and my MacBook displays it properly. I’m stuck trying to prove that the MacBook and new MacBook Pro screens are not the same as that in the Air.
First,
It didn’t take the new MacBook to make this comparision valid. I performed the same comparision the day the Air was announced, and bought a white MacBook as a result.
Second, there’s little question the new MacBook has narrowed the gap even further, as you point out. The improvements the Air received simply keep pace, whereas the MacBook received improvements that put it solodly in the Air’s league.
Third, while the MacBook’s new LED display is a great improvement over the olde model’s, it’s not the same as the Air’s. The MBA has a better display still. Some have complained about this but, really, for a machine that start at $500 more why shouldn’t it have an even better display?
Finally, for all the above I still think the Air get short shrift sometimes. The newest Air with the 1.86 GHz processor performs as well as (if not better) than the 2.0GHz MacBook of just a year ago. That’s amazing. Compare that to the average netbook — which are woefully underpowered — that are trounced by mainstream laptops of a year ago (or even two).
You answered your own question when you said “Don’t get me wrong, the Air is 1.5 pounds lighter and is thinner than the MacBook.” That’s the answer. Processor speed, RAM and those other stats don’t matter for 90% of users. Even hard disk size is not an issue for users who spend most of their time in front of a browser.
For some of us, that 1.5 lbs matters. When I’m traveling to a conference, I always have a laptop, a camera, 3-5 lenses, and spare batteries on my back. Being on my feet for 12 hours, I definitely notice an extra pound or two of weight.
Lower the weight and improve the battery life a bit more by replacing a spindle with an SSD drive and you’ve got something.
Isn’t this a site that focuses on portability? The Air is almost as powerful, but far more totable.
Strange you pump netbooks and ask a question like this. Why does someone but a $549 ten inch netbook and not a $299 14 inch real notebook? Same reason that some prefer weight and size over functionality.
Slight weight difference? It’s 50% heavier (using your numbers… I didn’t verify independently). ’nuff said.
I traded up from a first gen Air to a MB 2.4 w/ the SSD, and it completely smokes the Air in terms of connectivity and speed. However, if I had waited, I would have really had to think over the 2nd gen Air… The trackpad on the new mac stinks (really loud), and the screen is no where near the original Air or new one.
The extra lb of the MB is also a bummer. That being said, I am pretty happy with the MB 13.
As a new Gen2 1.86 SSD MB Air owner, let me chime in on why I bought it. First off, I originally bought the new MB 2.4, but decided to read the forums before opening it, and saw all of the complaints and photo proof of the sub-par screens. Took it back, upgraded to the MB Pro 2.8, but again left it closed until I read up on it. Saw that the screen hinges are very loose on many machines, went back to the Apple Store and definitely saw this was the case compared to the MB. Returned this one as well, decided on the MB Air after seeing the initial benchmark results from early buyers.
On the walk out to the car, I immediately “got it” as to why people dig the Air – the weight, or lack of it. I could really tell a *huge* difference on my shoulder just carrying all three MB boxes out of the store. It might not seem like it, but 1.5 pounds makes a difference.
And as others have mentioned, the screen on the Air is most definitely not like the one on the MB, it is far superior and is very obvious in an Apple Store when you can see them side by side and at varying angles. Plus, there is no glass panel over the screen creating more refections than necessary. The Air has a semi-glossy screen, and it is the best I have used on a notebook, without a doubt.
As for the speed, the Gen2 with SSD is amazing…boots into OSX in just under 20 seconds for me. Gorgeous screen, silent, large trackpad with an actual button, 6MB L2 cache (MB only has 3MB on both configs), this machine is everything I was looking for. Besides, I have a MacPro octo-core, so the Air is just my secondary machine.
I am the targeted market for the Air, and I know there are many others out there…
Very interesting thread! My base station is a couple of year old 17″ iMac running Leopard (fine for my needs). I also had the first generation white MacBook and loved it. Sold it to a friend who is thrilled to use it daily as her only computer. As a quick replacement for travel, I bought a netbook, the Dell Mini 9. It is a nice, light device but the keyboard layout is not wonderful and XP is not as pleasant as OS X in my book. I just succumbed to the 3G iPhone to replace an aging Blackberry. For me, the iPhone has taken up much of what the netbook was used for. Now rethinking what the future might hold and I must say that I am leaning back towards something with OS X and it may very well be the MBA – next generation (?) I would encourage Apple to continue to evolve the MBA – definitely heading in the right direction as the netbooks tend to be growing a bit (i.e. Dell 12)
I saw the Air advertised for $1299 in Houston newspaper ad by by a reputable retailer – the analysis might change in favor of the Air at that price.
I’m having the same debate about the MacBook vs the Air. I currently have an 3.06Ghz iMac at home, so I’m not looking for ultimate power, really just portability and a good screen.
I have been using the HP Mini Note 2133 for about 4 months, and whilst the form factor is great, I’m starting to struggle with the small screen, esp if I have to show anybody else what I’m working on.
I’m also not really enjoying having OSX on my desktop in the office and not having OSX when out on the road, I do miss the Apple applications and ways of doing things.
There are a number of reasons the Air appeals to me.
1. Weight – I know that 1.5lbs extra for the Macbook will hurt!
2. Screen – I need to compare side by side, but the view that the Air has a “semi” gloss screen appeals.
3. Smaller AC Adapter, my understanding is that the AIR’s AC adapter is smaller than the MacBooks?
4. Cool …. it is the thinnest notebook in the world … still?!
The difference is that on my day trip from SF to LA for business this week, I barely noticed the weight and size of my MacBook Air in my small Dickie’s bag – I would have noticed the 4.5 lbs MacBook…
Thickness and weight matter. On this day trip I only needed to pack one thing: my computer and AC adapter.
The alternative would have been for me to take my modded Acer Aspire One, but I decided that I’d rather have the better Core 2 Duo performance, larger 13.3″ screen, nicer backlit full-size keyboard, smaller AC adapter, and choice of OS’s!
Many good points in the comments. Ironically, I was in the King of Prussia Apple store not long after this post went live. I went for the sole purpose of looking at these two device options. It looks like there are better viewing angles on the Air than on the MacBook but I found the LCD on the MB to be good enough for my needs.
I’ll likely be replacing my early 2007 MBP with this purchase and that’s the key driver for which I’ll get. If I were supplementing the MBP with a new Mac, I’d lean towards the Air. Since I’m replacing my Mac, I’m going to need the extra performance of the MB as it will be my sole Mac for both home office and mobile use. Both machines are nice, but I’ll opt for more “bang for buck” given the situation. It would be a *completely* different story if I was keeping my MBP.
I’ve noticed this in the blogosphere in general, but it’s weird to find it at a blog devoted to mobile computing. That is:
The blog talks about how mobility is important and the future of how we’ll do computing. On the other hand, we get these posts that basically say that extra mobility isn’t worth any money and we’re better off getting the most bang for the buck.
The reason why one might pay extra for a MacBook Air is, as several people have already commented, if being 1.5 lbs lighter and being thinner than a MacBook is important enough to pay for. The argument is that there is inherent value in the form factor. If there were never value inherent in the form factor then we’d all buy desktops. They have even better bang for the buck than any laptop.
The only reason we are having this conversation is the odd phenomena of the netbook. Someone (ASUS) decided that they should deliver extra mobility at low cost. So now the baseline is that less powerful, smaller machines are cheap, whereas apple still tries to charge a premium following the old and outdated business model of charging extra for the extra mobility.
As for myself, I had a PB 12″ and it was too big though much better than… every other mac. But after experiencing OSX I never wanted to let go. I am just glad they offer something mobile after the long gap between the PB 12″ and the MBA. This being said, I still did not commit to buying. But I will, soon.
Don’t misread my intentions, I do firmly agree that mobility is important. What I do believe is that the MacBook is very mobile, not as light nor as thin as the Air but highly mobile in its own right. If the new MacBook was big and clunky I would not be questioning if the Air is worth the extra money. But it’s not so it’s something that must be considered.
One other point I would be remiss if I overlooked is that I believe the MacBook with the unibody construction will be much more durable given heavy traveling as opposed to thinner Air which seems more fragile. That’s just my opinion, I don’t have an Air to compare with the MacBook but the MB is very durable.
I wouldn’t use either one, why would I overpay for either laptop when I can pay less money for a comparable PC. Yes the Air is a bigger rip-off but Mac fan boys and girls love to overpay.
Do you know which device Apple pioneered the unibody construction with? Yep, the MacBook Air.
I’ve put mine through its paces (it gets tossed around in my messenger bag 5 days a week, not to mention the occasional business trip) and it’s still like new after 9 months. I really don’t think durability is a problem!
Here’s another reason I took my MBA with me instead of my Acer Aspire One last week: double the battery life. Granted, my AA1 features the 3-cell battery…
Some good comments above that prove once again that there are different strokes for different folks. I bought an early MBA and absolutely love it. The weight is everything for me as a hyper-mobile senior citizen working at a different site almost every day. No way could I get buy with a net book, but I can get by without an optical drive and I have a USB hub for those occasions.
I love the weight advantage. I did look at the new macbooks yesterday, but I will keep my MBA for now.
“Looking at this from any angle tells us that the Air is much more expensive for a lot less performance”
Yep, but the Air is great for those who value portability and style over performance. It’s not for the “I really need that extra few megahertz” crowd.
Besides, people can have it both ways by using a primary computer optimized for performance when at home, and the portability-oriented device when traveling (which sounds like a logical thing to do). In this case, the hardware compromises are actually beneficial. Who needs a faster CPU (heat, noise, worse battery life), an optical drive, etc (thicker, heavier), when you have a 24-inch iMac or even a Mac Pro for the heavy lifting?
I love the Macbook – it is a fine machine, but it is no Air! I have owned an Air for a few months now and it has completely changed my computing habits!
The Air is so light and thin that I carry it in a folder into every meeting and have all of my documents with me at all times. I got the ethernet adaptor (which I have to use in my office since we have no wifi for security reasons). I also got the external DVD drive. Honestly, I have probably only used the DVD drive four times in the few months I’ve owned it!
So, I love the Air!
I do miss the USB ports (1 is NOT enough, and it is even worse since I cannot use my DVD drive AND my ethernet adaptor at the same time… The DVD drive will not work in a USB port replicator…), and the only other downside is the recessed earphone jack. I now keep an iPhone (1.0) recessed phone jack adaptor with me so that I can connect RCA cables for presenations.
But, other than these two minor irritations, I love my AIR! Oh, did I mention that with the batterygeek external battery and the magsafe adaptor I am able to get about 18 hours of use out of my AIR!? Perfect for LONG flights!
Typing on my new SSD MacBook Air about 24 hours after receiving it. This thing is revolutionary! I got the SSD Rev 2 model to make sure I have enough horsepower to use it as my main computer on a daily basis. I also have a daily walk downtown through open space and want to bring a light laptop along about 1/2 the time. My iPhone can carry the load the other days. I have a 2 year old MacBook Pro which I plan to keep as a backup and to use when I want a larger screened laptop. I also have an iMac 24 2.8ghz. I believe right now I’ll use this Air for 80% of my computing. The weight and form factor makes this a GREAT experience as a *lap* top. It is so comfortable to have on my lap. So easy to move around. Feels revolutionary to me. It’s kind of expensive but I like a good tool and am willing to pay extra to get one that is really good.
To me Macs are just made to a higher standard – especially with the details that are often skipped on lesser machines. I greatly appreciate that high quality. I totally disagree that Apple is price gouging with the Air. It does cost more to make things smaller – we know that. Netbooks just cut more corners which is great for what they are.
Note that battery capacity is specified in units of Wh which is Watt times hour. Power is Energy over time. Just do some calculations like this: 40Wh / 10 W = 4h … and you’ll see why 4/h is not as useful as 4h.
poor apple, it runs nivida and intel and components built in china, why on earth can u charge 2K for this