Macworld
Posted by Qun.
Apple just announced Macbook Air. But no MBP update??? I was so waiting for today to finally replace my Powerbook. The screen of my powerbook is broken and basically I have to use it as a desktop. Roberto and Paul both once didn’t understand why I prefer using a bulky scratched old external monitor and keep the laptop lid half open and type awkwardly -_-b. The new MBA has very cool multi-touch trackpad and I would assume the next MBP will also have this. I guess I’ll have to wait longer. I hate apple!
January 15th, 2008 at 4:28 pm Using
I wouldn’t go so far as to say I hate apple, but I am disappointed that there’s no new MBP with a SSD.
Next time…next time.
January 15th, 2008 at 5:21 pm Using
I’ve been waiting for more than half a year. the update last June was disappointing so I decided to hold a little longer. then today
they’d better put something out within next week!! otherwise…otherwise…i’ll have to keep waiting -_-
January 15th, 2008 at 8:51 pm Using
The existing MacBook Pro has a multi-touch trackpad doesn’t it? That’s what enables doing the two finger scroll using the trackpad. Or do you want to do things like pinch to magnify or zoom out like on an iPhone? I’m just not sure how useful that is with a real laptop.
I’m really underwhelmed by the SSD on the new MacBook Air. It’s only 64 GB and it costs $1000. I’m not sure that size and cost really make me want one. Especially since you can get 250 GB laptop sized drives now for the mid $200s. There’s also the issue that the solid state drives are all based on flash memory which has a limited (if large) number of write cycles. Once you start to fill up the disk and write you swap to the same area of the disk over and over I wonder if that’s going to start triggering failures.
My officemate got a MBP right before Christmas and he’s pretty happy with his decision right now. The new Air laptop doesn’t have a replaceable battery, no ability to upgrade the hard drive, is limited to 2 GB of RAM, and only has small hard drives as an option. It seems like it would be a great second laptop, but I can’t really see someone using it as their primary machine. I mean, no ethernet port? Only one USB port? No firewire? No expresscard slot? (actually, including a little expansion slot would have added a heck of a lot to the machine.) And a conventional florescent backlight? Not to mention the use of shared memory in the video card.
I think the real sweetspot is going to be the next iteration on the MacBook. If they replace the screen with one with a LED backlight, I’ll buy one right away. Now that I have an iMac at home with a nice big screen, portability is as important as power for my laptop.
I
January 15th, 2008 at 8:54 pm Using
The MacBook Air is incredibly cool looking though, I do have to say that.
Everything else that Apple announced is amazing cool too. I want one of each.
Time Capsule: An airport extreme with a 1 TB hard drive built in, very cool.
The Apple TV updates: rent 720p movies with very reasonable terms without leaving the house
The iPhone update. I can just hit a button and it tells me where I am to within a hundred feet or so, and it works really well in my testing.
January 15th, 2008 at 8:59 pm Using
Oh, btw, I’m an idiot. I just figured out why the hard drive is only 80GB, parallel ATA, and 4200 RPM. They’re using 1.8″ drives instead of the standard 2.5″ drives. That explains a lot.
January 15th, 2008 at 11:02 pm Using
The multi-touch trackpad is not completely new and it’s probably possible that recent models may be able to realize the same function from some software update. It’s just when purchasing a new machine, I hope I can get the latest model considering I’ll use it for a long time and and the purchase is not exactly urgent.
Macbook Air is looking really good. It’s a nice carry-around machine, but not the primary machine. I’m very interested in Time Capsule, I think it’s very cool. If I have more than one computers at home, it’ll be very nice to have Time Capsule. Also I like the idea of cordless.