Apple MacBook Air stays skinny, gains beefier specs

Apple's MacBook Air remains as skinny as ever following today's laptop launch, but buyers now get much better graphics, a faster processor and more storage space. The original Air's HDD was its key weakness, so the 80GB parallel ATA drive's gone, replaced by a bigger, faster, 120GB SATA unit. The SSD Air is now offers 128GB of …

[Nick Mallard]

Getting there, but there's still no cigar.

If those were the release specs, It might have been worth a buy - for £800. Anything more and you're just urinating away money which could have been spent saving a bank. Money is still better spent on one of those new Samsung efforts and put up with something that's a couple of millimetres thicker.

Keep trying, Apple, and one day you might actually have a product worth buying to people that are neither mere fanboys or want something more than just a fashion accessory.

[Philip]

@Nick Mallard

Nice to see you're first up waving the anti-'fanboi' pitchfork, Nick. Pity no-one's told you how old it's getting. Or how it's not working.

[Michael]

Special Report!

...we interrupt your regularly scheduled program to bring you live footage from the basement of a typical Apple Fanboy...

OH MY GOD!!!!! HOW DARE YOU SAY ANYTHING LESS THAN WORSHIPFUL OF THE AWESOMENESS THAT IS THE MACBOOK AIR!!! HERESY!!! BLASHPHEMY!!! BURN THE WITCH!!!!!!!!!!1111

now back to your regularly scheduled program...

[Anonymous Coward]

Very nice bit of kit

Very, very tempted by it - the 128 Gb SSD option is especially attractive.

[Chris C]

Currency conversion rate?

"$1799/£1299"

Huh? Forgive me, but I've been too busy to read the news for the past few months... When the hell did the pound become so devalued? I am, of course, assuming the pound was devalued since there's little chance the USD actually increased in value... Last I knew, it was about a 2:1 ratio; now it's closer to 1.4:1?

[Webster Phreaky]

Apple's Biggest Bomb since the Cube .....

Since it's release some 18 months ago, I have seen only ONE in any owners hands at our two Community College campuses, 5 high schools and 26 primary/secondary schools; and that includes teachers, admins or students. As Dir of IT for the our school dist, not one employee has made a request for one. (not that I'd approve it anyway.)

Perhaps Apple should consider selling these over in Iran, Iraq or Pakistan where they appreciate a good BOMB.

[Nick Mallard]

@ Philip

Wasn't specifically a dig at fanboys in that fashion - I meant a large proportion of sales of these and similar Apple products are to people who generally like Apple hardware; naturally I'm not one of them.

It is a huge improvement on the original as I said, although still isn't quite "there yet". I'd certainly not say it's a bomb, and I'd also like to agree with Chris C regarding currency - the rates have gone completely haywire, I can only assume it's something to do with the current banking crisis. (Can tell I've been playing games too long, I kept wondering where the Y is in crisis!). Annoying really, it's been nice buying the cheap $5 games on Steam for £2.50! ;)

[Steven Raith]

@webster

Funnily enough, closer to the socio-economic demographic that the Air aims for, such as executives, well paid design types etc, I have seen a few web designers and graphic artists with them, along with a few well dressed types with them on the train.

I wouldn't class most teachers as having the income to justify a purchase like an Air - I've worked in schools doing support long enough to know that most teachers jackets aren't stuffed with £20 notes.

I had a poke with one a while back [an Air, not a teacher, although we had some lovely ones....] when I showed an interest with a commuter on a quiet, late night train - I'm not a particular apple fanboi or hater, but it *is* a nice bit of kit to play with.

I couldn't justify £1400 on a laptop though - for all it'd get used for I'd be better off getting an SCC/laptot/mid-level Vostro for £500. But then, I'm not the top end ABC1 with several hundred quid a month disposable income that high end Apple kit tends to appeal to.

If I was....hmm, I think I probably would TBH.

Hope that helps.

Steven R

[Anonymous Coward]

Are some STILL missing the point?

LOOK!, for all those whiney little prats out there who really don't get the point here it is one more time.

The Macbook Air is designed for people who spend a lot of time on the move and away from the office/base.

The general idea is that you or your tekey tech can maintain and up date the Air along with adding and removing data, through a new thing just creeping in to the industry called THE - WIRE-LESS-NET-WORK. This reduces the need for millions of ports and sockets etc which would make the machine fat and heavy.

So you take you fully updated Air from your office drive 500 miles to a conference take out your laptop, maybe plug in for power and notice that conference rooms and board rooms don't have millions of cables strewn everywhere to plug in to all those vital ports you all want so badly.

Back to your hotel plug in for power again and back up all you days data to disk using the Air's USB optical drive, then you hook up to the hotel wireless network and send some email,a short video meeting with your boss, which you use head phone for, then you may want to relax and watch a film, again, using your USB optical drive to play the DVD.

At this point you will realize that both your arms are still the same length or that you shoulders haven't assumed a diagonal slant that makes you look like you should be ringing a church bell in France.

Sure you won't see many Air's in schools, but I've seen plenty coming out of rucksacks and brief cases at meetings and far less laptop bags cluttering the floor.....

[Ben Bradley]

Looks nice...

If you're into that kind of thing.

Still has only 1 USB port, and no ethernet, PC Card/ExpressCard, modem, hot-swappable batteries... just no good for an ultra-mobile machine. Or any machine.

Discrete graphics, can't be good for battery life.

The iTards will still buy them though

[piper]

Sony Z series

If I had that sort of money to fritter, I'd buy a Sony Z series every time. I reckon it looks nicer, probably lighter, has a better battery life, is far more powerful, actually has a better keyboard (despite looking the same...) and has a usable amount of ports.

And since when was nVidia's GeForce 8400M an integrated GPU?? Apparently is, according to El Reg and Apple's Website.. Shame on you, it's dedicated!

Close, but no cigar indeed.

[Tony Smith, Editor, Reg Hardware]

@piper

It's the *9400M* which is the integrated part, as it says here and on Apple's website.

[Hywel Thomas]

Will you stupid c**ts never learn ?

ADD THE FUCKING VEE AY TEE !

At today's exchange rate, with VAT, it comes out as £1210. It's less that 10% more expensive over here. That's less than the usual difference.

[Neil Daniels]

Displayport?

Does anyone or anything actually use that?

Paris, because she displays... yeah.