The lack of WANN make this a 3 pound paperweight for me. I guess I keep using my IBM T-61 (Verizon Internal WANN), and my Macbook. I need a real Ultra Portable laptop that works anywhere and not this shiny new toy.
Excuse my ignorance, but what is Verizon Internal WANN?
Sounds like that SSD upgrade is just a huge waste of money on top of another huge waste of money.
Quote:
In a series of benchmarks, both Macbook Air variants had their asses handed to them by their beefier cousins, the Macbook and the Macbook Pro. But even when just comparing the two Macbook Air models there was such a tiny difference in performance as to make it unnoticeable. Booting up was quicker (about 12 seconds quicker, to be exact), yes, but still slower than a Santa Rosa Macbook Pro. And while random disk tests and reading from the disk was a bit faster on the SSD model, due to slower read times than the HDD, it actually performed worse when it came to sequential disk tests and general writing to the disk.
But what about battery life, that had to be way better, right? Nope. Battery life wasn't affected at all, strangely enough, with the SSD model providing a paltry 2.5 hours of use before needing to be recharged.
What a joke. Basically, you could buy a whole freakin' MacBook for the cost of the SSD upgrade, and the MacBook would actually be faster still.
Sounds like that SSD upgrade is just a huge waste of money on top of another huge waste of money.
What a joke. Basically, you could buy a whole freakin' MacBook for the cost of the SSD upgrade, and the MacBook would actually be faster still.
"But it doesn't care if you shake the computer up and down all day long since there are no moving parts. SSD drives are found in some ThinkPad, Vaio and Dell notebooks but they're still relatively new to the market. They cost an arm and a leg: the 64 gig drive used in the Air costs between $900 and $1,000 if purchased separately. Is it worth it? At the current price point, it's not worth it to me, but for those who literally use the notebook on the go bouncing and bumping or need that speed boost, the answer might be yes."
It is all relative, and there is nothing wrong with that. Just because you can't afford it doesn't preclude the fact that others can.
Excuse my ignorance, but what is Verizon Internal WANN?
Googling for it doesn't produce much, certainly no direct link to Verizon's homepage... either it doesn't exist or it almost doesn't exist, to the point that it is seemingly irrelevant.
---
SSDs are still expensive; Steve said so himself in the Keynote. However, they are now an option, one that was not available (on Macs at least) until now. Prices will drop over the coming years and then nobody will be able to complain. I can remember the first HD I bought because it set me back over 300 bucks for a whopping 20 MB. Now I can get 1TB for that price. That's life.
SSDs are still expensive; Steve said so himself in the Keynote. However, they are now an option, one that was not available (on Macs at least) until now. Prices will drop over the coming years and then nobody will be able to complain. I can remember the first HD I bought because it set me back over 300 bucks for a whopping 20 MB. Now I can get 1TB for that price. That's life.
But that doesn't say how quickly prices will drop. The unit prices on the drives you compared must be 15 to 20 years apart.
While the offering didn't even remotely live up to the absurdly unrealistic hype, it at least shifted the complaining about Apple not offering it to complaining about it being too expensive.
Let's try again. What does the acronym WANN stand for? Reference please.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bergermeister
Googling for it doesn't produce much, certainly no direct link to Verizon's homepage... either it doesn't exist or it almost doesn't exist, to the point that it is seemingly irrelevant.
WWAN is the correct acronym and it stands for Wireless Wide Area Network.
I agree, Urban Splash, that this review is a let down. It looks like an actual in-depth review may be on its way from Anandtech. They have opened their MBA and taken photos that do not appear to have come from Apple marketing: http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=3217 I plan to point them towards the questions asked in preparation for this article in the hopes that they will answer them in their review.
I e-mailed Anand Lal Shimpi, the author of the blog post linked above and of an upcoming MBA review. I asked him if he'd be willing to answer some of the questions that were posted here: "What's wrong with the MacBook Air?"
After receiving his permission to copy it here, here is his e-mailed reply
"
Ask and you shall receive I saw your post in the comments and started making a list of things I would've otherwise missed for inclusion in the review. I can't guarantee every question will be answered but if you have anything in specific I'll try my best to look at it.
Interesting, the only reference for the acronym WWAN is found in Wikipedia. One that nobody could easily define, certainly not by the person who first presented it here, or a term used by the service it was original identified with or to the source referred to in the encyclopedia's article.
But thanks for the link. Now I can tell the class to quit looking. Glad that nobody came up with the Wikipedia answer; maybe some did but realized that there were consequences for sourcing it unless they were using it in a creative writing course.
But it still doesn't answer my original question, i.e., what is (a) Verizon Internal WANN?
Interesting, the only reference for the acronym is found in Wikipedia. One that nobody could easily define, certainly not by the person who first presented it here, or a term used by the service it was original identified with or to the source referred to in the encyclopedia's article.
Wiki doesn't even link to Verizon or anywhere else...
This just doesn't not seem to be a biggie... maybe the original poster was jesting.., along the lines of, "If it doesn't cook hamburgers, too, then I ain't buying it". Actually, hamburgers would be a ....
A little more surfing and yes, WWAN does show up here and there and even Apple supports it in places...
Note the low PC Mark scores for the MBA's 1.6Ghz P7500, now look at the scores for the VAIO's 1.2Ghz U7600. Interesting...
Belches out heat like nobody's business? What are they talking about? Mine isn't hot at all. I guess it would heat up if you're trying to run the new Skynet Defense System Software through it, but come on.
Suggest you better find a better one. Not one on the page you linked to supports the claim, i.e.,
"Originally Posted by crampy20
But noone can justify why this product is so pricey - ultra protables are $400 - $750 for pretty similar functionality to the air."
Can you read? These machines don't come anywhere near the price or the functionality.
I love the first Bottom Line?, "The 9-cell battery on this indoor/outdoor model lasts forever,?"
What claim? That the Air is sooooooooooo expensive compared to these? Only two of these models costs less that what I paid for the Air. They have smaller screens, but does a small screen justify the use of the term "ultra portable"? I'm sure a 3 pounder could be called that. Where's all the crying and screaming babies about the Lenovo? It's not equipped with an integrated optical drive either. I've never heard a peep about this huuuuuuuuuuuuge design flaw. No optical drive means severely underpowered, right? I guess you can't do anything with that.
I'm a new Mac user, but a longtime PC geek. I guess time is the only thing that will determine the outcome of the Air, but I doubt it will be successful. Apple is preying on its customers with the Air, because thin is 'in'. The Air is no more portable than the Macbook...it's simply thinner. I upgraded my Macbook to a 200gb 7200rpm Hitachi HDD and 4gb of ram for $250 and in 5 minutes. This put me $250 under the price of the Air without having to convince myself of why I don't need the features the Air is missing. How is .248 inches and 2lbs so serious?
As a former heavy-duty backpacker who regularly carried 40+ pound packs for several weeks at a time and who now for work travels fairly regularly and tends to walk from location to location, I will say that 2 pounds is worth its weight in gold and any space-savings in your bag is priceless.
As a former heavy-duty backpacker who regularly carried 40+ pound packs for several weeks at a time and who now for work travels fairly regularly and tends to walk from location to location, I will say that 2 pounds is worth its weight in gold and any space-savings in your bag is priceless.
I'm a regular dude. I don't really travel, but my former laptop was my companion at home and sometimes in the office. My job does entail alot of driving around however to meet with people, for that reason I purchased an iPhone. I do do some stuff however on the side, like edit video, create music and images, so I have some USB peripherals, but never needed more than one port. I think me Dell only had 2 anyways.
My 1.5 year old Dell really seemed to be again, so I decided to get something new. I was gonna get a MacTouch if it was announced at MWSF08, however the MBA caught my attention. I was considering a Macbook if the MacTouch didn't materialize, however I came to a few realizations.
#2 Macbook was cool, but its seems like its due for a revision. There is nothing more that I hate than buying something and seeing a new version come out within months
#3 1GB Ram is not enough, which means I would shell out more $$$ on the Macbook. This would make the difference for getting a MBA vs MB roughly 400-500 smackers. Not a huge difference really, and it would be even smaller if i opted for the Macbook w/ Superdrive.
#4 The portability though not of primary importance, was a huge selling factor. My Dell feels like it weighs 8 lbs! Its freakin huge for a 15". Definitely not fun porting it around, even just to the office, or even another room.
So I got an MBA. and guess what? Its such a pleasure carrying it around, its almost like its not even there. Its impossibly thin and light, about the size and weight of a clipboard maybe, feels like your carrying a small paper notebook more than a laptop.
Comments
Note the low PC Mark scores for the MBA's 1.6Ghz P7500, now look at the scores for the VAIO's 1.2Ghz U7600. Interesting...
The lack of WANN make this a 3 pound paperweight for me. I guess I keep using my IBM T-61 (Verizon Internal WANN), and my Macbook. I need a real Ultra Portable laptop that works anywhere and not this shiny new toy.
Excuse my ignorance, but what is Verizon Internal WANN?
Excuse my ignorance, but what is Verizon Internal WANN?
Cellular-based internet service.
In a series of benchmarks, both Macbook Air variants had their asses handed to them by their beefier cousins, the Macbook and the Macbook Pro. But even when just comparing the two Macbook Air models there was such a tiny difference in performance as to make it unnoticeable. Booting up was quicker (about 12 seconds quicker, to be exact), yes, but still slower than a Santa Rosa Macbook Pro. And while random disk tests and reading from the disk was a bit faster on the SSD model, due to slower read times than the HDD, it actually performed worse when it came to sequential disk tests and general writing to the disk.
But what about battery life, that had to be way better, right? Nope. Battery life wasn't affected at all, strangely enough, with the SSD model providing a paltry 2.5 hours of use before needing to be recharged.
What a joke. Basically, you could buy a whole freakin' MacBook for the cost of the SSD upgrade, and the MacBook would actually be faster still.
Cellular-based internet service.
Could you supply me with a link?
Thank you.
Sounds like that SSD upgrade is just a huge waste of money on top of another huge waste of money.
What a joke. Basically, you could buy a whole freakin' MacBook for the cost of the SSD upgrade, and the MacBook would actually be faster still.
"But it doesn't care if you shake the computer up and down all day long since there are no moving parts. SSD drives are found in some ThinkPad, Vaio and Dell notebooks but they're still relatively new to the market. They cost an arm and a leg: the 64 gig drive used in the Air costs between $900 and $1,000 if purchased separately. Is it worth it? At the current price point, it's not worth it to me, but for those who literally use the notebook on the go bouncing and bumping or need that speed boost, the answer might be yes."
It is all relative, and there is nothing wrong with that. Just because you can't afford it doesn't preclude the fact that others can.
Could you supply me with a link?
Thank you.
http://b2b.vzw.com/productsservices/wirelessinternet/
http://b2b.vzw.com/productsservices/wirelessinternet/
Let's try again. What does the acronym WANN stand for? Reference please.
Excuse my ignorance, but what is Verizon Internal WANN?
Googling for it doesn't produce much, certainly no direct link to Verizon's homepage... either it doesn't exist or it almost doesn't exist, to the point that it is seemingly irrelevant.
---
SSDs are still expensive; Steve said so himself in the Keynote. However, they are now an option, one that was not available (on Macs at least) until now. Prices will drop over the coming years and then nobody will be able to complain. I can remember the first HD I bought because it set me back over 300 bucks for a whopping 20 MB. Now I can get 1TB for that price. That's life.
SSDs are still expensive; Steve said so himself in the Keynote. However, they are now an option, one that was not available (on Macs at least) until now. Prices will drop over the coming years and then nobody will be able to complain. I can remember the first HD I bought because it set me back over 300 bucks for a whopping 20 MB. Now I can get 1TB for that price. That's life.
But that doesn't say how quickly prices will drop. The unit prices on the drives you compared must be 15 to 20 years apart.
While the offering didn't even remotely live up to the absurdly unrealistic hype, it at least shifted the complaining about Apple not offering it to complaining about it being too expensive.
Let's try again. What does the acronym WANN stand for? Reference please.
Googling for it doesn't produce much, certainly no direct link to Verizon's homepage... either it doesn't exist or it almost doesn't exist, to the point that it is seemingly irrelevant.
WWAN is the correct acronym and it stands for Wireless Wide Area Network.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWAN
I agree, Urban Splash, that this review is a let down. It looks like an actual in-depth review may be on its way from Anandtech. They have opened their MBA and taken photos that do not appear to have come from Apple marketing: http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=3217 I plan to point them towards the questions asked in preparation for this article in the hopes that they will answer them in their review.
I e-mailed Anand Lal Shimpi, the author of the blog post linked above and of an upcoming MBA review. I asked him if he'd be willing to answer some of the questions that were posted here: "What's wrong with the MacBook Air?"
After receiving his permission to copy it here, here is his e-mailed reply
"
Ask and you shall receive
Here's the first question answered: http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=378
-A
"
Now that's responding to your readers.
WWAN is the correct acronym and it stands for Wireless Wide Area Network.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWAN
Interesting, the only reference for the acronym WWAN is found in Wikipedia. One that nobody could easily define, certainly not by the person who first presented it here, or a term used by the service it was original identified with or to the source referred to in the encyclopedia's article.
But thanks for the link. Now I can tell the class to quit looking. Glad that nobody came up with the Wikipedia answer; maybe some did but realized that there were consequences for sourcing it unless they were using it in a creative writing course.
But it still doesn't answer my original question, i.e., what is (a) Verizon Internal WANN?
Interesting, the only reference for the acronym is found in Wikipedia. One that nobody could easily define, certainly not by the person who first presented it here, or a term used by the service it was original identified with or to the source referred to in the encyclopedia's article.
Wiki doesn't even link to Verizon or anywhere else...
This just doesn't not seem to be a biggie... maybe the original poster was jesting.., along the lines of, "If it doesn't cook hamburgers, too, then I ain't buying it". Actually, hamburgers would be a ....
A little more surfing and yes, WWAN does show up here and there and even Apple supports it in places...
http://www.apple.com/support/downloa...tupdate10.html
However, the driver 1.0 was last updated in early 2007, so this is not real up-to-date tech...
... and here is another one.
Note the low PC Mark scores for the MBA's 1.6Ghz P7500, now look at the scores for the VAIO's 1.2Ghz U7600. Interesting...
Belches out heat like nobody's business? What are they talking about? Mine isn't hot at all. I guess it would heat up if you're trying to run the new Skynet Defense System Software through it, but come on.
Suggest you better find a better one. Not one on the page you linked to supports the claim, i.e.,
"Originally Posted by crampy20
But noone can justify why this product is so pricey - ultra protables are $400 - $750 for pretty similar functionality to the air."
Can you read? These machines don't come anywhere near the price or the functionality.
I love the first Bottom Line?, "The 9-cell battery on this indoor/outdoor model lasts forever,?"
What claim? That the Air is sooooooooooo expensive compared to these? Only two of these models costs less that what I paid for the Air. They have smaller screens, but does a small screen justify the use of the term "ultra portable"? I'm sure a 3 pounder could be called that. Where's all the crying and screaming babies about the Lenovo? It's not equipped with an integrated optical drive either. I've never heard a peep about this huuuuuuuuuuuuge design flaw. No optical drive means severely underpowered, right? I guess you can't do anything with that.
As a former heavy-duty backpacker who regularly carried 40+ pound packs for several weeks at a time and who now for work travels fairly regularly and tends to walk from location to location, I will say that 2 pounds is worth its weight in gold and any space-savings in your bag is priceless.
I'm a regular dude. I don't really travel, but my former laptop was my companion at home and sometimes in the office. My job does entail alot of driving around however to meet with people, for that reason I purchased an iPhone. I do do some stuff however on the side, like edit video, create music and images, so I have some USB peripherals, but never needed more than one port. I think me Dell only had 2 anyways.
My 1.5 year old Dell really seemed to be again, so I decided to get something new. I was gonna get a MacTouch if it was announced at MWSF08, however the MBA caught my attention. I was considering a Macbook if the MacTouch didn't materialize, however I came to a few realizations.
#1 I never, ever used my optical drive.
#2 Macbook was cool, but its seems like its due for a revision. There is nothing more that I hate than buying something and seeing a new version come out within months
#3 1GB Ram is not enough, which means I would shell out more $$$ on the Macbook. This would make the difference for getting a MBA vs MB roughly 400-500 smackers. Not a huge difference really, and it would be even smaller if i opted for the Macbook w/ Superdrive.
#4 The portability though not of primary importance, was a huge selling factor. My Dell feels like it weighs 8 lbs! Its freakin huge for a 15". Definitely not fun porting it around, even just to the office, or even another room.
So I got an MBA. and guess what? Its such a pleasure carrying it around, its almost like its not even there. Its impossibly thin and light, about the size and weight of a clipboard maybe, feels like your carrying a small paper notebook more than a laptop.
I love it! Best laptop I have ever owned.