I do not understand the infatuation with the “Mac look”. Mac led the way in moving away from the boxy tower and boxy laptop look, but in many ways, their form gets in the way of function. I bought my wife a Macbook Air, and the fact that it doesn’t have a CD / DVD player drives me nuts (not to mention, the very limited ports and interfaces it has).
David K.
Then thats your fault for buying the wrong laptop. It’s pretty damn clear when you are buying the thing that its going to have limited ports and no optical drive. If that was a deal breaker for you should have bought a MacBook or MacBook Pro.
The Air is designed for people who want a super lightweight computer. Which means less ports and no optical drive in favor of slimness, battery, etc. Thats not form over function, the form IS the function for an ultralight.
There were plenty of reasons to criticize the previous Air’s (most of which the new one addresses) such as screen resolution, the stupid flip down ports, price vs. performance, etc. but lack of an optical drive is like criticizing a Mini for having a less powerful engine and less off road capabilities than a truck.
First off, it ain’t my computer. The wife wanted a super lightweight laptop, so she got one.
But that aside, my point remains valid. You can have lightweight and retain most of the traditional ports. Optical drives require space, but not much weight. And as you admit, the flip-down concept was a dud.
I think you guys are missing the point. It’s supposed to be light *and* thin. Not to mention, thickness adds weight.
And the flipdown concept was absolutely not a dud. It’s never been a problem for me.
I have an Air and I love the thing. Here’s what I wanted: something much like a netbook, but with a fullsize keyboard and screen large enough to actually get stuff done on. That is precisely the niche the Air filled, and I couldn’t be happier.
If it’s not what you want, oh well, good for you, get a bigger computer. But I wouldn’t want a machine to be substantively different than this. I am unwilling to sacrifice the thin and lightweight character of the machine for the addition of any other ports.
dcl
Honestly, the optical drive is where the floppy drive was about 10 or 12 years ago and the audio cassette was around the same time. Still around, but the writing is on the wall. There are two things that are keeping optical around, licensing and bandwidth. But I honestly very rarely use the optical drive on any of my machines, it is so slow compared to sending via internet or using a flash drive and so small compared to a hard drive that there just isn’t much used to it.
The only optical media that has true utility anymore is perhaps Blu-Ray–unfortunately it’s useless because basically nobody can do anything with it. The adoption curve on Blu-Ray is only so so and worse on computers. There will be a decent trade in Blu-Ray movies for a while, but I see it as highly unlikely that there will be much use for it ever on computers. And once licensing and bandwidth issues are resolved it’s dead. It is so expensive to burn that unless you are distributing a movie on it I think a 32 or 64 GB USB flash drive, as expensive as they are, is probably better for most people.
The USB flash drive killed off the zip drive style devices a several years back took out the CD a few years ago and now and has basically rendered the DVD useless for most data transport needs.
For music distribution iTunes and Amazon have killed the CD, and anyone that actually worries about audio quality is headed back to records or to some sort of lossless high bit rate file that CD’s can’t handle anyway. The amount of data that fits on a CD easily fits on a flash drive, and for software distribution, in most cases, reasonably handled by most internet connections. The only thing I really do with audio CDs anymore is rip them as a lossless file and put them in storage.
The DVD is a larger storage media making it good for distribution. But it’s not great for movies. The compression it uses is old, bloated, and not that great. The movie that would usually be distributed on DVD can easily be done by Amazon, iTunes, or Netflix as a stream at equal resolution because H.264 is much more efficient. And HD it is also quite reasonable. Which means the only thing that needs a DVD is massive software programs. And as flash drives get cheeper I think we will see more “big software” distributed the way Apple is shipping the OS for the Air, on a flash drive. At volume DVDs are cheep as hell, but so are Flash Drives, and getting cheeper everyday. And they are a lot more space and resource efficient. And they can be way bigger than a DVD. You could fit all of Final Cut Studio on one flash drive, it currently ships on six or so DVDs. Not today, not tomorrow, but it will happen when it gets cheep enough.
CD / DVD suck as an archival media because the jell that is used for them degrades, so unless you know what you are buying anything you burn is odds on for a coaster in the next 5 to 10 years. And really, compared to the amount of data people are trying to store these days, DVDs have become inefficient and CDs are useless.
So on an ultra portable, I really don’t see any reason to waist the space, weight, or power on a optical drive.
Thoughts? Rebuttal? Counter Arguments?
David K.
They COULD have added more ports, they COULD have added a removeable battery, they COULD have added a deep frier attachment. They could do lots of things, but that would mean sacrificing the thinness and lightness they were going for. The MacBook Air is a minimalist computer. Keyboard + trackpad + screen + absolutely essential ports. Thats it. If you want a computer that is more versatile they offer options there as well. Still pretty thin and light, but not as ultra thin and ultralight. Heck I remember the PowerBook Duo which was one of the first ultra-portables and it didn’t have a floppy drive. YOu had to get an external one. It also had very few ports, if you wanted more you had to use the Duo-Dock. It was a huge success! Aside from the lack of a docking option, the Air is the true successor to the Duo line that people have wanted for awhile.
“These computers are pure sex. Sorry, it had to be said.” –Engadget on the new MacBook Airs.
I do not understand the infatuation with the “Mac look”. Mac led the way in moving away from the boxy tower and boxy laptop look, but in many ways, their form gets in the way of function. I bought my wife a Macbook Air, and the fact that it doesn’t have a CD / DVD player drives me nuts (not to mention, the very limited ports and interfaces it has).
Then thats your fault for buying the wrong laptop. It’s pretty damn clear when you are buying the thing that its going to have limited ports and no optical drive. If that was a deal breaker for you should have bought a MacBook or MacBook Pro.
The Air is designed for people who want a super lightweight computer. Which means less ports and no optical drive in favor of slimness, battery, etc. Thats not form over function, the form IS the function for an ultralight.
There were plenty of reasons to criticize the previous Air’s (most of which the new one addresses) such as screen resolution, the stupid flip down ports, price vs. performance, etc. but lack of an optical drive is like criticizing a Mini for having a less powerful engine and less off road capabilities than a truck.
First off, it ain’t my computer. The wife wanted a super lightweight laptop, so she got one.
But that aside, my point remains valid. You can have lightweight and retain most of the traditional ports. Optical drives require space, but not much weight. And as you admit, the flip-down concept was a dud.
I think you guys are missing the point. It’s supposed to be light *and* thin. Not to mention, thickness adds weight.
And the flipdown concept was absolutely not a dud. It’s never been a problem for me.
I have an Air and I love the thing. Here’s what I wanted: something much like a netbook, but with a fullsize keyboard and screen large enough to actually get stuff done on. That is precisely the niche the Air filled, and I couldn’t be happier.
If it’s not what you want, oh well, good for you, get a bigger computer. But I wouldn’t want a machine to be substantively different than this. I am unwilling to sacrifice the thin and lightweight character of the machine for the addition of any other ports.
Honestly, the optical drive is where the floppy drive was about 10 or 12 years ago and the audio cassette was around the same time. Still around, but the writing is on the wall. There are two things that are keeping optical around, licensing and bandwidth. But I honestly very rarely use the optical drive on any of my machines, it is so slow compared to sending via internet or using a flash drive and so small compared to a hard drive that there just isn’t much used to it.
The only optical media that has true utility anymore is perhaps Blu-Ray–unfortunately it’s useless because basically nobody can do anything with it. The adoption curve on Blu-Ray is only so so and worse on computers. There will be a decent trade in Blu-Ray movies for a while, but I see it as highly unlikely that there will be much use for it ever on computers. And once licensing and bandwidth issues are resolved it’s dead. It is so expensive to burn that unless you are distributing a movie on it I think a 32 or 64 GB USB flash drive, as expensive as they are, is probably better for most people.
The USB flash drive killed off the zip drive style devices a several years back took out the CD a few years ago and now and has basically rendered the DVD useless for most data transport needs.
For music distribution iTunes and Amazon have killed the CD, and anyone that actually worries about audio quality is headed back to records or to some sort of lossless high bit rate file that CD’s can’t handle anyway. The amount of data that fits on a CD easily fits on a flash drive, and for software distribution, in most cases, reasonably handled by most internet connections. The only thing I really do with audio CDs anymore is rip them as a lossless file and put them in storage.
The DVD is a larger storage media making it good for distribution. But it’s not great for movies. The compression it uses is old, bloated, and not that great. The movie that would usually be distributed on DVD can easily be done by Amazon, iTunes, or Netflix as a stream at equal resolution because H.264 is much more efficient. And HD it is also quite reasonable. Which means the only thing that needs a DVD is massive software programs. And as flash drives get cheeper I think we will see more “big software” distributed the way Apple is shipping the OS for the Air, on a flash drive. At volume DVDs are cheep as hell, but so are Flash Drives, and getting cheeper everyday. And they are a lot more space and resource efficient. And they can be way bigger than a DVD. You could fit all of Final Cut Studio on one flash drive, it currently ships on six or so DVDs. Not today, not tomorrow, but it will happen when it gets cheep enough.
CD / DVD suck as an archival media because the jell that is used for them degrades, so unless you know what you are buying anything you burn is odds on for a coaster in the next 5 to 10 years. And really, compared to the amount of data people are trying to store these days, DVDs have become inefficient and CDs are useless.
So on an ultra portable, I really don’t see any reason to waist the space, weight, or power on a optical drive.
Thoughts? Rebuttal? Counter Arguments?
They COULD have added more ports, they COULD have added a removeable battery, they COULD have added a deep frier attachment. They could do lots of things, but that would mean sacrificing the thinness and lightness they were going for. The MacBook Air is a minimalist computer. Keyboard + trackpad + screen + absolutely essential ports. Thats it. If you want a computer that is more versatile they offer options there as well. Still pretty thin and light, but not as ultra thin and ultralight. Heck I remember the PowerBook Duo which was one of the first ultra-portables and it didn’t have a floppy drive. YOu had to get an external one. It also had very few ports, if you wanted more you had to use the Duo-Dock. It was a huge success! Aside from the lack of a docking option, the Air is the true successor to the Duo line that people have wanted for awhile.