I’m a sudent and I’m getting the Macbook Air. Now granted I also run a company (iPhoneSIMFree’s top reseller) so I do have a flow of money, but as a student this is an amazing machine…

First off, I’m upgrading from the Toshiba r100, which I got recently. Like others here, I don’t know why Toshiba isn’t put in the mix with Sony etc. in an ultraportable comparison. Anyhow, think Powerbook 12″, except running Windows. And 0.7″ thick, a true ultraportable. This was after the Palm Foleo got cancelled, and now I’m hooked on ultraportable PCs, so much so that I wouldn’t think of bringing my Dell e1505 (.4″ thicker than the MBP) to class now. It’s just too big.

So let’s compare the Air to both my R100 and my 15-month-old e1505. Oh, and I’ve got a “main” computer for heay-duty stuff: the higher-end 20″ iMac, with an external display.

First off, the MBA is actually faster on the high end than the $600 Mac Mini, for comparison. Even after you upgrade the memory to 2GB, Santa Rosa Low Voltage Edition gets you very decent performance, unless you’re trying to import video from a camcorder while running Parallels which is hosting an instance of your favorite PlaysForSure subscribtion app. Wait…no FireWire port on this baby…Apple obviously took that deal into account and specifically left a feature out that, while useful, might have kept the system from being perfectly speedy. Speaking of speed, a LOT of budget laptops out there clock in lower than the MBA. My e1505 is a mere 1.6 GHz with a 533 MHz bus, and a friend’s original Macbook came with a mere quarter of the MBA’s memory and similar processing power in something that might last 3:30 on a charge and was rather heavy. Comparing this with any similarly thin laptop, like the Toshiba R500, you find that it’s about 50% faster on the high end…amazing. Compared with my R100, whih is useable only for web, e-mail, IM and light office work at 1GHz on Pentium M, this can be a full 4x faster, a Godsend for someone who also uses the computer on flights.

Speaking of flights, let’s talk about battery life. I ctually believe Apple’s battery claims for low-usage (web browsing using wireless) scenarios; I remember seeing an iBook with six hours of batery on the countdown. I’ve heard G4 12″ PowerBooks (as opposed to the G4 iBook I was looking at) would get 3:30-4 hours. My “ultralite” gets 2:30 or so, until you plug in a six-cell battery that moves its thickness into line with the current Sony ultraportables and takes battery north of six hours…five hours if you’re doing web browsing via wireless with a reasonable degree of usage. Right in line with the MBA. Again, I believe Apple’s reports because I remember seeing the Macbooks at 4:30 on battery life (impressive but my 15″ Dell can get there, even with Vista’s Aero turned on) and MBPs get maybe three hours. Okay, Apple’s battery specs are totally screwed up on the Macbook\Pro stuff, but then again on the MBA they specify a specific usage scenario, which means that I can return the jobbie if I don’t get that performance.

One other airline deal: in coach class when someone sreclines the seat you need a 10-inch-display, widescreen computer to be able to keep working. Which maxes out at 1024×600 resolution wise if you want to keep your eyesight. Comparing the 13.3″ regular Macbook to my R100, the Macbook is actually shorter height-wise, meaning that it has more “recliner tolerance”. Welcome to the widescreen world. Personally though, 12.1″ is too small for 1280×800…XGA is tops for 12.1″ standard format. 13.3″ I’m fine with. That resolution is also in line with the 1440×900 and 1680×1050 res’s on the 15 and 17 inch MBPs if you look at it. I would NOT want a 1440×900 13.3″ display unless I could turn text sizes back up, which defeats the purpose of higher resolution anyway.

Construction-wise, it’s aluminum, which is cool looking and pretty good when it comes to structural integrity. That’s probably what the next Macbook is gonna be made out of anyhow, judging from the iMac…

Graphics-wise, I’ve heard (or rather, read) that the Intel X3100 graphics are leaps and bounds better than the GMA 950. With 144 MB of memory available (vs. 64 before) you might even fall in line with the 64MB GeForce Go FX 5200 seen on the G4. This would seem pathetic if we were comparing apples to apples, but the MBA has integrated graphics, which translates to better battery life. Oh, and the G4 is a full-size computer, with a thickness that is between 55% and 600% more than the MBA, and a weight that is about 50% more. Comparing this system to other ultraportables, it again compares favorably.

Oh, about weight. Just wondering how much the “strong” people tote around their 5.5-pound laptops. Trust me, losing three pounds makes an appreciable difference when walking several blocks to class, and I’m on a small campus. It’s also really fun to tote around (holding it in your hand) something weighing 3 pounds or so. Five and a half? Not so much.

USB? I agree that Apple should have put another port in there, but let’s face it: coming from a PC, where you get 4 USB ports on a regular laptop, more than on any Mac except the Mac Pro (which is in turn less than what any current desktop PC gets…) I really can’t say anything. At points I’ve had those ports used, plugging in an iPhone, another phone, a flash drive and a memory card reader, but it would have been just as easy to plug the stuff in one at a time. Unless you’re using your laptop as a mobile charging station for your stuff. Anyhow, realistically I can see only one instance n which I personally would need to use two USB ports at once: printing from a flash drive. But you can copy from the drive to your computer, unplug, plug in the printer and print. Or buy a USB hub, which is just as good and saves space on the computer. The only problem is when you’re dealing with optical media…

…which requires the SuperDrive which probably won’t be “hub-able”. Thing is, aside from ripping my Radiohead box set (can be done using Remote Disk or just sharing the iles over the network) this semester and running one app last semester, no big deal. I don’t have an optical drive for my R100 and I’ve gotten along fine without it. Having an inexpensive external high-speed option is great. Though with N wireless and Remote Disk the network throughput is enough that it’s as if you’re using that slimline drive hooked through with USB.

Ethernet? I needed that one time, about a year ago. Everything else I’ve done with a laptop has been wireless, network-wise. I use gigabit on my iMac, onnected to a 100 megabit port in my dorm room, but wireless would be, if slightly slower, still fine for what I need to do. Slower only because my campus doesn’t have N wireless yet.

So, as a student (albeit a rather affluent one…but aren’t you a bit rich anyway when you opt for a Mac over a PC?) the MBA is fine for what I want to do. I haven’t ordered it yet, but once the ship time is a week or so, I’ll be grabbing the 1.8GHz HDD-based option at a similar price to any other ultraportable out there. I don’t know why everyone is complaining about the darn thing being so expensive…oh wait, they’ve obviously never heard of an ultraportable laptop and are thus applauding features that are standard on every ultraportable, wondering where non-ultarportable features went, and not understanding why they have to give up a chunk of processor speed and a chunk of change for something that’s way tiny.

Which reminds me (sorry for the long post): don’t compare this to the Eee PC or whatever Fujitsu puts out in that category. A few words on those machines: woefully slow (especially the Eee, makes my R100 look like a racehorse), unexpandable without hacking, tiny screens with low resolution or even crazier prices. I mean coe on, look at UMPCs. Yech. Leopard wouldn’t even run well on half of ’em. Oh, and if you’re looking at an ultarportable, they all have mono speakers…except I guess the Eee. Stop complaining.

Lastly, stop harping on the Powerbook G4. If you love it, buy it. It’s the functional equivalent of a Macbook, except with a standard-ratio screen. The graphics aren’t great, no expandability beyond the Macbook, thicker than the Macbook, about the same price range as the Macbook. If you want a replacement for it rather than the Macbook, be advised that Apple can’t make everything, stop the blatant fanboyism and get a 12.1″ Lenovo (IBM) Thinkpad X61. Or the upcoming Dell Vostro 1200. Or the $600 Everex 12.1″ machine available at TigerDirect. Or one of the other multiple 4.x-pound 12.1″ widescreen machines.

Sorry if I’m writing too much about PCs on an Apple blog, but the Keynote is over and we’re not going to see any major upgrades to this for awhile (maybe a speed bump to 2GHz, or a 120 GB single-platter 4200rpm hard disk…which is useable, albeit with a lame 21 MB/s sustained throughput on a disk three years old, on my R100). So if you don’t like it, don’t buy it or buy something else. As for me, the MBA is a great product and I’m buying it.