Hi, I'm Michael Mistretta, a student passionate about technology, photography, and design. Welcome to my online home where I write about technology, reviews, and my thoughts and opinions on technology-related matters. Every once in awhile, a revolutionary new product comes along that changes everything.
The Macintosh changed the entire computer industry, by bringing personal computers into homes and offices everywhere. The iPod changed the way people listened to music, and sparked a whole new generation of digital media devices. And the iPhone has totally revolutionized the way people think about their phones. None of these products were perfect, but they were all revolutionary.
And I believe that a revolution is happening again - this time, in laptops.
As computer technology continues to become faster, smaller, and more power efficient, laptop manufacturers seem to be at a stand-still. Laptops today looks the same as they did last year and the year before that. With all these advances in technology, where are the benefits for the consumer? A 200Mhz clock speed bump? An extra 512MB of RAM? Does seconds of time saved really help the average consumer do more with their computer?
Having had the chance to try out a MacBook Air at my local Apple Store, I can truthfully say that I have seen the future of laptops. Forget the specs for a minute. Forget the lack of a FireWire port, and an optical drive. Forget the 13″ screen and the price. The MacBook Air is perfect in every single way. Everything is thought out. It feels solid, but light. It feels small, but spacious. This is the future of laptops.
You heard me right. A 1.6Ghz laptop is the catalyst for a whole new generation of laptops. Many people simply don’t get it. “Why pay more…for less?”
What they don’t realize, is that the value of a product is not in the number of features it has, but in how the features are integrated, and what experience that provides for the user.
Gruber beat me to the punch, and summed it up in his blog post today.
The apt comparison for the MacBook Air is the iPod Mini. The iPod Mini debuted in January 2004 with 4 GB of storage for $249, alongside a regular iPod with 15 GB of storage for $299. The Internet consensus was clear: Why would anyone buy the iPod Mini when for $50 more they could get almost four times the storage? The Internet consensus was, of course, wrong. The consumer consensus was that the iPod Mini was adorable and 4 GB of storage was more than enough. The Mini quickly became the best-selling iPod model, a position still held today by its successor, the iPod Nano.
The MacBook Air really is a revolution. As we’ve seen this Christmas season, consumers want laptops that are small and portable. They are willing to sacrifice excessive power for portability, because in the end, the portability helps them do more with their computers than the power ever could.
Today, most people don’t use laptops as laptops. They use them as desktop replacements. I use my MacBook Pro as my only computer. It acts as a balance between the power of a Mac Pro, and the portability of a MacBook Air. As Shawn Blanc concluded, if you were to put your whole life onto one machine for 10 years, the MacBook pro is a perfect balance.
However, in this day and age, almost every household has more than one computer. For most people, a desktop computer is all the power they need. What they want in a laptop is portability. They want it to be small and thin and light, and virtually inexistent in their backpack. And the MacBook Air is not a slow machine by any measure. In fact, it tops the PowerBook G4 - Apple’s fastest Mac laptop two years ago.
The MacBook Air is the first computer that I can actually use as a laptop. It’s small, light, cool, and has a full size keyboard. For web browsing, email, IM, blogging and even occasional image editing, the MacBook Air is more than fast enough.
While it may not be evident yet, like the iPhone, the MacBook Air will spark a change in the way people think about laptops. Prices will drop. Computer chips will evolve. And laptop manufacturers will begin to innovate. We are finally at the place where technology will become less about the list of features, and more about how those features integrate to create the best possible user experience.
I know what you mean the next gen of computers is the ultra lightweight portable PC. I use a laptop as my main machine because I live in three places!! I think most people want the portability of a laptop but they also want and ultra lightweight which they take on holiday and business trips ect..
Comment by rmaspero — February 16, 2008 @ 1:33 pm
While I do agree there needs to be a revolution in laptops, I do not think the Air is the machine which will really push us over the edge for the simple reason that the users with the $$$ for it scoff at the specs. You say that “people don’t use laptops as laptops.” I agree- they use them as personal computers. However, I see no problem in that. The future is in the ability to do anything, anywhere. Sure, I could have a Mac Pro and a MacBook Air - however, I don’t chose to because I want to have the full power I need to do the job anywhere I want. It is a hell of a lot more fun to do a web design in the middle of a grassy field than in a cluttered room. While the Air facilitiates that portability it does not offer the power creative professionals require. And let’s face it: professionals are the only people who will consider buying a $1799 laptop when there is a $400 one sitting on the shelf.
~Proud owner of a MacBook Pro
Comment by Arthus Erea — February 16, 2008 @ 9:39 pm
Arthus,
I agree. The Air is much like the iPhone at this point. It is overpriced and underpowered. But really I think it’s just the beginning of a new generation of devices where people account for more than just features when buying a product. Prices will go down, and technology will improve. We’ll see where devices like that Air and the Eee PC will be in a year’s time.
Comment by Michael Mistretta — February 16, 2008 @ 11:06 pm
An interesting article - you’ve got it quite right when you say ‘the MacBook Air really is a revolution’. It’s not by any means something I will buy (Although it looks so sexy I wrote an entire post on it a couple of days after it being announced), but it heralds the start of a new era of computing: one with desktops, desktop laptops, and real laptops, sort of like you said above.
@Arthus - professionals aren’t the only people who will consider buying a $1799 laptop … what about all of us entirely unprofessional people bewitched by anything with that little Apple logo?
Comment by Tom — February 18, 2008 @ 12:15 pm
I strongly agree with what you said about tech specs. Whenever I talk to PC users about the Mac platform, they say Macs are overpriced and tell me I can get a PC with the same specs for half the money. People just don’t get it.
Comment by Henning — February 20, 2008 @ 6:34 am
lol, forget all the things that are wrong with it, and it’s perfect in every way? It’s underpowered, overpriced, and gimped. It’s a product that no serious laptop user can use at stock. No hard ethernet port? The need for cable converters to plug in monitors? ONE usb port and no firewire? I guess it’s good for twittering…
As for it being the future, if by making a product smaller it becomes the future, than ya, I guess. Unfortunately without being able to give it a new battery or even add any ram it won’t be too useful by next year. The iPhone, on the other hand, I imagine will still be awesome 3-4 years from now with a few software updates. Enable the damn video recording already!
Comment by Ry Tron — February 24, 2008 @ 9:33 pm
Hi, I am a film major and I need a Mac to use the Final Cut software. The problem is I am on a budget and wanted to know if the new 13’ notebooks are powerful enough to use Final Cut Studio 2. I know I could use Final Cut Express 4, but there are too many limits for the course requirements.
(From sad pc owner- Trisha)
Comment by Trisha — March 1, 2008 @ 8:20 am
Hi Trisha,
I would say that the new MacBooks (with the 13″ screens) are perfect for most of the apps in Final Cut Studio. If you go for the $1299 MacBook, you will have the same processor as the lower-end MacBook Pro. Now this is fine for work in Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack Pro, and DVD Studio Pro, however Motion and Color (an animation and color correction app) will not run well, because they use the GPU (and the MacBook doesn’t have a GPU).
If I was you, I’d go for the $1299 MacBook, or look for a refurbished MacBook Pro. You can probably find a refurbished MacBook Pro for about $1500, and that would be ideal. Otherwise, go with the MacBook - it’s an awesome machine.
Comment by Michael Mistretta — March 1, 2008 @ 8:26 am
I’ll say this much, I’ve never really been into apple that much, I do like their innovation and design though I won’t discredit that. But honestly I wouldn’t call the Air a revolution, its a step in the right direction, and its good popular marketing that will get a large public thinking about ultraportables. Many companies have been making very classy ultraportable laptops for a while now, hell my Thinkpad 61X Tablet is a testament to how much I love the Idea.
What I think the next solid leap will be the dropping of optical drives, external and internal storage is getting cheaper, its getting smaller, better, faster, stronger, and honestly I feel like we are going to drop out dependency on disks soon enough. This is big news for the laptop world. Personally I have literately used maybe 2 disks in the course of a year now (not with the Thinkpad, much like the AirBook it doesn’t have an optical drive) , I’ve converted any physical disks I might need into virtual disks to be stored on my hard drives. The one cool think about the Air that I liked was its use optical drives of other computers wirelessly, thats something I would want the rest of the computer base to have available as a good step to ween ourselves away from disks.
Overall I’d say the Airbook as a one-up in regards to style (though I love the boxy solid feel and look of my 61x tablet), and I am defiantly a major proponent of the ultraportable idea, especially considering these days more and more people are opting for laptops over desktops simply because they really don’t need much more power or open customization. I still love desktops, but even I’m using just laptops now, one ultralight and one behemoth (for gaming and 3d model and photo editing).
Comment by Sprawl — March 15, 2008 @ 1:45 pm