For decades, Steve Jobs has been known to be willing to sacrifice the "standard" features that every computer has, if he considers them unnecessary or violates design principles. "Apple.
From the floppy drive to the modem 56 kb / s, Mac users always suffer from that "extreme" of the wizard.
Too short, too weak
MacBook Air is criticized for ... poor features Picture 1Source: Crave.Cnet Yesterday was not an exception. In the first impression, Jobs made ecstatic Macworld audience with a super-thin, lightweight notebook called the MacBook Air.
However, analysts and even some of the Mac's loyal users must admit: The MacBook Air lacks so many important features that "no longer appeal" to customers.
MacBook Air has a 13.3-inch wide-screen screen and a full keyboard, with a "glitter" backlight. It uses a 1.8-inch hard drive - the type used for iPods and a "smaller" version of the Intel Core 2 Duo dual-core processor.
Apple has also developed a program called Remote Disk, which allows users to download software from the nearby computer's optical drive to the MacBook Air via an 802.11n WiFi connection.
With a weight of 3 pounds and a maximum thickness of 2 cm, Jobs doesn't hesitate to call it the lightest and slimmest notebook on the planet.
MacBook Air is criticized for ... poor features Picture 2 However, looking from the perspective of Scott Armstrong, a Mac computer loyalist and chairman of the Macintosh Users Association in Kennewick, Washington, " MacBook Air does not meet the demand for dark multimedia. Apple ".
This machine lacks a FireWire interface, which is needed to transfer large multimedia files.
Apple has always been a leader in promoting FireWire, so it is surprising that this technology is not included in the MacBook Air. "A USB port is enough," Armstrong commented.
Next, the storage capacity of MacBook Air is too limited. With 4200 revolutions per second, hard drives are "really slow". " Having spent money buying a laptop, users always require a bit of a feature ."
This psychology is different from when you buy a mobile phone or a desktop computer. But it seems that MacBook Air is only for people who "have laptops as well as not" or "don't need to connect to anything else".
Who will sell it to?
" Maybe MacBook Air targets students, who are willing to sacrifice their features in exchange for compactness? ", Armstrong guessed prematurely. " Apple didn't stop producing MacBook and MacBook Pro, so I guess Air only targets a narrow market. "
MacBook Air is criticized for ... poor features Picture 3Source: Crave.Cnet According to analysts, Air's thin and light weight can be attractive, but the starting price of $ 1799 is too high and too exorbitant for a machine that lacks such features.
" The initial fascination is hard to last. I think Apple will continue to improve Air in the near future, " said American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu.
Sharing this view, Citigroup also argued that the MacBook Air "lags among customer groups". Thrifty people don't mind, but those who need to create, store, and entertain are not satisfied. " Moreover, ultra-portable laptop users are usually Windows customers, not Macs ."
Therefore, Citigroup predicts that Apple will produce MacBook Air in limited quantities during the first time, before filling the feature defects.
" Unlike Asus' ultraportable EEE laptop, the MacBook Air will consume slowly because of the high price, which is too poor for the MacBook or MacBook Pro.
However, based on the achievements that iPhone and iPod have achieved, people have the right to hope for a long-term success for the MacBook Air, "Shaw Wu commented.
Pave the way for wireless technology?
MacBook Air is criticized for ... poor features Picture 4Source: Crave.CNET A little more optimistic, expert Jim Ritz, a member of Apple Pi User Association in Rockville believes: " With MacBook Air, Apple will pioneer in the application of future technologies such as Wireless communication between electronic devices ".
" Users have been worried when Apple dumped the floppy drive mercilessly, but today, anyone still sees the floppy drive in the computer. It seems Jobs always sees the world can live without things. What, long before others realized it.
This time, they bet that the wireless network will replace the Ethernet port and store it inside . "
" Adding wireless features will help Apple change the way people think about ultraportable laptops, " Ritz said. " I'm curious to know what the notebook will look like in two years ."
Unable to "postpone the pleasure" to try the MacBook Air again, Ritz decided to resell the MacBook that was used for . wife, to get a new machine.
Currently, Apple has not made any comment on the feedback of users and analysts about the MacBook Air.