but... other laptops wont have the logo i crave soooo badly!

EDIT** Its not terribly hard to get into the air... if its just the security torx screws... that's pretty standard in the industry. You can pick up a set of tamper-proof torx screwdrivers for like 6 bucks at an electronics store.

EDIT2... well i miss- read it... 5 point are a little more difficult to come by. way to go apple! :p

Originally Posted by BeAll_EndAll

Regarding this:

1) WHY would you want a SSD on your laptop for SCHOOL? How much data are you going to be transferring to your harddrive that you need it to run so fast? A normal hard drive works just as well for school purposes: And also it has 5x the storage capacity and it is much cheaper. Get a SSD, and you are going to be constantly transferring data to an external (NON SSD) hard drive anyway (because 128 GB is nearly NOT enough). I dont see the point of getting a SSD on your laptop for school.

On my laptop at the moment:
12GB of music, 50GB of (7) movies, 6GB of applications, 15GB of (2) games, and 800MB of (3 years of) school stuff, plus a load of other crap scattered about (images, downloads and what not). In total, only 105GB of HDD space is currently used. Any sane person will have all except a select few of their movies stored on an external HDD, and more likely than not won't be using their MacBook Air for gaming. Considering he wants the laptop mainly for school usage, 128GB is more than sufficient.

Originally Posted by BeAll_EndAll

2) It is $1299 for 13 inch, yes. But you have to add on the stupid warranty from Apple which is around 250$. Its not easy to open up your MacBook Air: "The company has made it especially difficult to get inside these notebooks" [1], so anything that goes wrong with it, you have to take to the Apple Store and they fix it for you. With a PC, couples screws open, see whats wrong inside, fix it, close.

That stupid warranty can get you a complete replacement laptop if anything goes wrong. Besides Apple Care is one of the best warranties in the market. Rarely ever do they keep your laptop/device more than a couple days. Also, it's not as hard as you make it out to be to get into the Air. The only difference/difficulty is that the RAM is soldered onto the logic board, but Apple will replace that for you.

Originally Posted by BeAll_EndAll

3) Size yes, Macbook air is obviously smaller. But look at the things you are giving up as a result of it: performance!

Re-read the thread, or even some online reviews. The MacBook Air outperforms the majority of the competition, even a PC laptop with a much faster/higher-clocked processor. A school student, unless in engineering or multimedia, has nothing to benefit from a faster processor. You aren't giving up anything significant.

You're talking specs, not performance. And candy on paper doesn't translate to candy in real life. Rather than just looking at arbitrary benchmarks, take a look at the real-world usage statistics. There's tons upon tons out there.

Originally Posted by BeAll_EndAll

Do you really think it is worth it to pay $800 extra for 5 pounds less weight on your back? Do you really think that?

I'll let him answer that, but seeing as the Air's Apple's best selling notebook and the best selling ultraportable on the market, apparently many people do.

Originally Posted by Yogurt

Considering he wants the laptop mainly for school usage, 128GB is more than sufficient.

I would not pay over a grand for a laptop mainly used for school. I bought my laptop for 500$ and it's served me well for 3 years and going. Everything runs fine; videos, downloading, streaming, research, etc... The only thing I don't do on my laptop is play games and if I wanted to play games I would invest in a desktop.

I would invest in a good quality netbook and a great quality notebook PC for the price you'll spend on an apple laptop.

My 2¢...

Originally Posted by Yogurt

On my laptop at the moment:
12GB of music, 50GB of (7) movies, 6GB of applications, 15GB of (2) games, and 800MB of (3 years of) school stuff, plus a load of other crap scattered about (images, downloads and what not). In total, only 105GB of HDD space is currently used. Any sane person will have all except a select few of their movies stored on an external HDD, and more likely than not won't be using their MacBook Air for gaming. Considering he wants the laptop mainly for school usage, 128GB is more than sufficient.


That stupid warranty can get you a complete replacement laptop if anything goes wrong. Besides Apple Care is one of the best warranties in the market. Rarely ever do they keep your laptop/device more than a couple days. Also, it's not as hard as you make it out to be to get into the Air. The only difference/difficulty is that the RAM is soldered onto the logic board, but Apple will replace that for you.


Re-read the thread, or even some online reviews. The MacBook Air outperforms the majority of the competition, even a PC laptop with a much faster/higher-clocked processor. A school student, unless in engineering or multimedia, has nothing to benefit from a faster processor. You aren't giving up anything significant.

You're talking specs, not performance. And candy on paper doesn't translate to candy in real life. Rather than just looking at arbitrary benchmarks, take a look at the real-world usage statistics. There's tons upon tons out there.


I'll let him answer that, but seeing as the Air's Apple's best selling notebook and the best selling ultraportable on the market, apparently many people do.

Ok, I was just saying that one should save money, and even if it is worse, get a PC to save money and use that saved money towards books/tuition fees.

If you have thousands of extra dollars lying around, sure, you can buy a Mac.

To each their own...

Are mac's great? Yes
Are they great for the money? Absolutely not

BTW doesnt the air lack a CD drive?

Originally Posted by yaroslav64

BTW doesnt the air lack a CD drive?

Yeah it lacks a cd drive

Personally, I don't feel the need to own a laptop that's over ~$ 500.00 (if you'll just be using it for school and other basics). With technology improving so fast, it almost seems like if you buy the latest laptop on the market, by the time you get home it'll be a thing of the past.

In a sense, Macs seem to be the BMWs of the computer industry. They probably are much better than what the standard is, but if you're only going to use the damn thing to get from your house to the grocery store and back (or in this case to type some notes and check what your ex's status is on facebook), you could definitely do with something that doesn't empty your pockets. At the same time, if a Mac doesn't empty your pocket then more power to you - go for what has set the bar! On the other hand, everyone should also realize that just because another laptops specs don't match up to a Macs, it doesn't mean that it won't get the job done.

Just remember that the machine doesn't make the person. So, if there's not much in your head in the first place a Mac can't really help you much...and you should probably pack your bags and go to Western.

Originally Posted by yaroslav64

Are mac's great? Yes
Are they great for the money? Absolutely not

BTW doesnt the air lack a CD drive?

Find me any PC as small as the air that outspecs it for an equal or lower price, seriously, any PC at all

Originally Posted by vinny06

Personally, I don't feel the need to own a laptop that's over ~$ 500.00 (if you'll just be using it for school and other basics). With technology improving so fast, it almost seems like if you buy the latest laptop on the market, by the time you get home it'll be a thing of the past.

In a sense, Macs seem to be the BMWs of the computer industry. They probably are much better than what the standard is, but if you're only going to use the damn thing to get from your house to the grocery store and back (or in this case to type some notes and check what your ex's status is on facebook), you could definitely do with something that doesn't empty your pockets. At the same time, if a Mac doesn't empty your pocket then more power to you - go for what has set the bar! On the other hand, everyone should also realize that just because another laptops specs don't match up to a Macs, it doesn't mean that it won't get the job done.

Just remember that the machine doesn't make the person. So, if there's not much in your head in the first place a Mac can't really help you much...and you should probably pack your bags and go to Western.

Another laptops specs not matching up to a Mac's? I think you got that backwards! A PC with specs matching a mac's is usually about half the price.

Originally Posted by Tailsnake

Find me any PC as small as the air that outspecs it for an equal or lower price, seriously, any PC at all

There are PC's that are only a couple pounds heavier, and 1 cm thicker for hundreds of dollars less. So the real question is, is it worth spending roughly $700 dollars more for a slightly smaller laptop with no SD slot, CD Drive and limited storage space?