Apple’s new MacBook Air
Apple’s new MacBook Air may be the thinnest laptop on the market, but it isn’t the lightest.
The Air, which Apple announced at the Macworld conference earlier this week, is a super-thin three-pound laptop. It will be available by the end of the month for $1,799.
But Toshiba, Lenovo, Fujitsu and Sony are just some of the companies already making laptops that weigh less than the 3-pound Air. Toshiba’s Portege R500 starts at 1.72 pounds, while Lenovo’s ThinkPad X61 is 2.7 pounds.
The Air “is really similar to a product that we came out with four years ago,” says Sony Senior Vice President Mike Abary.
But many people aren’t familiar with these pint-size PCs, and the market for them is relatively small, says tech analyst Stephen Baker at researcher NPD. Of the 110.3 million laptops sold worldwide in 2007, only 7.5 million had a screen size of 12 inches or less, researcher IDC says. (The Air’s screen is larger than that, but screen size is the way analysts typically identify light, ultra-portable PCs.)
That’s because ultra-portables are a niche market and a tough sell, Baker says. Reasons include:
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•Price. The smaller an internal computer component, the more it typically costs. Since a normal laptop weighs 5 or 6 pounds, it takes a lot of expensive specialty parts to build an ultra-portable. One of Sony’s least expensive ultra-portable is $2,100, and its priciest model sells for $3,700. Toshiba’s tiny machines start at around $2,150. In comparison, full-size Dell laptops start at $499.
• Feature compromises. To save space, computer makers cut features. The MacBook Air doesn’t have a CD/DVD drive or an easily swappable battery. Some models of Fujitsu’s Lifebook P1620 come with a battery half as powerful as is standard. The Sony Vaio TZ has an 11.1-inch screen, compared with 15.4 inches on larger Sony models.
•Marketing challenges. Most retailers bolt laptops to their shelves. That prevents theft, but also makes it tough for shoppers to tell how light a laptop really is, Baker says. A picture on a website or in a catalog does a poor job of showing how a small laptop differs from a large one, he says.
Because of these drawbacks, business travelers remain the core market for ultra-portables. More than 73% of small laptops are sold to businesses, says tech analyst Richard Shim at IDC.
“You’re looking at road warriors, people with disposable income and a discriminating eye,” says Craig Marking, senior product marketing manager with Toshiba.
That could change as laptops become smaller and more powerful, Shim says. “You have to balance price with sacrificing performance and features,” he says. Since that’s tough to do today, the consumer market for ultra-portables will remain small for now, Shim says. Even the consumer-friendly Air “is still pretty expensive,” he says.
But ultra-portables can be incredibly appealing, says Michelle Thatcher, a product reviewer for tech website CNet. Awkward keyboards and slow processors — big problems on early models — have improved, she says.
Screen size is still an issue for many ultra portables. For that reason, they often work best as secondary laptops for handling small tasks on the go, Thatcher says. For heavy computing jobs or long typing sessions, a full-size laptop is still best, she says
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January 17th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
At the annual Apple show in San Francisco, chief executive Steve Jobs made two major announcements but only confirmed what bloggers had already sniffed out: iTunes will start renting out movies, and the company will offer a super-thin laptop.
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Apple Unveils Movie Rentals, Thin Laptop at Annual Show
Jobs’s speech at the start of the Macworld Conference and Expo in San Francisco often serves as a state-of-the-industry pep rally. Jobs has used it to announce major products like the iPod and the iPhone. This year, the company focused more on incremental improvements to its product lines, underscoring the significance of two major trends in consumer electronics: slimmer, more portable computers, and online services that further blur the lines between television and computing.
The iTunes move, announced in a keynote presentation at the start of the conference, brings Apple into direct competition with a wide range of companies. Its rivals include online rental services such as Netflix, and Microsoft, which offers movie rentals through its Xbox 360 video game console.
Apple has not been able to do for online television and movies what it did for digital music. Jobs said yesterday that Apple’s earlier movie-download efforts, with 7 million titles sold to date, “did not meet our expectations.”
Its entry to the movie-rental business will therefore be a big test of whether downloading video is where the future lies, said James McQuivey, a Forrester Research technology analyst.
“If anybody can make this work, it’s Apple, because they already have millions of users carrying around these video-compatible devices,” he said. “If it doesn’t work here, it’s not going to work anywhere.”
Until now, iTunes users had to spend about $10 to buy a downloadable copy of a movie if they wanted to watch a film on their iPhones or iPods. With the new service, new releases will rent for $3.99 each, while back-catalog releases will cost $2.99 — the same price as at Amazon’s Unbox video store. Rentals will be good for 24 hours after “play” is first hit, up to 30 days. ITunes also now stocks more than 100 high-definition movies, which rent for $1 more.
If it works, people may no longer visit retail stores to rent their movies, said Michael Gartenberg of Jupiter Research. “This has the potential to be really disruptive to the rental model,” he said.
The new computer, the MacBook Air, got the loudest applause of the morning’s announcements when it was unsheathed from a manila envelope to highlight its slender size.
Apple built anticipation for the trade show by blanketing San Francisco with cryptic ads aimed at potential customers and technophiles. This year’s campaign — “There’s something in the air” — was a cloaked reference to the new $1,800 laptop.
The Air is also a reference to the company’s environmental consciousness: The computer’s case uses materials that can be easily recycled at the end of its life, and Jobs pointed out that Apple has stopped using mercury and arsenic in its display components.
This year’s speech also became a showcase for bloggers, who managed to steal the tech leader’s thunder.
At the snarky and popular blog The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, also known as Fake Steve Jobs, some readers were complaining about the lack of big surprises from the real Jobs. (The blog is written by an editor at Forbes magazine who pokes fun at the technology world by posing as the Apple chief executive.)
“This isn’t news,” complained one poster, as the event wrapped up yesterday morning. “It’s confirmation that the rumor sites were correct.”
At the tech news site CNet, one of the final blog entries filed from the Jobs keynote hit the same note.
“Something gives me the sense we’re building, heightening the anticipation, soaking up the audience’s attention before he hits us with the . . . nothing? Really, that’s it?”
April 9th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
Apple Releases MacBook, MacBook Pro Firmware Updates
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On Wednesday, Apple released firmware updates for its consumer-level MacBook notebook as well as its professional-level MacBook Pro notebook.
Per the MacBook, the EFI Firmware 1.2 update, a 1.8 megabyte download, fixes several issues to help improve the stability of the MacBook. Once applied, the MacBook’s Boot ROM version will be changed to MB31.008E.B02.
For the MacBook Pro, Apple has released its EFI Firmware 1.5 update. The update, a 3.1 megabyte download, fixes several issues to help improve the stability of the MacBook Pro. Upon successful installation, the update will change the notebook’s Boot ROM version to MBP21.00A5.B08 or MBP31.0070.B0 depending on the exact model of the hardware.
Both updates can also be located through Mac OS X’s Software Update feature and require an Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X 10.5 or later to install and run.
If you’ve installed either update and noticed any major changes, please let us know over in the comments or forums.
April 9th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
Today, Apple updated the EFI Firmware for the entire notebook line. MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air all received the EFI update. Here’s what Apple says about the updates:
This update fixes several issues to improve the stability of [MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air] computers.
You can download this update by opening Software Update on your notebook (Apple menu > Software Update) or by downloading the installer package from Apple’s support website.
Apple also notes: To complete the firmware update process, please follow the instructions in the updater application (/Applications/Utilities/MacBook EFI Firmware Update.app). The updater will launch automatically when the Installer closes.
April 9th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
If you’re an owner of one of Apple Inc.’s popular MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops then perhaps you’d be well advised to take a snapshot of your computer for prosperity. For, if current Apple rumours are to be believed, the MacBook and MacBook Pro lines as we presently know them are destined for a significant makeover.
AppleInsider reports that unnamed sources have let slip that the consumer-specific 13-inch MacBook range will receive the greatest overhaul, with its plastic exterior casing set to be replaced with significantly greener materials including a mixture of aircraft-grade aluminium and stainless steel.
If such an aesthetic change does actually come about through the revamped MacBook, it will certainly go some way to underpinning Apple’s intent to cast itself in a much more eco-friendly light. It will also mark the first time Apple has leant its MacBook devices firmly away from the iconic all-white presentation the California-based computer company has relied on for so many years.
The more business-oriented MacBook Pro line will reportedly also receive aesthetic alterations that will include the addition of aluminium and matte black casing elements — likely lifted, in an inspirational sense, from the aluminium iMac desktops offerings of summer 2007 — along with oversized trackpads and the MacBook Air’s keyboard.
Any such design alterations will be the first to arrive on the MacBook and MacBook Pro lines since they embraced Intel Corp. processing technology back in 2006
AppleInsider also suggests that the upcoming aesthetic and eco-conscious changes will arrive on the back of internal alterations to the MacBook and MacBook Pro lines, including the addition of Intel’s Montevina-based processors, which are built on the Centrino 2 platform. The new processors will come equipped with 2.2GHz and 2.8GHz clock speeds along with 1066MHz front side bus performance.
In terms of an official MacBook and MacBook Pro announcement, Intel Corp. is expected to confirm the arrival of its Montevina technology in June of this year, at roughly the same time that Apple will be hosting its annual developers conference in San Francisco