Is the MacBook Air overpriced?
Is the MacBook Air overpriced? Competitive offerings from Dell and Toshiba reveal that the MacBook Air may not be so extortionately expensive.
A MacBook Air rival, Dell's Latitude E4200 starts at 2.2 pounds for about the same price.
(Credit: Dell)Of course, it all depends on your perspective: $2,499 for a laptop is a lot of money. But put the Air into the context of its product category--ultraportable laptop--and you see that, by comparison, it's not necessarily overpriced.
(Note: Here we're talking about the just-announced update to the MacBook Air.)
Let's start with Dell's recently announced ultraportable laptop (or 'subnotebook," choose your nomenclature). The 12.1-inch Latitude E4200 is priced at $2,495 configured with a 128GB solid state drive, 2GB of memory, an Intel Core 2 Duo ULV SU9400 processor running at 1.4GHz, the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD, and a 6-cell battery.
(Note: I am not going to draw a comparison with the Dell Latitude E4300 as it does not fall into the category of an ultrathin--less than 0.8 inch thick--laptop the way the E4200 and Air do.)
How do the Air's features fare by comparison? Pretty well. The $2,499 Air also includes a 128GB solid state drive and 2GB of memory. That's where the apples-to-apples comparison ends (pun not intended). It bests the Dell in two significant areas. Despite being less than 0.8 inch thick like the E4200, it uses a more-powerful 1.86GHz Intel processor and Nvidia GeForce 9400M graphics. This is a crucial difference for some users who want the portability but need more horsepower.
That said, let me state the obvious: heat will always be an issue when a relatively high-speed processor is squeezed into a very small space. That's why, presumably, Dell, Toshiba (below) and Lenovo (X301 ThinkPad) have all opted for more power-frugal ULV (ultra-low-voltage) Intel processors. The Air does not use a ULV processor.
Form factors: The Air uses a larger 13.3-inch display and is slightly wider than the Dell overall, as this video shows. The bigger screen and wider keyboard can be an advantage or disadvantage. Apple may strike a better balance of weight and keyboard/screen size, but you get more portability (based on specified weight) with the Dell.
Apple does not bundle, as standard, an external media drive with the Air, however. Dell does. That weighs in Dell's favor.
The E4200 also beats the Air on ports. Packing in 1394, VGA, RJ-45, USB, and eSATA/USB Combo ports. And a docking connector. (No docking station for the Air.)
Toshiba's new ultraportable, the Portege R600, is also a close rival (based on a feature comparison only) to both the Air and the E4200. Like the Dell, this comes with a 12-inch screen, the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD, and a 1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo ULV SU9400 processor (lower performance than the Air's).
Like the E4200 and Air, it can be configured with a 128GB solid state drive.
Unlike the E4200 and the Air, it squeezes in an optical drive into a form factor less than 0.8 inch thick--in its favor. And offers 3GB of memory as standard, more than the E4200 and the Air.
The R600 also beats the Air on ports. With VGA, 3 USB ports, and an eSATA/USB combo port, in addition to a docking connector.
And the price: $2,999 for the version of the Portege R600 with a 128GB SSD. That's about $500 more than the Air and E4200, so you pay for the extra functionality in that ultraslim form factor. (Correction: the price spread is $500--not $600 as originally stated.)
(For those readers who may want to compare the Sony Vaio ultraportable to the Air go here to see the Vaio TT series. And here's a CNET review of the ThinkPad X301.)
Brooke Crothers has served as an editor at large at CNET News, an editor at Dow Jones' Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly, and a senior editor at InfoWorld. His CNET blog covers chip technology and computer systems, and how they define the computing experience. He also contributes to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. Follow Brooke on Twitter @mbrookec. 
Do you have any idea of the flame war you probably started?
Can the gasoline car go without fuel? No. Just like a "general" laptop cannot be ~3lbs and less than 0.8" thick.
Is an electric car for someone buying on price? No. Just like an Air is not for someone who is looking for the most X, Y and Z specs for his or her dollar.
So to say that the Air is overprices "just because its a Mac" is completely invalid. RTFA and you'll see that when its compared to other laptops in the same category, (electric cars to electric cars) then its really not overpriced in the least.
It's a Mac! Of COURSE it's overpriced, silly!
Brooke, go get a fire extinguisher and have someone call the fire department. :)
No Google Chrome
No Games (Fallout 3, Far Cry)
No Business Software (without Microsoft's Office:Mac "welfare" effort)
Even Adobe is focusing on the PC as its long term platform.
So little market share...
Games, yeah I will give you that, PCs have more game titles.
The games comment is also quite entertaining given the subject of the article. Do you think that gaming is a high priority for someone buying a thin-n-light laptop? Do you think the Windows-based laptops will run these games as well?
Sorry, I like OO but let's not get carried away here.
OpenOffice is kinda cool and all (I use it currently) but this statement made me laugh
"How about OpenOffice? It's FREE and better than Mircosoft Office"
With respect, comments like that don't help to dispel the FUD. I have nothing but admiration for what the Open Office project is attempting to achieve but they are considerably behind Office for Windows and will likely be for some time. This is not to say that Open Office is bad, or that there are not other alternatives for the Mac. Office:mac may not have all the features and applications of its Windows counterpart but that is not to say that you cannot use it for business and that it does not have features that the Windows version lacks. Even better, the Mac Business Unit listened to its customers and didn't implement the Ribbon interface in Office:mac 2008 that no experienced Office user likes.
My personal bugbear at the moment is MS Visio, which used to be a nice application until Microsoft wrecked it. Omnigraffle Pro for the Mac is so much less frustrating to use to produce diagrams.
I will, however, note that Microsoft does produce a great platform of business software and services. It's just that you don't NEED them in order to be involved in "business".
Google Chrome is great, but so is the new Firefox. A web browser should not dictate your computer buying habits.
The Air can also run windows, thus windows explorer. Keep in mind that at a certain point, Macs were the fastest running vistas machine.
Understand that off the bat, you have to buy most of those things or download stuff off the internet to make Windows better. With a Mac, it's pretty much all there already.
Its over priced, and its for people who do nothing but chat with and post stupidly on cnet.
Its overs priced and you have to throw in another $100 or more to get windows so you can be productive.
MAC = little or nothing. But windows is the ultimate.
*Shudders at the memory*
All these silly "sub notebooks" with stupidly high prices are terrible, period.
You'd be better off getting a cheaper, regular laptop that has more features than all of the ones you looked at in here.
"All looks and no personality" comes to mind.
I'd honestly rather buy one of these (which i am)
http://www.fit-pc.co.uk/meet-fit-pc.html
And despite the fact there is no screen that comes with this, or battery portability (easy fix to both), i'd be better off with it.
p.s. you forgot your link for the updated Air
When they did the MAC vs WINDOWS vs LINUX which one was the first to be hacked?
there is a shopping that sells all kind of stuffs and there is a MAC that is on a showcase for 2years now and still no one give a f about it. It takes Apple 2 to 3 years to sell 1 MAC. But vista sells thousands every day.
Security researcher Charlie Miller exploited Safari in two minutes
March 28, 2008 (Computerworld) The security researcher who walked away with $10,000 yesterday by hacking a MacBook Air in less than two minutes said he chose to attack Apple Inc.'s operating system for one simple reason.
"It was the easiest one of the three," said Charlie Miller, an analyst at Independent Security Evaluators (ISE), a Baltimore-based security consultancy. "We wanted to spend as little time as possible coming up with an exploit, so we picked Mac OS X."
On Thursday afternoon, Miller breached a MacBook Air, one of three laptops up for grabs in the "PWN to OWN" hacker challenge at CanSecWest, a security conference that wraps up today in Vancouver, British Columbia. For his efforts, he got the computer and a $10,000 cash prize.
The MacBook Air was running the current version of Mac OS X, 10.5.2, with all the latest security patches applied.
Read the rest of the article at the following link. Secure huh? LOL... Please, the hole had been there for a year and Apple did nothing.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9072959
Alex Alexzander
Alex Alexzander
It is perhaps worth noting that OS X was selected by the researcher because that is what he was most familiar with as he was a Mac user and discovered the exploit some time earlier.
I really doubt that this event, or others like it, really prove anything. When exploits enter "the wild", then I will worry. I do not consider the Mac to be impervious but I do confess that the current lack of exploits does give comfort. Perhaps this is "security through obscurity" but until the Mac gains a significant market share, or exploits appear, we just don't know.
Buy a MacBook or Pro and get a REAL lapper.
If you carry a laptop all day (e.g. reporter) then I expect the weight is pretty important.
Care to substantiate that statement?
They should run it just as well. They won't run it any better.
99% of nigeria dont know MAC and 85% know windows 15% dont know what computer is.
33% know ipod only 0.5% buy it and 90% buy sonyericsson or nokia music phones.
At the end of the day MAC sux. End of discussion
long live PC!!!!!
Roflmao
If apple's MAC is for first class people like you, then you people are very poor cos;
england
france
america
spain
italy
germany and many more are all first class as you may categorise them, then why is it that MAC has atmost 5% of the computer market share world wide.
I know you can't last 3 days in Africa. You wont die of Malaria. But the heat of the sun will kill you in 6hours.
Basically, you are paying more, but perhaps not in currency, simply to have a thin-n-light Mac.
- by ballmerisanape November 2, 2008 3:01 PM PST
- The Macbook Air is the only one out of that group that can run Windows and the Mac OS. That in itself makes it a better buy than the other choices.
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- by rapier1 November 2, 2008 4:22 PM PST
- And why is that? Thats right, because Apple is a closed environment and they go to great pains to make sure you have to use their hardware platform.
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- by Mark_Anderson November 3, 2008 5:22 AM PST
- Actually if you have to run two operating systems to do your work then you've made the wrong choice.
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- by ballmerisanape November 3, 2008 6:14 AM PST
- Mark. Ever heard of software development? Web development?
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- by eburnz November 3, 2008 11:31 AM PST
- how about you buy a windows computer due to the fact there cosiderable cheaper and they can do everything plus more than a mac
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (88 Comments)I don't need both OS's... OsX does everything and more for me.. with less 3rd party software needed than my old windows box.