Top 10 Flaws of the Macbook Air

Good list... I may have to rethink my decision to purchase one

Wow, mono speakers? thats pretty weaaaak -- Id rather have a thinner macbook pro with no optical drive

You forgot to mention that there is no Ethernet port. The only option is to buy a usb -> Ethernet accessory.

I wouldn't buy a MacBook Air, but then again I wouldn't buy a subnotebook. I never had any interest in the PowerBook Duo for example. Subnotebook buys are willing to pay a premium for less features just to get smaller/lighter. And if you are that guy, this is a good notebook.

I agree that it is a weak machine, but you should look at it as an "iMac to go" it is for the business type people who want a computer they can use on the go and not as a primary computer. That way it makes sense and can help people decide if they want to buy it. If you plan to use this as a primary machine in 2008 you might be in for some trouble, but if money is not a a problem and you in need for a secondary machine to move quick with. I think this is a must buy.

Mono speakers did it for me. It isn't difficult to get stereo sound...

Nice list, I'm w/ #1 on rethinking my purchasing decision.

3) dude, everything in the 90's (and 80's) was stereo as well.

How about a little more accuracy? You CAN reinstall via Remote Disc. The SSD upgrade is $999, not $1300 as you make it sound Why would you connect a sub-notebook to a 30" display? Bottom line, this is designed to be the most portable notebook available. NOT to replace a Macbook Pro. Before you bitch about something, think about the target customer. This unit is VERY well suited for a business traveler. Some of us are on cross-country flights 4 days a week and get very tired of a large notebook. Obviously this notebook is NOT for you. Personally, I've never needed, or wanted, an optical drive on a long flight. it's a waste of power. I have no problem with ripping 4 or 5 movies to my notebook each sunday before Monday's flight.

@Transeau, let me get this straight, you find optical drives a bother,because it takes so much battery power, and would rather rip a couple of movies and place them on a macbookair. (hopefully the battery doesnt run out..oops) so.... why could'nt you do that anyways, with your existing, optical drive enabled laptop and just run the movies off the harddrive. sounds like your just seeking justification go purchase one.

We are on the same level dude. I think Steve jobs is a marketing genius.Apple is probably the only company that can literally take a product, take the most valuable bits out. and sell it for more than the original. Now that is genius. That is why Steve Jobs is Rich and I am not.

I'd say that lack of gigabit Ethernet, user replaceable battery and the disgustingly low resolution screen are the main flaws, but i don't really care about speaker quality (it's a laptop) or the "slow" processor.

hey thanks a lot for this review was very descriptive and now i have different views on the mac book air... at least until i check it out myself. -mike

THANK YOU!!! Finally that dares to say that apple is doing stuff wrong!! apple SUCKS!!!!!!!

Not powerful enough to support the pro users, the air was built for browsing the internet and running basic features. Yet the price tag suggests otherwise. This is a very bold move that probably won't completely flop but won't be the replacement current Macbook owners were itching for.

You are wrong about the battery in your first complaint. The battery is definitely replaceable with a philiips screwdriver. No replaceable battery has been just a bad rumor. STOP READING RUMOR SITES AND DO YOUR HOMEWORK BEFORE YOU POST MISINFORMED BLOGS!

Larry: perhaps you should stop slandering blogs and examine info yourself. If you disassemble your Air, you void the warranty. Therefore, it's not user-replaceable. Sure, it can be done. You could even do this with iPods, again, voiding the warranty. If this isn't a problem for the owner, fine. However, for most people, it is a problem. The issue here is that Apple designed the unit unlike almost every other lappy in the universe. Serious lappy-owners carry extra batteries for long trips. The Air is useless in this regard. And to be honest, while you and I would be fine with taking a Phillips to our computers, a HUGE number of users are NOT, but will still think it insane to have to pay someone to do a job they used to do on the fly in seconds with their other machines.

i was initially not sold on the AIR...but i gotta say that the more i think about it and look at the competition, the more i like this machine. a lenovo x60 runs right through the $1700 price point. a 64GB SSD runs for $1500 retail, so apple's $999 cost looks as good as it gets right now. optical drive, hardly ever use it on my macbook. wired ethernet, have never used it on my macbook. more than 1 usb port, rarely need that. the ram and battery decisions were necessary to get the size down. i have only 1 battery for my macbook. so from my perspective, where i've got mulitple macs on my home network and i'm not really a road warrior, this is looking like a machine i might want to tote around in my bag every day. Gotta go see one up close.

all of those are just the tradeoffs of having a super small laptop. The emphasis for the macbook air is portability, not power... Thats what the pro is for

2 gb of ram is alot

1) Why is "user swappability" always such a huge issue for people? With an enclosed batter you A) get a smaller form factor, and B) get the equivalent of an "extra long" life battery anyway most of the time, which would usually break the form factor to begin with. There will undoubtedly be an external plug-in which does that same form-factor breaking for those who REALLY need the extra power. (It would have been nice for Apple to have one available from the start, though, to be sure.) 2) Removing the optical drive is one of the only ways TO get a particular svelte form factor, as you really can't miniaturize the mechanisms any more than they've already been. "Buying from iTunes" isn't a replacement, to be sure, but unless you're REALLY keen on carrying around a dozen movies for options, you can always Handbrake up and bring a couple with you, as well as a good sized music collection. And if you DO, then carrying the bit of extra space for an external drive won't be any real extra headache. 3) Indeed, this is pretty weak. The Air's not meant to be a multimedia powerhouse (obviously), but it would have taken little extra effort to at least have a stereo output. (Though honestly, "quality" trumps that. The PSP, for instance, has stereo speakers, but they're still pretty weak.) Perhaps they're encouraging politeness by forcing you to use headphones more often. ;-) 4) A necessary trade-off for the form factor. They give plenty of RAM for the duties you'll be needing it for, so this isn't a bad thing. (Again, the machine is not meant for powerhouse duties. You're not going to be pulling marathon Photoshop sessions on it.) 5) Again, form factor related. (Size, heat, power draw...) I think it would have behooved them to stretch to fit in the 2.5" drive, but the 1.8" ones are getting plenty of advancement, too, so it won't be too far behind. 6) At least it's not a Celeron... ;-) Know any other ultra-portables with this level of CPU? The Vaio TZ starts at $2100 with a 1.06ghz! (Lenovo's probably a better OEM to look at for ultra-portable class computers, though. Though they're not particularly light and "ultra"-portable, so much as they're a smaller form factor of Thinkpads) 7) They're not really "models," as the expensive one just has the CPU and HD upgrades. Both are, indeed, stupidly expensive right now, but we rather have to assume that from both the CPU (custom built by Intel and low production right now) and the HDD (stupidly expensive EVERYWHERE). They're not really worth it, but they're not really worth it EVERYWHERE; not precisely Apple's fault. What is, however, is not making something like the 160GB 1.8" hard drive available. 8) Again, "ultra portable" does not equal "powerhouse." It's not going to have a balls-deep video card either, so why would one expect to be able to drive a 30" display? The Mac mini doesn't do that either, but that doesn't make the machine lacking. Driving a 1920x1200 display is plenty. 9) This, however, is dickish. They should never, EVER limit hardware on a purely driver/firmware basis like that. If they want to subsidize it for Air users, give them a rebate or something. (And perhaps make it limited purchase right now, if they're worried about stock.) But don't lock in a frickin' USB device to one computer. Also, the Air should damn well support any USB optical drive. (Not sure how much it does right now, or if they built in artificial limitations.) 10) It's not supposed to be a "full alternative." (Though there's been word that Remote Disc booting will be supported, which alleviates the main "MUST HAVE!" disk support of installing the OS. It would certainly be a sore point if it did not have that.) For anyone that really needs it, they use a USB one. But it makes available a workaround that will be fine for most people most of the time. As well, they don't claim to be making something "unheard of" available; they just--in Apple fashion--make it easy and painless. Most people don't know how to properly manage their shares, or map any kind of drive manually--or wouldn't even think of it. The is for those people, and also to just make it easier even for the ones who DO know how. (And if it does support Remote Disk booting and the like, it will offer capabilities regular drive mapping would not.) Basically, the bulk of your list all comes down the "form factor." You can argue whether or not they should have produced an "ultra-portable" at all, but compared to the rest of the industry, ALL the "faults" you're referring to are almost universally shared. Apple, as usual, changed the trade-offs to something they believe will be more desired by the consumer at large, and are going ahead with their own vision of it. (A bigger point of complaint than your ENTIRE list would actually be whether or not "thinness" is more desirable for an ultra-portable than "width." Do more people want the larger screen and full size keyboard, or do they want a smaller footprint for that same light weight?) The Air isn't meant to be a laptop workhorse or a universal machine... it's simply supposed to be "just fine" in most directions, while being extremely light and portable--which it certainly is. If that's what you want, then that's the machine for you! It's not for me, but that's because it's NOT the kind of machine I want. It's a unique, desirable, and competitively priced machine for the niche it belongs to, however.

Wow, I COMPETELY apologize for that. I didn't know my formatting would get hosed. >_

The iphone and now this! No optical drive is a great idea but only makes sense if all models have SSD!

I started to read this list because I really was curious, but being that I got to your first point and happen to know that it's completely inaccurate, i think I'll stop reading now and go look for a credible source. It's too bad people are actually making decisions based on your bs article..

um....about hard drive speed. There is no Hard drive, it uses compact flash memory

Tim, it uses either/or. The default comes with the same hard drive that's in the iPod. The solid-state drive is a $1000, completely asinine upgrade.

the only point on this list that isn't either untrue or has benefits that far out way the drawbacks is the point about the mono speakers. and lets face it is that enough to prevent you from buying it? if you are looking to buy a portable secondary computer the MacBook Air is your best option. However, it isn't for everyone. and i would highly recommend having a secondary mac in addition to this computer.

Mono speakers??? As if anyone actually uses the speakers on their laptop. It is fine for video chats and stuff. The thing has a headphone jack which is NOT MONO. Do you really think anyone is going to upgrade 2 gigs on that thing? Sorry but this thing isnt made to replace your mac book pro. If you wanted all that then go buy the pro and stop whining about things just because you cannot afford it. And yes no optical drive. Like most poeple really need one. I dont think this is a good list. Its basically a list of what all the whiners have to say about it but its really that they just do not understand what the computer is made for-- PORTABILITY NOT DESKTOP REPLACIBILITY!!!

I'm sure some one has already mentioned this, but I can't be bothered to read all of the comments. Number 10 says that you cannot re-install the OS through remote disc, however, in his keynote speech, Steve Jobs clearly said that this feature COULD be used to reinstall the operating system and that it is possible to boot from the remote disc.

I had an idea how to solve all these issues with non replacable battery. I gave it for free on apple web site. Somebody help to promote it. http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1379999&tstart=0

Well, for those of you who need your laptop so that you can tote it down to the coffee shop with you to show off, this one comes up short on replacing your desktop, but at least it's still good for show! For those For those of you who have a legitimate need for a compact, lightweight portable computer, then this one is completely suitable. The fact is, Apple is just a better product. Period.

it makes me want to bend it and break it. apple should just go out of business now.

The macbook air to me is a worthless endeaver... ideal for buisness you say? I bet that thing is fragile and would break easy from the slightest hit or drop. I use windows and linux and I try so hard not to hate apple well... I don't hate apple I actually like them for the ideas they come out with, I hate there users smug arrogant little assholes. I do go to a university where apple users seem to be dominate. One even had the nerve to say that the macbook air could outperform my Area-51 m9750 by alienware... I doubt a macbook pro of the current model could even come close.

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I don't fully agree, sure the point you mention keep me from buying an Macbook Air, but I guess you are a power users so should buy a Macbook Pro instread. The Macbook Air was designed for mobility.