I retired from personal blogging in July 2008.
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Apple, what have you done for me lately?
Posted by rod@drury.net.nz in Apple at 6:15 am on Wednesday, 27 February 2008

The new MacBook and MacBook Pro’s are announced this morning. Yawn.

I’ve had my Black MacBook for over a year now and I thought by now I’d be into something new. But there is nothing to buy.

I want the excitement of a new machine but Apple there’s nothing for me to buy. And my MacBook just works. Fast enough, enough disk.

Bored now.

Update:

About an hour after my last post on how I wasn’t going to buy a MacBook Air, I was having breakfast with Michael Davies (Mac gadget boy who runs dual 30″s - gush) and he whips out his SSD Air.

Michael loves it and uses a 250GB Portable GDrive  for overflow.

With the exchange rate up there at .82 there is a $NZ1360 price difference between NZ and the US.  hmmmm.

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Comments(11)

    Comment by Ben Kepes at 6:22 am on 27 February 2008

    Buy a Dell Rod, You’ll love yourself for it….

    Baiting the fan boys…….




    Comment by Nic Wise at 8:06 am on 27 February 2008

    @Ben: fair call :)

    However, I’m in the same boat as Rod. I have a MacBook (2.1ghz, 120GB disk, 2GB of ram) and I dont bother going into the apple store over here anymore, ‘cos I get bored - unless there is something I’m specificly wanting. Which is strange, ‘cos before I got my macbook, it was a pilgrimage…..

    But yeah - something from apple every tuesday makes for a lot of boring tuesdays. Steveo - space things out a bit and save them up….




    Comment by Adam at 8:13 am on 27 February 2008

    I’ve been looking at getting a Macbook when I fly through Hong Kong, it’d save me about $500 NZD on the Blackbook.

    But now I don’t know, maybe that Dell M1330 isn’t too bad. At least it’s got LED backlighting and better battery life.

    Rowena’s got a tricked out M1330 if you’re interested in having a look at it.




    Comment by Shane at 9:05 am on 27 February 2008

    Seems someone is happy with their MacBook Air :-)

    http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/858-the-macbook-air-could-easily-be-the-only-machine




    Comment by Peter Crow at 9:12 am on 27 February 2008

    “MacBook just works”….great isn’t it? If it’s doing what you need, why do you want to change?

    My 12″ Powerbook G4 (now over 3 years old) still works as well - I reckon I’ve saved thousands of dollars in recent years by avoiding hardware upgrades because the hardware and Mac OS X is so stable.

    The only new tool I’m considering at present is the MacBook Air - at 1.3kg, it’s 700g lighter than my 12″ PowerBook. With the number of times I move around in a day, 700grams is important to me.

    Bottom line is that stable equipment means you can get on with your job without wasting time looking at new stuff. A laptop in an important though commodity tool of business for me, just like a good hammer is an important commodity tool for a carpenter. And most carpenters keep their (good) tools for many years.




    Comment by Dermott Renner at 12:20 pm on 27 February 2008

    Hi Rod, in HK on way to Europe. Saw a couple of AirBooks in mall in Kowloon last night. No stock taking orders at $HK14,900 (divide by 6.2 to get $NZ whatever that is).

    I’m not a Mac user and I think it has limitations but it looks fantastic in the flesh.




    Comment by maitland at 2:06 am on 28 February 2008

    Here’s a movie you can buy:

    http://wwjbmovie.com/

    Enjoy!




    Comment by lance Wiggs at 9:32 am on 28 February 2008

    yup - the Macbook Air is a real paradigm shift. My Macbook Pro lies gathering dust, despite a whole lot more screen real estate.

    what are you waiting for?




    Comment by Barney Craggs at 10:17 am on 28 February 2008

    Rod - We met Michael yesterday as well, and sure enough his Air came out to play “dead as a donut” - no power, nothing, nada, zip. By lunch it was a svelt doorstop in dire need of some power socket love.

    I’m kinda in the liking the Air camp. For a portable on the road device it is about the right size and weight. Who cares about disk space, a backpack drive. Only 1 usb port, errr get a hub, I’ve got a tiny 4 porter that will do. As for no optical drive - honestly I couldn’t tell you the last time I used one other than for reloading an OS.

    My concerns with the Air would have to lie in the battery life, just how breakable is it (awfully thin) and that huge price difference. I did some US-NZ price comparisons last week and for most of the Mac range the cost difference isn’t too bad, but the Air, damn they are hiking that price here.




    Comment by Chris Johnson at 4:59 am on 29 February 2008

    Go buy the lightest laptop out there … the new Lenovo. Its lighter than the Mac Air and has a CD/DVD & 4 USB ports & SSD & WWAN integrated.

    Mossberg: “I can recommend the X300 for road warriors without hesitation”

    However … you will need to come back to the dark side and run Windows :)

    http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/26/lenovo-x300-review-roundup/

    -Chris.




    Comment by Warwick Sullivan at 10:25 am on 19 March 2008

    The debate rages - don’t knock it until you have tried it! I have a Mac Book Air and after only a short time think it is the best laptop I have ever had. If there was a tablet and pen option it would be nirvana. The weight and thinness is great for packing in your bag. The full size keyboard is a dream to type on compared to my previous cramped 12″ model - how I managed before I now question. And the piece de resistance is the touchpad with gestures - simply makes using the web and images so much simpler. The fact that it is an Apple is actually secondary and I still run a number of Windows applications on it - because I can.

    Yes there will be other equally competent and effective machines - the Lenovo being one in point. But they are all different and have their pluses and minuses. Pick the one that suits you best.