# The SBHonline Community Daily > Digerati Discussions! >  >  Back to the Mac today at 10 PDT

## JEK



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## Larry

There will be a live stream.

(Charge that battery John!)

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## JEK

I knew that :)

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## Petri

Apple slipped the new products on their forum  :Big Grin: 

Let's see who wins, Apple or the fresh mussels we got..

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## Petri

Here's the live feed:

http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.ne...ent/index.html

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## JoshA

Good. I can use a new Mac with a lot of storage for video and iMovie '11.

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## JEK

New iLife looks very cool!

Apple unveils new, instant-on MacBook Air: $999 'MacBook meets iPad'

By AppleInsider Staff
Published: 02:15 PM EST

Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs said Wednesday he and his company asked themselves "What would happen if a MacBook and an iPad hooked up?" The result: two new MacBook Airs with screen sizes of 11.6 inches and 13.3 inches and instant-on capabilities, starting at just $999, and now available.

The new hardware has no optical drive and no hard drive, which allows instant-on capabilities. The MacBook Air has memory up to two times faster that is more reliable and 90 percent smaller and lighter, Jobs said.

Both models have a forward-facing FaceTime camera, an Core 2 Duo processor, and Nvidia GeForce 320M graphics.

The new 13-inch model gets 7 hours of battery life (done with "more stringent tests"), with 30 days of standby time. The new MacBook Air has a full-size keyboard and a full-size glass trackpad as well. The 13.3-inch display is 1440-by-900 pixels, and the model weighs just 2.9 pounds.

The larger model starts at $1,299 for 128GB of storage with a 1.86GHZ processor. Doubling the storage to 256GB is $1,599.

The 11-inch model has a display resolution of 1366x768 pixels. It's just as thin, but is even lighter, at just 2.3 pounds.

The low-end model has a 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo and 64GB of storage for $999. a higher-end model with 128GB inside costs $1,199.

Memory, rather than being enclosed in a solid state drive, are directly on the motherboard, allowing Apple to save space within the notebook. Jobs showed the inside of the MacBook Air, demonstrating that most of the space inside is used for the batteries.

 


11.6-inch: 1.4GHz 64GB $999
11.6-inch 1.4GHz 128GB $1199
13.3-inch 1.86GHz 128 GB $1299
13.3-inch 1.86GHz 256 GB $1599

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## JoshA

Didn't quite get my wish but I'm liking the small MacBook Air plus external USB storage for media.

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## JEK

I'm going to order the $999 one. Using Mobile Me for in-the-cloud storage I don't think I'll even need the external storage for most trips.

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## JoshA

Sounds like a good plan for trips. I'll probably do the same but still want local storage.

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## Petri

> Good. I can use a new Mac with a lot of storage for video and iMovie '11.



Buy a Western Digital external drive ;-)

I purchased a 2 terabyte WD My Book Studio Edition II back in January.  About a month ago the drive turned into super slow motion, even playing music from the drive with iTunes was skipping and it took five days to copy the 1 terabyte of files to another drive.

Formatting didn't help so I did an RMA for it.  The 2 terabyte model is low on stock so WD is sending me a 4 terabyte drive instead.   :thumb up:  


I like JEK's idea about 11" MBA for travels & co.  Need to compare the specs to our current alu-MB, euro pricing and make an educated decision..  haha.

iLife '11 is ok, not sure how much I need it though.  Would have been nice to see iWork '11 as well, or perhaps a minor update to Aperture with new books and other products.

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## JoshA

I'm thinking 1 TB My Passport for the MacBook Air.

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## JEK

I've got a little 320GB LaCie that is USB and FW. Nice for travel.

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## jeffbg

> I'm going to order the $999 one. Using Mobile Me for in-the-cloud storage I don't think I'll even need the external storage for most trips.



Have an iPad too?

For those of us who don't/can't do both, I'm really torn on the tradeoffs between the two....

-- Jeff

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## JEK

I have both. If I want to do HTML and build a website and burn DVDs and create books, I need the Air. Most of the time I can travel with the iPad. The iPad is the best device I've ever used to browse the web, read news and read books (in the dark).

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## JEK

This sounds cool . . .


Initial Hands-On Impressions of the New MacBook Air
Wednesday October 20, 2010 04:59 PM EST
Written by Eric Slivka
Those in attendance at today's media event on Apple's campus had the opportunity to spend some time with the new MacBook Air models, and early hands-on impressions and reviews are beginning to roll in.

Ars Technica calls both the 13.3-inch and 11.6-inch models "incredibly thin and light" and is particularly taken with the smaller version.
Both devices are incredibly thin and light, but the 11.6" version stole the show. The machine is practically netbook-sized (but don't tell Steve Jobs or Tim Cook we said that, as they seem to have a seething hatred for netbooks), but has a full-sized keyboard and almost-full-sized trackpad. The 13.3" model seemed like a monster by comparison, though as a previous MacBook Air owner, I really like the new design.

Several outlets have commented on the snappiness of the new MacBook Airs when waking from sleep, with the machines ready to use nearly instantly upon opening the lid. While not quite instant, a full boot take only about 15 seconds according to Forbes.
The most remarkable feature, however, isn't cosmetic, it's these machine's boot time.

*Bootup takes less than 15 seconds*, according to my watch. That's a good deal less than the roughly 50 seconds it takes my trusty Windows laptop to come to life.

As Apple notes in a support document, the *30-day standby battery life* for the new MacBook Airs is achieved with a new mode that activates after an hour of regular sleep, saving the entire system state to flash memory and turning off hardware systems.

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## jeffbg

> I have both. If I want to do HTML and build a website and burn DVDs and create books, I need the Air. Most of the time I can travel with the iPad. The iPad is the best device I've ever used to browse the web, read news and read books (in the dark).



I wonder with the small one (which one are you going to buy?) if you get a bit of both worlds.  Not a flat touchscreen for sure, but very nice size.

-- jeff

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## JEK

The small one, but the iPad experience is completely different without the keypad to get in the way. Jobs went long on how a touch screen doesn't work on a vertical surface and he is right.

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## Petri

> *Bootup takes less than 15 seconds*, according to my watch. That's a good deal less than the roughly 50 seconds it takes my trusty Windows laptop to come to life.



I'm laughing a bit on this..  if you put your existing Macbook in sleep, it will wake up instantly as well and it will stay a sleep for a very, very long time.  We hardly ever power it off.  iMac, the same thing.

 

Did the math.. and; iLife '11, we don't really use any of the tools from it (Aperture instead of iPhoto etc).  I think I'll just wait for a while and get it bundled with a Mac.

The top spec MBA (2.13Ghz/4G/256G/13") costs 1780e here in Europe.  That's a hefty premium compared to the US ($1799 / 1289e + tax) or Hong Kong (1295e) price.  The specs are about similar to our current late 2008 Macbook (the alu-version that turned into Macbook Pro).  The cheapest MBA is $999 (715e) but it's 999e here but it would be substantially less powerful than our existing MB.

If I needed a personal laptop, I would click "buy".
If we had the US/HK pricing, I would click "buy".
But neither applies.

So dear Apple shareholders, I'm afraid no deal for the moment.  If I travel to US or Hong Kong in the next 6-12 months, I might give you some additional revenue but for the moment I'll pass.

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## JEK

> Originally Posted by JEK
> 
> I have both. If I want to do HTML and build a website and burn DVDs and create books, I need the Air. Most of the time I can travel with the iPad. The iPad is the best device I've ever used to browse the web, read news and read books (in the dark).
> 
> 
> 
> I wonder with the small one (which one are you going to buy?) if you get a bit of both worlds.  Not a flat touchscreen for sure, but very nice size.
> 
> -- jeff



 It came to the house this morning -- sweet little guy. Some might call it a netbook, but not Steve!

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## Petri

> It came to the house this morning -- sweet little guy. Some might call it a netbook, but not Steve!

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