Re: Alienware

Yep, and that was Tom's Hardware's conclusion, after some extensive research: A base-level Mac or Macbook is good value and hard to match, component for component. They did, of course, recommend that you upgrade RAM and the like yourself...

Re: Nonsense

>miserly 5 hours max

That was 5 hours streaming HD video on loop, not 5 hours maximum.

>cannot be upgraded

Please define 'upgraded'. I can't easily upgrade my CPU or GPU in my DELL laptop. This Macbook effectively has PCIe-onna-cable.

>Business and First Class

have power sockets and or beds.

Re: Alienware

Comparing an Alienware to a Macbook is like comparing a Ferrari to a Lexus sedans, it makes no sense.

The first one is optimized for games, the second one will burn your desk or cook your eggs after 3 minutes of Crysis 3.

Re: you still use optical drives?

Re: you still use optical drives?

Why, yes. My last copy of CS5 and Quark eXpress came on DVD as it happens, as did the operating system, OSX, I believe it was called.

AAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA ... TOTALLY AGREE..

TOTALLY OWNED!

Optical drives are less used these days but they are nowhere near dead... only a stupid consumer or fanboi would dare make such a coment. When you have a job in IT or have at least some real world experience of supporting "stupid end users like yourself" will you see that CD/DVD use is still wide and varied from installing OS's, imaging/cloning, software and updates etc... still supplied on disk.

Why? because they are quick and cheap. Yes flash/USB media will eventually kill them off but we're years from that.

So you've seen this screen for yourself then and taken the time to understand the difference it makes?

On some scenarios it's not that much better, but start browsing thorough hi-res photos and it's amazing. Head down the Apple shop and have a play about with one. Load iPhoto for example.

I'm on the fence re the ram. The inability to upgrade the ram when you can buy it with 8 or 16gb (only $200 for the extra 8gb is decent by apple standards, less great by intel standards), but it occured to me that twice in the past I have had to replace the ram in laptops after a couple of years. It might be the heat, humidity of lots of flights and the accompanying xray machines that killed the ram, but it did happen, and on decent machines (IBM thinktank and a Tosh Portege) cheap consumer models.

Do I need the display, no, I can work now so I will still be able to work, but it would be nice for working on photos to have more detail. There is likely to be a considerable number of photogs and indy folks who buy this as a single machine to do many things pretty darn well. Plus there is a little value in showing up with a nice looking laptop to premeets with clients.

The ethernet port baffles me, surely it would have been simpler to compress the size of the ethernet port, call it mini ethernet and bundle an adapter which would cost about 2 pebbles to make in China. Given we would all lose them in about 2 weeks they could probably sell them for $10, make a huge profit and not upset everyone. I guess they either figured screw people, or they figured enough people will use wireless (but why not add ac rather than n?) instead of wired?

Re: Surely some mistake, the Samsung Q30 was the first Ultrabook ;)

that hardware you mention doesn't look like an ultrabook at all. it's quite thick and chunky. From specs of q30: Dimension: 287.7 x 197.5 x 18.0 ~ 23.8 mm (without battery).

Re: Surely some mistake, the Samsung Q30 was the first Ultrabook ;)

q30 is a netbook, or ultra-portable, with a 12.1" screen, 24mm height and a plastic body.

The macbook air you are comparing it to has a 13.3" screen, 4-19mm tapered height and an aluminium unibody construction.

The lower height, larger screen and unibody chassis is what makes it an ultrabook. I'm not saying it is better or worse, just that the macbook air defines the ultrabook category.

Re: Surely some mistake, the Samsung Q30 was the first Ultrabook ;)

Sadly you are both wrong, the Vaio X505 was launched in 2004, beating Apple and Samsung by at least a year. I'd still takes its latest the devlopment, the Vaio Z Series, over with the MBA or indeed this new fangled MBP. OSX really isn't for me (far too un-intuitive after 20 years of Windows), and I think the Apple laptops are ugly things personally.

Re: Surely some mistake, the Samsung Q30 was the first Ultrabook ;)

Actually the Samsung boxes have a magnesium alloy underside. As for what defines an Ultrabook (tm), Intel are the people to ask, not Apple.

Re: Surely some mistake, the Samsung Q30 was the first Ultrabook ;)

There's always a lot of interesting voting going on in Apple threads. Apple fanatics flock to vote down everyone who dares say "There's no ethernet port, no optical drive, and it's at least a grand more than I'd want to pay", while anti-Apple fanatics flock to vote down anyone who dares say "The screen is lovely and the cost is more or less equivalent to other equally-specced competitors", and both vote down people who say "Yes, the cost is more or less that of equally-specced competitors, but when you add in the cost of an optical drive and a handful of overpriced Apple adaptors you add a good couple of hundred quid on to the Apple's cost" because it's far too balanced.

For whatever reason this topic seems to make people very emotional.

Back on topic and for the record, it's a lovely looking machine, a beautiful screen, nice specs, and if it cost a grand less and came with an ethernet port and an optical drive I'd be very interested in it. Since it costs what it does, has no optical drive and no ethernet, I'm not, and my next computer will either be the standard 15" MBP or back to the world of non-Apple manufacturers running Linux, on machines most likely engineered to a lower build quality, but with bigger hard drives. No flaming necessary.

Re: no bluraydrive

Buy them from the itunes store?

Re: no bluraydrive

How many true HD, not over compressed, full-length movies can you fit on a 256Gb drive? (after the other stuff you have on there, that is)

Re: no bluraydrive

"How many true HD, not over compressed, full-length movies can you fit on a 256Gb drive? (after the other stuff you have on there, that is)"

How many movies are you likely to need to carry around with you at all times..?

Re: no bluraydrive

Have you tried flying to Australia with a 2-year old? You'd be surprised just how many DVDs you need.

It's sad that the valid criticisms of this device - the price, the paltry storage, the lack of built-in connectors - are being lost under the deluge of fanbois screaming that because they would never use it for X, that nobody should ever expect X on a device. There are valid complaints here, no matter how shrilly they're being made.

Take ethernet connectivity - let's say you're hotdesking in an office and the wifi signal is poor but there's an ethernet connector. You need your adapter (cost £30+).

Or there's storage - 256GB doesn't go very far, particularly if, as suggested above, you're forced to load films on to your machine because there isn't a dvd drive.

And it doesn't help that the 'portable' thunderbolt external hard drive (cost £400) isn't portable at all, because it requires an external power supply.

I'm sure it will sell well to the sort of people who downvote posts criticising its weaknesses, but it is, like most Apple devices, fantastic - if you're going to use it in exactly the way Apple expect you to.

Re: no bluraydrive

If you are spending £1800+ on a top end laptop to be used as a DVD player for a two year old you have more money than sense, but hey - its your money.

I really don't get the problem people are having over this lack of DVD / Blu-ray drive issue. Do you still complain it doesn't have a floppy drive or RS232..? Apple are not forcing this machine on anyone - if you don't want one or it doesn't meet your two year old's requirements, then don't buy it.

The alternative is that nobody is allowed to own a machine without a DVD drive in it because somebody's kids might want to watch a DVD..? Where does that end?

Re: no bluraydrive

It's not JUST going to be used as a DVD player; only someone determined to miss the point would make such a ludicrous comment. The claim was that nobody could POSSIBLY need to carry around 'that many' DVDs, and I gave a good example of a situation where one would have to. Would you prefer a screaming toddler on a 14-hour flight? I can think of plenty of other examples.

If a laptop had come out 10 years ago without a floppy drive, I would complain. DVDs and Blu-ray are current technologies. You might not, but out there in the real world everyone still uses them.

And as for "don't buy one", I don't intend to. I know that fanbois will lap it up, but people capable of looking beyond a shiny case and a badge, like me, won't. That doesn't make my valid complaints any less valid, and it doesn't make the hyperventilating about an overpriced laptop with overpriced accessories any more ridiculous.

Re: no bluraydrive

Your 'complaints' seem based on personal bias rather than having any practical merit. You appear simply intent on simply finding something to criticise. If it had an optical drive, you would no doubt spend your time complaining about it not needing one and how much thinner it could be without.

Re: no bluraydrive

"Such a gorgeous screen, but no built-in bluray drive??? How are you supposed to play back high quality video movies?"

You watch what you just recorded on your moby-expensive HD pro gear.

Re: no bluraydrive

"And it doesn't help that the 'portable' thunderbolt external hard drive (cost £400) isn't portable at all, because it requires an external power supply."

Then use a USB3 external hard drive.

Re: no bluraydrive

I have a portable thunderbolt drive that doesn't require any external PSU. There's plenty of them around (and Seagate do an adapter for SATA drives that doesn't need a PSU either). I'd suggest if you're picking holes, you find better ones.

The new MacBook Pro - there is an adapter for that!

See above...

Re: Blu-ray?

> overpriced rental at Blockbusters

My local video shop is the same price for either. Blockbuster has always been a ripoff.

Blockbuster

Last time I checked: Blockbuster rentals are the same price for DVD and Bluray

Re: Blu-ray?

"If you use compressed streaming why spend £1800 on an Ultra high def screen?"

If you only want to watch Blu-ray movies, why are you spending £1800 on a laptop..?

This may come as a surprise to you, but some people actually use computers for things other than watching movies, games and porn.

Re: SSD

Too sensible for this debate, be gone with you.

Re: iFixit teardown

Sounds like a load of sour grapes. Replace the battery "every so often"? I've never replaced any laptop battery more than once or before at least 5 years. Plus they're always expensive, think I paid nearly £100 for my Dell one. $200 isn't really that expensive considering this one is much larger.

Recycling an issue? You can just give it back to Apple who probably have the right tools to do it (since they refurbish them)

Let's be honest, iFixit is just pissed off that they won't be selling as many of their overpriced repair kits for this one.

Re: iFixit teardown

Yeah, "sour grapes", that must be what it is.

Even if you *do* give it back to Apple, any actual raw material recycling is going to struggle if the point is that aluminium fused to glass can't be usefully processed with current processes. With Apple (and other tech firms) apparently steering their entire product line towards "magic box status" (ie nothing inside it that a user is able or allowed to tinker with), this is a non-trivial issue.