Indeed. I actually think that paying 3 times as much for something not so different (a nice netbook vs a mba) is hard to justify purely by the differences in quality (in software and hardware).
In other words, it's because of the apple fanboys that are willing to write blank checks just to get their newest white gizmo =) And those fanboys are the same that downvoted both you and elblanco.
PS: Maybe it's just me, but this fanboyism seems more proper over reddit than here.
A nice netbook with even passably decent hardware (ie not single core atom processors and really low resolution screens) does not cost $333. Realistically the cheapest laptops that even begin to compare (for example an Acer timelineX 1830) are 'only' about 30-40% cheaper, and then you're giving up on Nvidia graphics and an SSD.
I'm not an Apple fanboy, quite indifferent to the supposed merits of OS X and haven't owned a Mac in years. However I am in the market for a small, lightweight laptop and the 11" mba is very competitively priced compared to similar laptops from people like Lenovo, Sony and Toshiba. I'm going to reserve judgement until some more reviews come out and I get chance to see it in the flesh, but as it stands the new mba is probably going to be my first new Mac in years.
I go into any discussions about Apple products here knowing that I'll burn a bunch of karma -- but I do so anyway because I like to fantasize that I'm bringing some kind of interesting discussion to the table anyway.
The fundamentalism of the Apple fanboyism here on HN is quite intense and rabid compared to most places. At least that's my observation. It's pretty much impossible to have a constructively critical discussion about pretty much anything Apple does on HN. If you also notice, there's very rarely any dissenting comments either. No engagement in discussion, no debate, no back-and-forth like we'd have here on pretty much any topic.
I personally think it's a disservice (and disrespectful) to Apple and to HN considering what kind of site this is. If you can't critically comment on things that a company does right and wrong, and learn from that discussion and analysis, you may as well not even participate here.
It's just the worst kind of fundamentalism in action.
Yes, it was sarcastic snark pointing out that all their selling now is a high priced netbook -- even after Jobs shat all over the form factor for the last year. It was the first comment here noticing that at the time.
BTW, even though it shows only -4 on my posts, I've lost far more than 12 points of karma. PG appears to actually be counting the downvotes these days even if he's only showing -4. I think I just bled away about 25 points last night because people can't accept that an 11" notebook with an SSD and no optical drive is a netbook.
Oh no, I lost that karma way before I whined about it. I knew as soon as I posted that it's just a karma burning exercise. Any contrary (or slightly contrary) post in a discussion about Apple is pretty much treated like leprosy. I know that going in. I was just observing that the algorithm appears to have changed and now downvotes are all counted regardless of what the displayed score is.
You didn't lose all of it before you whined. I know that because I downvoted your whine about being downvoted, and didn't downvote your bah-it's-just-a-netbook comments.
(I have a policy of always downvoting whines about being downvoted and "I know I'll be downvoted for this ..." comments and so forth, because (1) they're boring and (2) I have a nasty suspicion that they produce net-positive results for their authors and want to make them not do so.)
Netbook generally isn't about form factor, it's about use factor. A netbook is made for lightweight browsing, emailing, IM'ing, etc. You know, stuff on the 'net.
The new MBA falls into the class of devices known as ultraportables. It's a full powered machine in a very small form factor/weight factor.
This is an interesting point. I actually use my netbook for lots more than stuff on the net. I pretty much use it as an ultra portable laptop. I don't expect awesome performance for it, but hey, it was $270 so I get what I pay for. It can run some old games on it, I play Sim City 4k on it all the time and it does ok. I can run all of Office on it, do some light photo editing on it, etc.
I've used it in a pinch to replace my desktop when my 5 year old power supply bit the dust. It did "ok".
If you compare it to other ultra-portables, the MBA seems to be competitively priced compared some of the ultra high end stuff.
But you can still get ultraportables for about 1/2 of the MBA with competitive specs.
Show me something "not so different" for 3x less.
Full size keyboard is a must. I my give up on trackpad there, but only because no other company has something comparable, so it would be unfair to ask for it. Even on my first gen MBA trackpad is so good that I never connect a mouse to it.
I might consider replacing it with the new 11" — it would be an improvement nonetheless.
The funny thing is, if I spent time running around finding something with comparable features at a lower price (which you're perfectly capable of doing yourself through a wide variety of search engines we have these days), somebody would probably just respond back, "well, Apple isn't about point for point features, it's about the user experience".
But if I had said, "an 11in. MBA has about the same user experience as a netbook", somebody would bring out a point for point feature comparison, and tout the processor or something.
Let's face it, despite unrelenting FUD from Apple regarding this exact type of ultra-portable form factor since netbooks first hit the market, there is fantastic utility in having something in your bag about the size of a hard-cover book that you can do general purpose computing on even if it doesn't offer the "full" experience that the larger products do. It's light, it fits pretty much anywhere, you can do real work on it, the battery life tends to be pretty good.
In typical fashion, Apple's taken a look at the segment, and consumer demand (don't kid yourself that people haven't been pining away for a Mac in this form factor since netbooks first came out), taken their own spin on it (let's make it small and thin, with a better screen, only SSD drives, and a beefier processor!) and put out a credible, nice looking product with the typical Apple tax associated with it -- nothing terribly surprising. But now, because of the relentless slamming of the form factor called "netbooks" (they've poisoned that well), so they call it a "notebook", but it's not just a notebook, it's a special line of notebooks designed to be super-thin with a subset of the normal ports you'd find on their larger cousins.
But seriously, the 11" MBA is Apple's spin on making a nice netbook.
Is there something wrong with that? I'm tempted to buy one because that's precisely what it is. I almost couldn't imagine running around without my netbook these days. Having a credible Apple made option is fantastic.
So here's my computing needs in this form factor. I'm an amateur travel photographer and a musician, I take lots and lots of photos and write lots and lots of music. Having something small that's a real computer with decent storage is very important to me. I don't want to drag along a bunch of external peripherals like hard drives or the like because I'm already dragging around a camera bag full of a heavy camera body and some lenses. This form factor works for me because I can actually open and use the machine in incredibly tight spaces, like coach seating on a plane and I pretty much don't even notice it in my bag when I'm running around. Plus I offload my day's shots to the computer every day and review and do some light editing back in my hotel room or on the plane (or ship or whatever). After a week or two of shooting, I easy take 50-80 GB of photos. Plus software and other junk (I like to play back a collection of old jazz 45s I have on the machine as mp3s while I edit my photos), I pretty regularly fill out the 160GB drive on my current machine.
I'm pretty happy with the form factor of my 9" 2 and a half year old netbook. But I wish I had a bit more ram, a bit more resolution on the screen and a 250GB drive.
Or are you purely down to just pure fundamentalism, "I'll ignore the stuff that's better about everything you've shown me and call it immaterial and nitpick on the lack of some other feature that's only important in the marketing blurbs put out by Apple (type of screen, SSD, trackpad, material selection of the hinge)".
Tell you what, why don't you go do some research on your own. It's not like it's hard to find better spec'd devices for cheaper than pretty much anything in Apple's lineup. That's a silly debate to have.
The question is, does what Apple offer suit the needs of its users? I'm describing my own personal needs. But I'm not doing anything particularly weird. Just shooting photos. I've also since notice it doesn't even have an SD card slot so I have to rely on the slower USB connection from my camera (and carry around yet another cable). And yet the 11" completely doesn't fulfill my rather modest requirements, even at 3x as much as something that minimally does.
So taking pictures is right out.
What can I do with it? Apple's own marketing copy pretty much describes hauling it around for writing stuff (blogs, slides, etc.). I suppose one can use a web browser with it. So there you go...the description of a netbook. That's Apple's expected use case for the 11" MBA. Welcome to $1200 netbook land.
But at least it's thin! Because it was always so hard to find space in my backpack for my 1.14" thick netbook. Man, the number of times I've lamented, "if only I could get half of that thickness back! I could jam another dozen sheets of paper in there!"
Seriously, this isn't religion, it's a computer. Come off it and drop the fundamentalism.
In other words, it's because of the apple fanboys that are willing to write blank checks just to get their newest white gizmo =) And those fanboys are the same that downvoted both you and elblanco.
PS: Maybe it's just me, but this fanboyism seems more proper over reddit than here.