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Apr 18, 08 - 04:45 pm Comment from: occams razor

Not a case for a vegie then.

O my gosh, it's soooo ugly!

I prefer Brenthaven.

I want seal skin!

Veggies are okay. Vegans wouldn't buy it.

Apr 18, 08 - 05:45 pm Comment from: Rainer

Wow. Form follows function.
349$ is a bit much for a "bag".
But then, if you can spend the 1799 for the Air, the 249 for the Apple Care, the 99 for the superdrive, the 29 for the Ethernet-adapter and the 19 for the Apple Remote, you should still have enough cash to buy such a bag.
Especially, if you're a women
From the picture, it looks very precious. Would make a nice xmas-present, I guess.
Personally, I prefer backpacks. Better handling.

Apr 18, 08 - 05:46 pm Comment from: iamdj

Is the flap (wait for it) SNAPPY?

Ugly? Uhmuh gush, stop hating, hater! This is gorgeous. If I see another nylon anything for my anything. Why do I have to be a dork to carry my laptop. I prefer to be stylin' my friend. This is much more the way to go. God bless the Italians!

Davy Crocket called, he wants his laptop case back.

"Ugly" would imply that only its looks are retarded - this thing has pretty much nothing going for it.

Save the Veggies. The world needs food with inflation and such!

Apr 18, 08 - 09:49 pm Comment from: Sixvodkas

I dunno...

Ever since the 1st advert, I've been sold on manilla envelopes.

Thanks, Steve, for saving me a bundle!

ugh
no, wait...UGH!

that's not it......UGH (add puking sounds)
better things, MUCH better things for 350 smackeroonies!

I'd love a polycarbonate molded case made to look like a manila envelope.

You paid $1800 for a laptop with the features of a $700 Dell, why not pay $350 for a bag?

Apr 19, 08 - 12:39 am Comment from: Cubert

OOOOOOO!!! I can get it in Zune brown!

Apr 19, 08 - 12:41 am Comment from: Cubert

This, like the MacBook Air, is for those who are willing to pay extra for a design statement.

Wow, That doesn't defeat the purpose of the thinnest computer ever and we didn't spent enough money on the macbook air, lets bring my total to $2100! or $4000 so I can get a small laptop thats ok for the price of a macbook pro with a $350 dollar case! AWESOME!!

Dell Sucks!

"This, like the MacBook Air, is for those who are willing to pay extra for a design statement."

Yeah, especially those narcissistic souls wanting to publicly announce that they have more money than sense. They would be paying more for a "design statement", because they they are certainly paying more for less computer.

@Snipe

Please post a link to the Dell notebook that is like the MacBook air and only costs $700!

So what would you pay for a nice leather manilla envelope, with the form factor of that messenger bag? I think that would be the bomb.

@Snipe

Part of my job involves being on call 24/7 every other week to handle IT Support.

My needs for an on-call workstation are the following:
1) Light weight
2) Small volume
3) Acceptable performance while on-line, either via WiFi or Turbo 3G USB modem.

No need for an optical drive or >80GB HD because this is just for on-call stuff and I have Macs at home and a Dell tower at work for other projects.

Sounds like the perfect job for the MacBook Air, right? Well, my employer (10000+ workstations deployed) has an exclusive contract with Dell, so they told me that I could pick out any laptop that I wanted as long as it was a Latitude D430, 630 or 830. The 430 is the smallest and lightest of those three, so I thought I would see how it stacks up to the MBA spec-wise.

All configurations of the Latitude D430 (Dell's smallest computer for corporate use) are substantially heavier than the MBA. They are also thicker (and thus have higher volume). Their screen resolution equals that of the MBA, but they have a smaller, 12" screen and a narrower keyboard so most would give the advantage to the MBA when it comes to day-to-day usability.

As far as performance is concerned the highest performance D430 has a Core 2 Duo running at 1.2 GHz, considerably slower than the MBA. Configuring both with max RAM (2GB) and an 80GB HD, the Dell ends up being more expensive than the MBA. Both have a SSHD option, but adding it to each still leaves the Dell more expensive than the MBA.

So in my case, for my needs, the best performing Latitude D430 is heavier, has higher overall volume, but also a smaller screen and keyboard, is considerably slower and to top it all off, is more expensive than the MBA.

So what did we end up going with? The company wouldn't allow me to order the max performance model because it was too expensive. I asked for our standard model (1.06 GHz C2D) with 2GB RAM instead of 1GB which is standard. Dell delivered one with a Core 2 Solo CPU and no Bluetooth. Not acceptable, so they are swapping it out for a 1.06 C2D with BT and I have ordered an extra gig of RAM.

Don't tell me that the MBA is a waste of money or time as compared to Dell. My experience has shown quite the contrary.

Daner wrote, "Don't tell me that the MBA is a waste of money or time as compared to Dell. My experience has shown quite the contrary."

According to your own words, Daner, you have a Dell and NEVER "experienced" a MBA. Since you do not own and haven't any "experience" with the MBA, you cannot provide any objective comparisons between your Dell a MBA.

Why don't you buy your own MBA, Daner. I'm sure that you company won't mind you buying your own machine. You can afford it, right?

Later you can regale us with your real "experiences".

Apr 20, 08 - 08:09 am Comment from: Rainer

@Afib

This is true, somewhat.
OTOH, if one has mortages for the house, loans for the car and food, clothing etc. for the family to pay, one may get a bit less "generous" towards buying stuff for oneself that the company should pay for.
That is, I don't have neither of the above, but I can do the math
The company's IT-department is probably already literally swamped by requests from individuals to procure all kinds of AAPL-hardware - they are probably fighting to prevent a "precedent".
I don't think, though, that anybody in IT can win such a fight.
Just like IT (or any other company doing anything with "mobile") can ignore the iPhone and pretend that it doesn't exist, that the existing solutions are "good enough".
You can't do IT against allmost all of your users all the time

Afib -

I did write that I have a Dell Latitude D430. I did not write that I have never experienced a MBA, you made that one up on your own.

Objective comparisons of weight, volume and price can be made quite easily based upon published and easily verifiable specifications, regardless of ownership or experience. It is patently ridiculous to suggest otherwise.

I agree that performance should be measured directly in order to draw specific conclusions. That having been said, please tell me why a base MBA that meets or exceeds the hardware specification of the fastest D430 in all areas except for HD read/write performance while costing considerably less is a sub-par performer or a bad deal.

My company does not allow employees to use their personal computers for work purposes. Most companies that have any reasonable form of information security do not allow that.

Why do you assume that I can afford a MBA? Why do you assume that I would be interested in buying a computer to use for my employer? I am satisfied with the computers that I have available for my home and office use, but based upon objectively verifiable specifications I believe that the MBA would be a better choice for reasons of both performance and value than the D430 for the narrowly-defined work-related purpose specified.

By all means feel free to enlighten me if my information, analysis or conclusions are faulty, but please base your information on objective and verifiable facts instead of erroneous, spurious or meaningless conjecture.

@Daner--why would Afib want to provide you with enlightenment when he can't explain his need to constantly rant about a machine nobody is making him/her/it buy?

All the foaming at the mouth about the Air is kind of...well, simply quite odd. If Apple had gotten rid of the MacBook, or gotten rid of the MacBook Pro then complaining would be in order. Since those models still exist and look to continue existing for years there must be some kind of weird psychological issue at play...

@OpJ

My hunch is that some people have a nearly pathological need for others to be wrong in order for them to feel good about being right. Facts or differing perspectives have little or nothing to do with it. It is extremely difficult to show such induhviduals that two people, with differing perspectives and circumstances, can come to differing conclusions and still both be right.