[rimantas]

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.

[elblanco]

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.

So to answer your question, here's something for 2x less http://www.amazon.com/Seashell-1201PN-PU17-BK-12-1-Inch-Netb...

Here's something better for 2x less http://www.amazon.com/T101MT-EU17-BK-10-1-Inch-Convertible-T...

Actually, considering I'd have to get a 120GB MBA to even realistically use it with my use-case, these are 3x less.

[rimantas]

I did not ask for something that fits your needs for 2x less. I've asked for something "not so different".

If you really think that those things you pointed to are not so different, we have nothing to discuss.

[elblanco]

So your counter argument is a bulleted feature comparison then?

Glad I typed that up front so you wouldn't miss it.

This review http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/apple-macbook-air/4505-3121_...

Directly compares it to these devices http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/sony-vaio-tz150n-black/4505-...

http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/toshiba-portege-r500-s5002/4...

Is that better?

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.