[demallien]

To offer a countering point of view, my 4 year old MacBook started dying on me yesterday - if I hold it wrong it reboots, so I had to go looking for a replacement. I ended up going for a new MacBook Pro 13" for several reasons: - I like being able to rip DVDs and watch them on my iPhone. It's one of the cheapest ways of watching TV series, if you don't mind not being up to date with the latest episodes... - 4gb RAM. More RAM never hurt anybody in the speed stakes. - Firewire - I work quite a lot with video, so being able to suck stuff in over Firewire 800 is a very nice feature to have. - And then, last but not least, battery-life. The MacBook Pro is a beast for battery life, and that is very important for me.

Some of the advantages of the Air include the fact that the screen resolution is better than my MacBook (but as I'm used to the MacBook resolution, it's what I currenty have, I'm sure I won't miss it) SSD drive, but I'm thinking that that is more about headroom on my MacBook Pro. In a couple of years time when it starts to feel a bit old and slow, I'll pop in an SSD (which should be cheaper by then), and my machine will get a new lease of life.

Just as an aside, my use case is mostly centered around programming in XCode and Textmate, but this is my principal machine at home, so lots of web surfing is also done.

[protomyth]

I also like have a DVD, but I actually like several of the the external ones better. I never use it on the road so I tend to have a powered hub with some toys attacked.

You are so right on video, it really needs a bigger machine.

I think the biggest difference this time (I have used a MacBook Air in the past for dev until I switched to 17" MacBook Pro) is the added option of 4gb of memory. That will really help. Also, the lack of heat right under my left arm would be a nice touch.

// do not buy the official external drive - it doesn't work on other machines

[cpr]

Note that you can order 4GB RAM in any Air model, when you build-to-order online.

[demallien]

True enough, but as a general rule, I never buy extra RAM from Apple if I can avoid it. The stuff that is baseline installed seems to have a reasonable price tag attached, but they really do price gouge when it comes to adding extra RAM as a BTO option. So that, plus the fact that I doubt that RAM is user-extensible in the new MacBook Air (they call it 'onboard RAM' on the Apple Store, which doesn't fill me with confidence.)

[cpr]

I do exactly the opposite: I never want to have to open up a piece of hardware (I've done that plenty in previous lives)--I want to treat my computers as appliances.

So if I want 4GB of RAM, Apple it is.

Isn't the fact the RAM isn't user-installable (true) in the MBA even more reason to buy the full boat?