The new MacBook Air is Certainly a great improvement over previous models, namely the Move Towards exclusive solid-state storage in a laptop is a welcome paradigm shift. HOWEVER, there were a few oversights in the Notable New Models That I'm Sure a lot of people are disappointed about. Here are a few of Them, And The Reasons Behind Apple's Omissions.
1) Intel Core i3
While the GeForce 320M graphics card and solid-state storage will Improve Performance of the new MBA to a Certain Degree, Including The Same 1.86Ghz Core 2 Duo as the previous model was a Slightly disappointing move. Intel's Core processor i3 Mobile tops the Core 2 Duo Almost in every way in terms of performance.
Reasons for OMMISSION:
-Cost and Power Consumption (read: battery life).
2) USB 3.0
The new USB spec was Announced back in 2008 and Consumer Products Arriving started last January. High-end PC's are now shipping with USB 3.0 and Apple was the first to widely Adopt a USB with the first iMac, yet we haven't seen a single Mac ship with the new standard.
Reasons for OMMISSION:
-Cost, Intel Core 2 Duo chipset Not Designed for USB 3.0.
3) SD Card Slot on the 11 "model
The 11 "model MacBook Air Can be configured Thurs include either 128GB or 64GB on-board storage. Both are Relatively scant amounts of space on a laptop by today's Standards. The 13 "model Includes a convenient SD Card slot for Increased (removable) storage capacity. While High-Capacity SD Cards That Are not cheap yet (a 64GB SDHC card will run you over $ 200), You Could always get a few cards to 32GB Thurs expand your storage for a bit less money. This Would Have Been a much handier option is the 11 "model, Which is in more dire need of expandable storage.
Reasons for OMMISSION:
-Cost, space enclosure.
4) HDMI-out
Apple hasn't Indicated They are planning a phasing-out of ITS Mini DisplayPort in favor of the HDTV audio / video all-in-one standard for Any Time Soon, But a man CAN dream, can not they? If anything, we'll see this is a MacBook Pro first, But I'm not holding my breath either.
Reason for OMMISSION:
Mini DisplayPort is Smaller, no other Macs or Apple Displays use HDMI. Probably the cost, too.
5) Retina Display Touch Screen
It's fairly the Obvious Reasons "this was omitted, But if Apple Really Wants To Combine the iPhone / iPad and MacBook lines in the MBA, the touch screen Should Have input. Some of the new OS X UI additions like Lion Launch Pad and Mission Control are just begging for touch input. The Increased resolution on the screen is nice, But a full-on-display Retina Would Have Been nicer.
Reasons for OMMISSION:
-Phil Schiller noted in the MacBook Air That video touch-input on a laptop screen is awkward. I can not imagine it's awkward anymore please performing gestures is a Magic Mouse. Once again, it really all Comes Down To cost.
I Think We Can see a common thread here. Apple Wants To put a Fully solid-state, bare-bones laptop in the hands of a lot of people (without just making a netbook). Only offering flash storage was a great move and Hopefully Leads the Way to the more solid-state laptops. The original MacBook Air was priced like a luxury good with features That Did not quite add up. The new models, while They aren't quite cutting-edge in the performance department at Least now have a price match Thurs.
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