09-25-2008, 08:45 PM
And I thought i was the one overstating the case.
I think the "niche" market is people who demand a laptop to be power-machine, desktop replacement, video-editing multi-port production machine. This niche will always be there, but it's not a growing niche. People like us are in this power niche. Members of the MacResource forums aren't a representative sample group of computer users in general. A lot of us enjoy computing as a hobby, and crave power and expandability. We're the minority. The majority of people who use laptops aren't computer hobbyists, they use them for convenience and portability.
The Air is just a bit early to this market. In 3-5 years what we think of as notebook computers, for travelers, will be replaced by smaller, lighter devices. Some won't carry laptops at all. The number of smaller-appliance using consumers with these expectations will double in size, easily.
By then, the Air will have matured into a portable computer with power and capacity more comparable to what MacBooks and MacBook Pros have now.
For guys like me, the current version is too expensive, like others here, I'd want a FW port, more disk space. I can wait a few years. If someone gave me one? Or you one? I doubt we'd call it "useless". If so, I'll happily take yours!
I think the "niche" market is people who demand a laptop to be power-machine, desktop replacement, video-editing multi-port production machine. This niche will always be there, but it's not a growing niche. People like us are in this power niche. Members of the MacResource forums aren't a representative sample group of computer users in general. A lot of us enjoy computing as a hobby, and crave power and expandability. We're the minority. The majority of people who use laptops aren't computer hobbyists, they use them for convenience and portability.
The Air is just a bit early to this market. In 3-5 years what we think of as notebook computers, for travelers, will be replaced by smaller, lighter devices. Some won't carry laptops at all. The number of smaller-appliance using consumers with these expectations will double in size, easily.
By then, the Air will have matured into a portable computer with power and capacity more comparable to what MacBooks and MacBook Pros have now.
For guys like me, the current version is too expensive, like others here, I'd want a FW port, more disk space. I can wait a few years. If someone gave me one? Or you one? I doubt we'd call it "useless". If so, I'll happily take yours!