Forums | MacLife

There's also this option for cross country flights. However the lack of third party and car adaptors is a bit of a pain.

Tallgeese wrote:

If your plane has outlets by the seats.

True but that's is far more common than it used to be.

Indeed the problem there being the airline tendency to not replace or retrofit aircraft as often as they are supposed to. Lord knows if they at least replaced them as often as they were supposed to for structural safety reasons, then they'd probably all have the proper plugs by now.

Of course, even on the times people use discounted business class the airlines make far more money from it due to repeat usage. Skimping there has a far greater impact on profitability.

volk wrote:

I think the battery life issue depends on how close it is to Apple's claims.  If you can hit Apple's claimed life with reasonable usage, then I don't think battery life is a huge problem, if they fall too much short of claimed life, then I wouldn't be happy.

I am kind of strange in that I have zero issues with iPod batteries being what they are, but with a laptop, I would prefer to be able to connect a spare battery.

Do you mind if I ask how you use your laptop when you actually need a second battery?

I think that there are definitely people that have a need for more than one battery. I also think that those people are a minority and I further think that if you are carrying around spare batteries, etc. then you probably aren't the target market for a 3 lb. laptop. I'm not currently the target market because I made a decision one year ago that my laptop was going to be my only machine, my workhorse, and so I bought the 17" MBP. The Air IS the perfect machine for my wife and she would not have a need for the spare battery. Sure, she likes to sit on the couch on a lazy Sunday afternoon surfing the web while football is on but she is close enough to an outlet if she is surfing for more than 4 hours

Now, if I only had $1799 in the couch cushions...

Either that or I'll just wait for this stimulus package to make it's way through Congress. LOL

Frank

robco wrote:

You can carry spare batteries with you, but are limited as to how many and how they're packaged. For cross-country flights, you're not going to have more than about five hours of use time anyway, considering you can't use it until after cruising altitude has been reached. Five hours should be plenty for SFO-JFK. Find an outlet in the terminal.

It really depends on how long you need to work untethered. I've only used the included battery in my MB, but I'm rarely at a place where I can't plug it in. So it wouldn't be much of an issue for me personally.

That is very interesting and another example of how the media messes things up. I really can't stand when they "report" on things that they have no knowledge about. When I saw this report at the beginning of the month CNN stated that lithium batteries would no longer be allowed to be carried onto the plane, that they would have to be checked. In fact, the opposite is true:

http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/hea … teries.pdf

In fact, CNN really screwed up by showing a video while they were talking about the story that showed only alkaline and Ni-MH batteries. They spent most of their time correcting that mistake so in the end they left the viewer with muddled information. You would think they could give you accurate information on this since they must have a ton of people working for them that travel and have to abide by these regulations on a daily basis.

Frank

I could see a slim external battery for the MBA, the only problem is that Uncle Steve needs to license MagSafe in order for that to happen.

I don't see Steve  being too fond of licensing much of anything that Apple has come up with....

In fact, I think there is a better chance that one of us gets a job at Apple and tell them what to make.

Last edited by pkmgarf (2008-01-21 5:30 pm)

i personally was hoping for at least 6 hours of life out of the MBA

twood3 wrote:

i personally was hoping for at least 6 hours of life out of the MBA

That would have been an incredible feat of engineering as slim as that thing is. The battery must be pretty slim as well.

frankly wrote:

volk wrote:

I think the battery life issue depends on how close it is to Apple's claims.  If you can hit Apple's claimed life with reasonable usage, then I don't think battery life is a huge problem, if they fall too much short of claimed life, then I wouldn't be happy.

I am kind of strange in that I have zero issues with iPod batteries being what they are, but with a laptop, I would prefer to be able to connect a spare battery.

Do you mind if I ask how you use your laptop when you actually need a second battery?

I think that there are definitely people that have a need for more than one battery. I also think that those people are a minority and I further think that if you are carrying around spare batteries, etc. then you probably aren't the target market for a 3 lb. laptop. I'm not currently the target market because I made a decision one year ago that my laptop was going to be my only machine, my workhorse, and so I bought the 17" MBP. The Air IS the perfect machine for my wife and she would not have a need for the spare battery. Sure, she likes to sit on the couch on a lazy Sunday afternoon surfing the web while football is on but she is close enough to an outlet if she is surfing for more than 4 hours

Now, if I only had $1799 in the couch cushions...

Either that or I'll just wait for this stimulus package to make it's way through Congress. LOL

Frank

I would use it primarily for audio work with some movie watching thrown in as well.  If I could get 5 hours of life out of the battery while doing those types of things, I would be thrilled.  My problem with battery life claims is that they are rarely ever true, or if they can be acheived, it is at minumum settings, making the user experience pretty horrific.  I could easily see the one battery being an issue for long distance travelers.

This laptop definitely is not targeted to me, but I see it more as a grown up iPod Touch than a workstation.  It's more like a desktop extension...which is why I think Apple could do some cool things with syncing and Back to My Mac with it.

I say no. The only time my battery got taken out of my MacBook was when it failed. (NB the MacBook Air can have it replaced easily in the event of failure)