Today in Joystiq: January 16, 2008

by Ross Miller { Jan 15th 2008 at 11:59PM }

Apple's new MacBook Air laptop is thin, sleek, very stylish, but we also imagine very easily lost in a pile of stacked paper. Its gaming capabilities? On par with the MacBook, thanks to the same graphics processor (Intel GMA X3100 with 144MB DDR2 SDRAM). We just hope it'll play Spore. Check out the highlights for today:

Joystiquery
Readers pick best webcomic: Synesthesia, revisited
The best of WoW Insider: January 8 - 15, 2008
Today's Monday-is-over video: Garfield, Final Fantasy mash-up

News
Smash Bros. Brawl delayed: March 9 in US, January 31 in Japan
X3F talks difficulty concerns with Ninja Gaiden II's Itagaki
British Prime Minister worried over knives in video games
Turok demo now due on Xbox Live
See first trailer for Highlander game
THQ acquires Rise of Nations developer Big Huge Games
GTA IV dated 'March 08' in Micro Center ad
Star Trek Online MMO switches to new developer
Twisted Metal: Head On - Extra Twisted Edition stuffed with features
Square Enix (still) eying Western developers for purchase
Make your own Ninja Gaiden II achievements
Video game industry seeks political clout
No more big-budget bombs for Boll
Spore coming to Mac, simultaneous release with PC this year
Call of Duty 4 engages Mac OS X this May
BioShock devs looking for staff with PS3 experience
Vader & Yoda 'naturally' fit into Soul Calibur IV
SingStar players saddened by understocked SingStore
Surprise! Pair of Midway execs leaving
Disney Interactive hires former Atari exec ... stop giggling!
Wii Worms not getting online multiplayer

Rumors & Speculation
Rumor: Hudson working on New Duck Hunt for Wii?
Rumorang: Duke Nukem on XBLA in 'next several months'

Culture & Community
Microsoft's John Schappert to deliver GDC keynote
Nintendo's three GDC sessions: Wii Fit, Wii menu, and Brawl character library
Writer's Guild of America announces nominees for game writing award

Tags: apple, dailyrecap, macbook, macbook-air, mba

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

fischju @ Jan 16th 2008 12:49AM

Don't forget it's extremely new and innovative ability to share a network drive!

If only Windows or Linux could do that!

ill trooper @ Jan 16th 2008 2:19AM

They can - this machine can run those too.

Zsavior @ Jan 16th 2008 12:49AM

yeah good luck installing that game and playing it on your 13 inch screen, really. If this was a regular lap top people would laugh at the person who bought it, because it has apple's logo on it everybody looks at it as the second coming.

The Artist formally known as Jesus @ Jan 16th 2008 12:51AM

Your just jealous because I'm using a fabulous Mac

The Artist formally known as Jesus @ Jan 16th 2008 12:53AM

*You're*

bleh I hate it when people mix up the "yours" and I just did it

ThornedVenom @ Jan 16th 2008 1:06AM

Second cumming**

The Artist formally known as Jesus @ Jan 16th 2008 1:37AM

Oh cumming
You mean like...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=uvJCskC5WeI

ill trooper @ Jan 16th 2008 2:21AM

"If this was a regular lap top people would laugh at the person who bought it, because it has apple's logo on it everybody looks at it as the second coming."

That comment makes no sense 60% of the time, everytime.

Seroth @ Jan 16th 2008 3:22AM

What's so bad about a 13-inch screen? I game on my Macbook's 13-inch screen all the time.

Zsavior @ Jan 16th 2008 3:27AM

Ok Ill trooper I will explain another way. The laptop is not a game machine, it is not marketed as a gaming machine. The Sony Vaio Tz series notebook is for business professionals who need light weight portability.

If you watched the Key note address by Jobs this is what he was comparing it with, they made technology to make an even slimmer more portable notebook with out compromising various features Sony does in their TZ series.

But this site is not built around business portability, it is built around gaming. Back to my comment.

"If this was a regular lap top people would laugh at the person who bought it, because it has apple's logo on it everybody looks at it as the second coming.".

That was the part you highlighted while leaving the part about the inability of this lap top to play disc which would be some what pivotal to install games second the 13 inch screen isn't very friendly towards gaming, nor does that lap top talk about its graphical and processing capabilities for video games.

Hence if this was a regular laptop not being focused towards a community that only wants portability on the go it would be laughed at, compared to the myriad of gaming laptops out there that do games better. If any other company lets say Sony had made this laptop it would not be on joystiq questioning whether it plays games or not since I don't see any of the Sony TZ laptops being shown anywhere here.

So lets see Sony makes the TZ series of light weight notebooks, Joystiq askes the question "WOW Does it play games" average gamer laughs their ass off at the silliness, of that type of laptop being used for games, when Asus, Alienware and others make better gaming laptops. Apple created super light notebook and the question is asked on Joystiq in all seriousness, and the only difference I can see is in the companies.

So tell me how is this wrong 60% of the time, or are you just trying to defend Apple blindly?

P.S. there was a Myriad of new laptops shown lately dedicated towards gaming didn't see any of those stories here but I did at engadget.

Philip @ Jan 16th 2008 3:28AM

The fact that this comment has been voted down so much just shows you all the Mac fanboys that are on the 'stiq. What he said is true. If the next Mac Book was poop on a stick, the Mac fanboys would still pay out he ass for it.

LaughingTarget @ Jan 16th 2008 10:47AM

This would fit perfectly in coffee shops. While it may be physically designed around business professionals, business professionals don't use Apple machines. They're almost universally incompatible with the software business professionals use to do their work. If the work was graphic design, a field that Apple still has a (shrinking) advantage in, this product would still be a poor choice due to, you guessed it, its specs.

This laptop is specifically designed and manufactured for the Apple enthusiast that simply has to have the latest and greatest the company has to offer. It isn't designed for anyone looking to perform any serious work and it is priced way out of the reasonable budget for someone who just wants to keep up with e-mail while on the road. As usual, Apple created a consumer level PC that doesn't fit in anything but a highly niche market.

Mike @ Jan 16th 2008 11:23AM

Shucks, you non-Mac users didn't realise that you can create a disk-image of any CD (.dmg) and play any disc-based game from the Mac itself without having the disk inserted.

Again, what a little research could do, eh?

Will @ Jan 16th 2008 10:18PM

So, Mike.. in order to play a game that needs the disc inserted.. I will need to first load up a network drive, connect to said drive on my home network, slowly transfer a few gigabytes wirelessly (it has no ethernet port?), and then play games off my 4200rpm hard drive?

This is all on a $1,800 computer that weighs 2 pounds less than a regular Macbook.

The Artist formally known as Jesus @ Jan 16th 2008 12:49AM

even if it can play spore
have fun inserting a CD in that thing

Jouten @ Jan 16th 2008 3:14AM

It can use any Optical Drive on its network to install or read discs... A little research and a minor attention to detail goes a long way sometimes...

LaughingTarget @ Jan 16th 2008 10:50AM

Have fun playing Spore when you're not in your network.

Really, this is retarded. Laptops are meant for portability. If you have to keep your home network running while you're out of town and the requirement to keep within close reach of blazing fast broadband defeats the entire purpose of this machine.

Laptops are portable, this design is a typical Apple one. They just thought the idea would be cool but failed to think of any practical application for it. Next feature, really long extension cords because Apple removed battery support to cut on the weight.

Mike @ Jan 16th 2008 11:24AM

LaughingTarget @ Jan 16th 2008 11:42AM

And again, shucks, crappy design. The laptop only has an 80 GB hard drive, so eating it away with an install plus the CD image (or DVD image) is going to chew away at available space, further limiting what the machine can do.

Designed for image, not functionality.

Mike @ Jan 16th 2008 2:48PM

"And again, shucks, crappy design. The laptop only has an 80 GB hard drive, so eating it away with an install plus the CD image (or DVD image) is going to chew away at available space, further limiting what the machine can do.

Designed for image, not functionality."

Shucks, with my 2 year-old PowerBook that sports an 80GB hard drive, I do this on a regular basis. Ah, I also have a .Mac account that enables me to go "Back To My Mac" and utilise the hard drive space there too.

Is it me or is Joystiq full of commenters that "pretend" to know technology, development, etc. who are also below the age of 16? If you're commenting like LaughingTarget here and you're above the age of 16 (or past the teenager stage) you've got major issues.

RoboChamp @ Jan 16th 2008 12:52AM

God help the person who sits on that thing.

ill trooper @ Jan 16th 2008 2:23AM

I thought that at first too, but then I realized it's like that for every laptop made - you can't sit on any of them these days.

Al Deezy @ Jan 16th 2008 1:01AM

I would buy one, and I would justify it because it would be my first mac.

samfish @ Jan 16th 2008 1:41AM

I still can't believe how impossibly thin that thing is. I mean, holy crap.

Hickeroar @ Jan 16th 2008 2:44AM

Who cares? IT's horrendously underpowered and in order to get all the features you WANT, you're going to have to shell about about $3500-$4000 bucks...for something that will STILL be weaker and less featureful than the standard macbook. They can keep it.

Christopher Grant @ Jan 16th 2008 9:04AM

Hickeroar: I'll bite. You're wrong. If you're going to crap on something in the comments, at least take 5 seconds out of your precious day to check some data. $3-4K?

LaughingTarget @ Jan 16th 2008 10:53AM

Well Chris, the 1.8GHz option is $3,098:

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wa/RSLID?nnmm=browse&node=home/shop_mac/family/macbook_air

It doesn't even look like they're offering the faster processor without the 64GB solid state memory, which is what's driving the cost up.

He did his research, but only reported half the findings. The horribly under powered 1.6 GHz option is still an insane $1,799.

wickedpheonix @ Jan 16th 2008 11:59AM

@laughing target

you can upgrade the base $1800 model with the 1.8 GHz processor. The processor upgrade is $300 driving the total price to $2100.

So um, yeah, do your research.

dizzy @ Jan 16th 2008 12:04PM

the approximate 3k price comes from the 1.8 cpu and 64gb SSD upgrade, which as tempting and leaps-and-bounds better than the craptastic 4200 rpm 80gb drive the lower price brings, a near 1k price jump for an SSD is stupefying.

AlexP @ Jan 16th 2008 12:50PM

Horribly underpowered? What the f, it's a Merom, my ex's laptop had that processor and it ran Vista great (same graphics chip, too).

fredrik @ Jan 16th 2008 1:51AM

In during Marketing Campaign

DangerMouse @ Jan 16th 2008 1:56AM

I wish i was fashionable enough to own one of these :(

Chameleon @ Jan 16th 2008 11:37AM

kinda wish i was affluent enough too own one of those ....

ColossalHat @ Jan 16th 2008 2:13AM

I wish Apple didn't charge you far out the ass for their computers. Or better yet, release their OSes seperately from their computers.

*Please note, I feel that all computers overcharge if they're prebuilt.

Hickeroar @ Jan 16th 2008 2:46AM

When apple releases a new OS, all its computers start shipping with it. Old users can upgrade to the new version if they wish. I'd sure like to know what the heck is wrong with that...?

smoke_tetsu @ Jan 16th 2008 3:17AM

I'm surprised this was mentioned here at all considering who reads this blog. I'm sure most people here care less about how thin a notebook is and more about its specs. Considering when spore is coming out it might not be able to run it well. You might be able to run Quake Zero on it though.. it certainly can play Q3A engine games good. ;)

jopojelly @ Jan 16th 2008 3:36AM

Ahh, I always wanted a new seat cushion, my butt hurts.

ClarkyCat @ Jan 16th 2008 4:25AM

Assuming one doesn't have everything one wants to install on a single disc, you're going to have to sit in front of a real computer for god knows how long to use its optical drive. Yeah, that doesn't defeat the purpose of a laptop's portability at all. By the time you tether everything necessary to it via USB, it's going to look like a neuron with all the stuff hanging off it, not be portable, cut the battery life, yadda yadda.
Oh and the fact that it doesn't have a removable, replacable battery, that's pretty hilarious too. If it dies on the go? Tough shit.