http://gizmodo.com/345829/interview-sonys-thoughts-on-the-macbook-air

During the Keynote, Jobs compared the Macbook Air to Sony’s TZ ultraportable, implying it had a small keyboard and screen, was too thick, and was not that good. Here’s what Sony thinks of the Apple MacBook Air:

Mike Abary, senior vice president of VAIO product marketing, thought the engineering to get a laptop that thin was extremely impressive. But Sony had a similiar vision for an ultraportable once, a carbon fiber notebook in 2004 called the X505 (above) that eschewed the optical and was 0.3 inches thick (compared to 0.16 of the Air) at its thinnest segment. It wasn’t that well received, and research later pointed out that “Thinness is not the holy grail”. Making something that thin and sexy cost it too much usability. (Many of you agree in the comments on Giz.)

To be fair, dropping an optical in 2004 made no sense, but it makes more sense in 2008, especially with broader internet connections, bittorrent, greater storage capacity, thumbdrives, and Apple’s Remote optical drive tech which works over wireless N. But since the X505, ultra portables from Sony have evolved into the TZ, complete with LED backlight, a small but usable keyboard, plenty of ports and built in 3G data. So it is possible that Sony believes they are in many ways 4 years ahead of Apple in their understanding of what consumers want.

When the NYTimes pushed Jobs on the issues of limited storage, he responded, “Maybe this isn’t the computer for you.” I asked Mike who they thought the computer was for. “Beats me” was the initial reply, but came up with an answer: The extremely design conscious. I asked what feature he’d bring back to the Air, and without hesitating, he thought it should have for 3G.

I wish I could dismiss all of this as competitive trash talk, but too many of you feel the same conflicting feelings about where the Air fits into your collection of machines. At Giz, we’re only tormented inside because we still want to buy it, despite it being not all that practical.

I read this before…I agree with some points, but not with others. I didn’t have an optical drive in my notebook in 1998…it was an Acer and weighed about 2.5-3 lbs (I don’t exactly remember). If we could live without one back then (btw it had no WiFi built in, but it did have 2 PCMCIA slots) then we could certainly live without it in 2004. I only use the DVD drive to re-install the OS.

Erik

Optical drives and media are just soooo last millenium.

Seriously. They degrade and when you burn something on it, it turns out that two years later, you can get the same media @ higher bitrate and / or @ a higher resolution.

I stopped using optical media quite some time ago. Only used the drive that came with X505 once, to install XP.

edit: i assume that the x505 is thinner then the apple? In the article it says the apple is thinner, but that seems impossible. The x505 is to thin for an ethernet-port, but the apple isn’t.

julian - 27 January 2008 05:58 AM

edit: i assume that the x505 is thinner then the apple? In the article it says the apple is thinner, but that seems impossible. The x505 is to thin for an ethernet-port, but the apple isn’t.

X505 (above) that eschewed the optical and was 0.3 inches thick (compared to 0.16 of the Air) at its thinnest segment.

So it’s just one part that is thinner, not the overall machine. Besides, it’s nearly twice the weight…who cares how thin it is if it weighs 3 lbs?

Erik

Tifosiv…

I believe the Acer you were referring to is the Acer 310 series, they came in 3 variants:
312T, 313T and 314T - the difference being the processor speed (233, 266 and 300MHz respectively).

Here’s a link to the machines’ specifications:

http://www.acersupport.com/notebook/html/tm310.html

Correct me if I’m wrong?

mockba - 28 January 2008 02:49 AM

Tifosiv…

I believe the Acer you were referring to is the Acer 310 series, they came in 3 variants:
312T, 313T and 314T - the difference being the processor speed (233, 266 and 300MHz respectively).

Here’s a link to the machines’ specifications:

http://www.acersupport.com/notebook/html/tm310.html

Correct me if I’m wrong?

Yup, it was a 312…but I think it was called the CDT because it came with an external CD drive. It also came with an external 3.5” drive. It was a neat little machine, especially for the time. Much more usable then a Liberetto.

Erik