The Japanese trash-talk the MacBookAir

Quote:

Japanese engineers were quick to pour scorn on the MacBook Air. This critique comes courtesy of Nikkei Electronics, a major Japanese electronics monthly, which did a teardown of the Air.

Here's the seeming challenge: The Japanese PC industry must come up with a reason why their own PC suppliers--NEC, Toshiba, Sony, Fujitsu--don't have a riveting 0.75-inch-thin notebook design on the market in the U.S. The answer, for them, is simple: a Japanese company would never approve of the design...

original article here

So, I'll give you the run down how I think about it, as a point from both American and Japanese consumer stand point:

Are the Japanese media prejudice / too critical against foreign manufactures?
You betcha.

Are the Japanese manufactures/ technicians snobbish elitists?
Absolutely.

Do they have the right to be?
They like to compare their shit to how much *other* foreign-made products are inferior, so long as they can back it up, I guess you can't put that against them for being cocky about it. (And I'll be honest with you, where size matters, they have no grounds to be cocky about, so I guess it's just compensation by at least trying to make man-made things better than everyone else.)

Anyother questions spawning from reading this article, feel free to ask.

oh, and one last thing:
So why hasn't the manufactures already come up with something better than or as good as the MacBook Air?
When they've got cell phones better and smaller than the iPhone (with twice as much battery life) that has just as good as capability as a small laptop notebook, why would they bother?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by a lurker

That's a retarded argument. I mean it's swell that phones have similar capabilities to laptops but that's not the point, that's just fluff and fun. I mean you can draw similar comparisons to laptops vs desktops but the argument is still spurious.

True. I'm comparing apples and oranges a little bit, but my point is that most computing needs for people in Japan are already taken care of by their cell phone services. And if you're able to watch live television news while on your commute in the subway train...I mean compare that to your cell phone in the States; I probably wouldn't need a laptop either if my phone can do that on top of all the web stuff it already has (that and also if I wasn't so addicted to online gaming as well).

Quote:

also it sounds like those japanese companies are just butthurt, business as usual.

This is also true and I have no arguments against it. Like I said, they are a bunch of elitist techno-geeks and if it hurts their pride they got beat, that's just what it is. Only problem is that the high-end spiffy laptop isn't quite as marketable in Japan as it is here. Give them a few years, I'm sure they can come up with something better like they promised.

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Originally Posted by Bigblah

Whatever, it's not like most Apple/Mac fans aren't just as obnoxiously cocky, snobbish and elitist as you'd have us believe these Japanese engineers are.

lol. This is also very true.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Merv, I posted my opinion about the people who wrote the article. I figured I don't need to summarize the article myself so long as I got people to be interested in the topic enough to get talking. If I wanted to just summarize the "original" article by Nikkei Electronics, I would have done it with much more accuracy than CNet did and interpret as it was meant to be. Yet my opinions still stand.

You forget that this is a discussion board Merv. I merely just posted my opinion on an opinion article, aiming to spur conversation from what people might take interest from. Had I presented it neatly / accurately as you might have wanted to be, people would find the post boring and go, "eh, so what" which defeats the purpose of posting to have an actual conversation with you people.

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