Lenovo Airs Out the Room

Apple's MacBook Air commercial (surely you've seen it like a thousand times now since it, ah, airs so often) is a marketing marvel. With few words and catchy "New Soul" music, Apple communicates the Air's benefits. But the Lenovo anti-Air ad, which the company presumably produced (but who knows), is perhaps better. Guerilla advertising is just so much fun.

The tagline is brilliant: "We don't add stuff on. We build it in."

As much as I like the Lenovo ad, something bigger and quite significant is missing. Apple is doing to portables what it did to desktops a decade ago: losing the ports. I remember when iMac dumped legacy ports in favor of FireWire and USB. Cutting loose older serial and other unnecessary ports inflicted some pain on end users, but Apple made the right decision then, and it has done so again.

I do miss FireWire on the MacBook Air that I've been testing, because that's what my HD video camera uses. Otherwise, the trade-off in size and weight is worthwhile. No question, the Lenovo X300 is a mighty thin laptop. But the Air gains something by losing more.

A decade ago, Apple pitched a simple but evocative digital lifestyle around iMac. MacBook Air fits into that evolving lifestyle, as mobile computing increases and IP networks deliver more content without wires.

[Via All Things Digital]

Posted by Joe Wilcox on April 30, 2008 11:33 AM