No Backlit Keyboard? GLOSSY screen????!!!!!

rajaniblue wrote:
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When weighing the features of this product, I think you have to keep in mind that the Air is a much, much different price point than the MBP and even the previous incarnation of the Air, and leaving some less essential things out is probably one of the ways Apple managed to get the cost so much lower while at the same time being able to make this their smallest notebook ever. No matter how talented your design and engineering people are, there are always tradeoffs. Thus, I don't think you can expect the Air to have every whiz bang feature that the MBP does. If you do expect that, maybe you need to revisit what you really are looking for, and just pony up and buy a MBP.
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Thank you for introducing a much-needed dose of calm sanity to this thread! 🙂

Yep..... Which is why he's returning it.

Umm... then you should know that in a FULLY lit room the keyboard backlight is disabled,

Not if you are using Lab Tick.

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For the last 2 weeks days, I've in in the process of returning my 13in MBA due to the lack of a backlit keyboard. When I contacted Apple, they said they will take it back but then realized that I bought it from an Apple Academic institution store. Well the store has a no return policy on custom orders (I ordered the 2.13 GHz and 4 GB memory). Turns out that the Apple Education store policy supercedes that of Apple and I am now stuck with a MBA that I don't want because it doesn't have a backlit keyboard and I do look at the keyboard when I type.

Any advice on how I can return this MBA?

Thanks

Call Apple Customer Relations and talk to them. Otherwise, sell it on eBay or locally on Craigslist.

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Apple. I hope you are listening on these boards you created. I would buy the new Macbook Air in a second (two actually) if you added back the backlit keyboard. Can't believe it was removed. I am an early adopter of products and have at least one of each of what you have new. Was it so you could sport higher battery numbers? Bring it back!

Having just taken delivery of my brand new Macbook Air, I don't see what the issue is. The key lettering is a reflective silver (the same color as the aluminium body, in fact), and they are illuminated perfectly well by the screen, when in a dark room.

I for one, would much rather have higher battery numbers than a backlit keyboard. I'm frequently away from power sources for long periods of time and especially because the Air's battery is not user-replaceable, a long lasting battery is very important to me. It went all day at work yesterday without it being plugged in at all, and I just have the 11". I used it off and on for a variety of normal tasks, and it still had juice by the time I got home. Brownie point for Apple!

But again, that's just me. I know what my needs are and I bought accordingly. I suspect that the best way to vote on this issue is with your dollars. If a consumer doesn't like what the Air has to offer, then they shouldn't give Apple their money. I would think that for the next incarnation of the Air, they will weigh how much of an issue the absence of the backlighting was, mostly by how many units were sold and how much money they made on them. I would guess that even without the backlit keyboard, these units are flying out the door like hotcakes because of features they do have that other Apple models don't. Who knows that but in the next version we might see a lot of these "extras" remain incorporated or come back just because they've now figured out how to make ALL the pieces work at a reasonable cost with fewer tradeoffs: size, weight, battery life, full OS, battery indicator, card reader, backlighting, sleep light, screen gloss choices, or whatever feature it is that a particular consumer can't live without.

Personally, I happen to really miss the Expresscard slot that is on my MBP... but... I do realize that it's pretty unlikely they are going to put one on a computer this tiny.

I've also learned that Apple support threads are 98% filled with people who are complaining about problems of some kind.... it is a truth that feedback is mostly heard when something is going wrong, and almost never when it's going right. I'd guess that for every one person in the Apple support community, unhappy about the absence of backlighting, there's a hundred who are either happy it's gone, find it nice but not essential (I'm in this group) or just don't care one way or the other about it. I'm not saying at all that it's bad to be unhappy about it.... just that the existence of this thread really isn't a great indicator of whether this is truly a widespread problem for most people.

Whether you prefer the backlit keyboard or not is your own issue. The point many of us are trying to make here is that Apple took away without any explanation the backlit keyboard from the new MBA and many of us were caught in the middle. Personally, I listened to Steve Jobs' presentation on the MBA, went to the Apple web site and ordered one before my Apple store had a MBA on display.

Furthermore, 16 pages of posting is a decent poll of people's opinion about the MBA keyboard. I would say there aren't many people craving or not caring about the lack of the backlit keyboard.

I've managed to adjust the screen brightness and screen angle to get maximum reflection on the keys.

I'm still disappointed that Apple would remove a popular feature without explanation. I don't consider the $1799 MacBook Air 13" 2.13 with 256G flash storage and 4G of RAM a low-end laptop. It's an elegantly designed, "new generation" Apple laptop. A backlit keyboard is fully in sync with advanced features like an LED backlit display, a multi-touch trackpad, a long lasting battery, and a thin aluminum enclosure.

Their slogan is "Everything we've learned comes down to this." Seems like they have unlearned a few things.

Apple.... please can you fix the lack of back-lighting on the keyboard before Christmas and get the new model into the shops so that I can buy myself one as a present. Coz you've really screwed it up a bit this time, haven't you?.... Go on, admit it.
Cheers,

Owner of
1x PowerMac,
1x Powerbook,
1x Mac Pro,
3x iMac,
2x MacBook Pro,
1x MacBook Air (1st Gen)
1x iPhone 3GS
Plus too many iPods, Shuffles, Nanos, Touch & Classic to count

Well said, Rob and thanks for your Xmas wishes WSR. I think we have a year ahead of us with this so-called state of the art MBA before Apple attempts at adding new features. They did the same thing with the original MBA.

I've owned every single Apple computer since the 48K Apple II+ including the original Powerbook and the Duo, which is actually very reminiscent of the MBA. I'm very disappointed by Apple and I'm still trying to return the 2.13 GHz 4 GB MBA along with its external drive and Apple Care, a total of over $2.2K.

I really think that Steve Jobs is not in touch with Apple computers anymore otherwise he would not have let the backlit keyboard slip from the design of the MBA. Maybe he doesn't even know....

WSR wrote:
Apple.... please can you fix the lack of back-lighting on the keyboard before Christmas and get the new model into the shops so that I can buy myself one as a present. Coz you've really screwed it up a bit this time, haven't you?.... Go on, admit it.

It'll be under the tree for you along with iOS 4.3 changing the iPad's switch back to being and orientation lock and built-in Flash Player. 😀 😀

William Kucharski wrote:

WSR wrote:
Apple.... please can you fix the lack of back-lighting on the keyboard before Christmas and get the new model into the shops so that I can buy myself one as a present. Coz you've really screwed it up a bit this time, haven't you?.... Go on, admit it.

It'll be under the tree for you along with iOS 4.3 changing the iPad's switch back to being and orientation lock and built-in Flash Player. 😀 😀

Cool..... can you also arrange it for Megan Fox to have all her tattoos scrubbed off and for her to be waiting under that tree for me too.
Cheers !

WSR wrote:
Cool..... can you also arrange it for Megan Fox to have all her tattoos scrubbed off and for her to be waiting under that tree for me too.

Sorry, you can only ask for so much.

I think Santa might be able to deliver Emma Watson or Keira Knightley if they're acceptable substitutes. 😉