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

The keys are silver and reflective...even in a pitch black room with the screen's brightness turned down to 2, the lettering is perfectly visible. It is actually a better design than having backlit keys + a glossy screen and seeing the reflection of your keyboard.

Nevertheless, I suggest you skip the MBA and go for a different laptop with a backlit keyboard. No reason to ponder the why, how and when of Apple's design any further.

No, you're reasoning is flawed. You're assuming that the internals of this rev of the MBA is IDENTICAL to the previous version with the backlit keyboard. For all you know, the tiny bit of extra space was used to put in more battery.

If you're not okay with it, don't buy it.

lol. Its scary how far can people go and argue to defend something illogical or without common sense.

What they saved 1 or 2mm on the thickness to "put in more battery"? Really?!

As in silver labels, no they were not clear to see when I got the MBA, and thats why I returned, if they were white labels, I would probably have kept it, coz I been using laptop without backlit keyboard but with white labels on black keys for over 7 years without problems. So if silver on black annoys me, then there is something wrong with it.

LOL. What's scary is that you actually believe that if something annoys YOU that it's a problem. And when you're talking about a computer, whose width is MEASURED in mm's, then it's completely logical to believe that 1 or 2 mm's saved for battery is worth it. At it's most narrow, the MBA is 3 mm tall. So yes, 1 or 2 mm's matters.

Face it, you people complaining about the backlight are in the minority. The silver on black keys matches the aesthetics of the rest of the computer and does not, no matter how much you believe it, affect the computer's usability for the average user. Maybe you're not the average user. Maybe you need better glasses. Who knows? What IS known is that most people are satisfied with this design. More than satisfied since Apple continues to be one of the only computer companies showing massive growth and the MBA has been a pretty great success.

People like you are always going to complain about what's lacking. Oh, it doesn't have a superdrive, oh it doesn't have backlit keyboard, oh it doesn't have firewire, oh it doesn't have an SD slot. And that's fine. You want what you want. But for the majority of people who are going to buy this computer, these things are simply not necessities. I've had a backlit keyboard and I never used it. The light from the screen and my ability to touch type have always been more than enough.

Like many here, I also upgraded from an older Macbook Air.

Yes, the lack of a backlit keyboard is a bummer, esp. since I am using an iSkin.

I looked at the USB lights and I didn't want something that took up one of the USB slots (that I waited so long for).

So, what does one do when they want to read a book at night while their significant other is trying to sleep?

It's called a clip-on booklight!!

They're cheap (bought mine for $6), don't use USB, battery lasts nearly forever thanks to LEDs and is easily stored away in the bedside table. Clips on nicely to the top of my Macbook Air display's frame.

Solution solved and just loving my 11" Air 🙂

The new MacBook Air is a failure and may cause the line to be discontinued because it doesn't have a backlit keyboard? That's a pretty gross assumption. I do miss the backlit keyboard from my 17 inch MacBook Pro, but I'd gladly trade a backlit keyboard for an extra USB port, 256 GB of flash storage, 4 GB of RAM, a full multitouch trackpad, better speakers, an insane pixel density, great performance for everyday tasks, and an amazingly compact form factor. The positives outweigh the negatives in this case for myself.

It's funny how you say that and think a specialty computer needs a backlight at all. If you can't type, odds are you wouldn't even know where to buy an air.

P.S. when you start mounting flash memory on the board and such, the dimensions of the mobo will vary. It's not far fetched to believe it may have lost space for it/mobo didn't support it properly/attempting to hit a price point or even just wasn't a huge priority to the marketing niche it was aimed at? As previously stated, don't like it, then don't buy it.

college_kid491 wrote:
It's funny how you say that and think a specialty computer needs a backlight at all. If you can't type, odds are you wouldn't even know where to buy an air.

You what?

The macbook air is a specialty computer. A novice user isn't going to go out and buy it, it isn't aimed at that market, so the features and price point aren't attempting to appeal to them. But if you desperately can't type without looking at the keyboard, buy some glow in the dark stickers.

college_kid491 wrote:
The macbook air is a specialty computer. A novice user isn't going to go out and buy it.

This gets more bizarre by the second.

Ya, odd that target marketing thing.

Message was edited by: college_kid491

college_kid491 wrote:
Ya, odd that target marketing thing.

I'll go back to their advertising and look out for the "Novices need not apply" insinuations.

I thought some things were so obvious it need not be stated... guess not.

So... I finally bought it because I sold my mid 2009 MBP 13" with a very good price.

The screen is extremely bright, I usually has it at 60-70%, but without backlit kb... it is kind of hard to type without light on in my room when the laptop is on my laps. I found a solution, turn the brightness to 100% and use it to light up the kb! But my eyes got tired in a very short time...


Anyway... I will sell it for sure when next air get the backlit kb back.

zzz99 wrote:
... but without backlit kb... it is kind of hard to type without light on in my room when the laptop is on my laps. I found a solution, turn the brightness to 100% and use it to light up the kb! But my eyes got tired in a very short time...

Well clearly you are a Novice and should never have bought it in the first place. **
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. ** This is actually not my opinion, I'm going with the masses.