I will grant that an internal optical drive is not necessary – my previous computer was an old Thinkpad X series, lighter than the Mac Air most of a decade before the Air was introduced, and it didn’t have one, and I was fine with that. My point was that Apple has made aesthetic choices that decrease the potential utility of their device: video ports that aren’t usable because almost nobody supports them without an adaptor, and no optical drive, even as an option, because it will mess up the lines of the machine – even though it’s completely feasible to make a machine as portable as the Air with this feature. It is genuinely strange that the only ~3 lb Mac laptop is the Air, with all of its weird physical limitations, that if you want a more generally useful machine you need to get one half again as heavy.

I don’t see a relationship between space efficiency and the “universalness” of the ports.

Assuming there are multiple ports, it may be best to employ a combination of more “universal” ports (i.e. USB) plus smaller ports like, say, Mini DisplayPort (and now Thunderbolt) as applicable for video (and now more). 

I think  a 7.5mm max chassis thickness  is pretty much as thin as reality permits unless you want the benighted thing to flop around like a cheap creaky Acer or are willing to pay for a titanium frame.

The only way that VGA helps is if the most likely place I’m going has VGA, only, and no digital inputs.  Apparently Initech conference rooms have a lot of those, and so this is an advantage if that’s the only place you go.  For me, every place I’ve been in the past 5 years has had only DVI or HDMI (or both).

Maybe your “colleague” has a bunch of 1990 video equipment that you need to be able to drive?  You’re SOL with serial, parallel, and ISA as well.

I guess if you need a “checklist” to remember to keep the mini-DVI-to-DVI adapter with your laptop (where else would it be?), then it’s lucky Sony makes thicker laptops with these things built in.

But… Sure, if every meeting room, seminar and auditorium you go to is in the stoneages and hasn’t purchased a projector in the last 5-7 years and that’s all you deal with, then by all means get a laptop with vga built-in. Ut oh, hope it has HDMI as well, right? Or, I guess quality/resolution doesn’t matter?

For the rest of us, we’ll do quite well without that rapidly dying VGA technology wasting space and/or resources within our laptops, thanks.

And… if you’re so worried about weight and space consumption, then I’d think you would enjoy using a laptop that’s lighter and more compact than a laptop that’s heavy and bulky. I personally really enjoy the fact that my laptop has a thunderbolt port that destroys your ports in speed and with that one tiny port I can use whatever I may need to throw at my machine no matter how unlikely, but I don’t have to lug around everything all the time when I don’t need it.

But, to each his own…

Basically, I agree with him: It’s odd to see apple fans say
a) I like my Air because it’s light and elegant
b) It’s not important that it has so few ports because I can carry dongles
When you’d get something more elegant by having a design that didn’t need those dongles in the first place.

whenever their dearth of connectivity is pointed out.

That’s a joke.

You’re really not thinking this through very well.  If your laptop can connect to every sort of archaic technology then you do, indeed, literally carry it with you in wasteful weight every time you pick your heavy clunker up.  Those parts generate more heat too along with space.  It’s also more parts that can fail in your fail machine.

I do not use VGA, because frankly VGA is archaic and sucks compared to even relatively old technology.  I sure as hell don’t want to lug around a stupid VGA connector within my laptop.

So, explain to me this “dearth of connectivity” you speak of?  Is it because my MacBook Pro, thank God, doesn’t have a VGA port built into it along with a 56K phone modem?  Most of us in this modern age need very little with a mobile laptop.  A wireless connection and a way to connect to external devices.  I have the best and fastest of both.  So much for the “dearth”….

It’s 2012, deal with it.  ^-^

So do I. Ethernet and VGA lets me do it.

Er, not that I hardly ever use it except to admin a crappy router once in a blue moon, but my MacBook Pro has an  Ethernet port.  Are you not familiar with Macs?

So what are you saying?  Not sure why you are comparing VGA to… 

Wait a sec… what’s your point, anyway???

It would really help if Apple would pick a connector and stay with it

Um, not really if you want the best connector possible.  Thunderbolt destroys the speed of everything else.  Wintel machines will catch up eventually, but in the meantime, I’ve got work to do now.

Completely and utterly pointless extra (non-free) item instead of just putting the damn port on there?

I’m personally thrilled that I don’t have an utterly pointless extra (non-free, added to cost of computer) port built into my MacBook Pro adding weight and size to it.
VGA is a near-dead technology and is being aggressively phased out for projectors.  And, mini-display to whatever adapters can be picked up for as cheap as 10 dollars nowadays if you really need one.

Amazing how shortsighted Apple really is.

Mirror.  Look in it.

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/01/20/167248/vga-and-dvi-ports-to-be-phased-out-over-next-5-years

EDIT: Nevermind, you’re probably being sarcastic.

haha?

Apparently they’re all carried in bags, with dongles and external CD drives and stuff rattling about.

CD/DVD-ROM drives are dead for many of us living in 2012.  Most people I’ve seen with a Mac Air laptop carry a sleeve for it and nothing more, just like the Apple iPad used by those crazy Mac users as well.
^-^

All the mac users seem to suppose that laptops have bags…

When you met all the mac users at once, that must’ve been a hell of a party.  Are you sure this event wasn’t a dream?

The ecosystem of connectors can never change overnight. Unlike Apple, most of the computing world tends to stick with standard formats and interfaces for a decade at the least, because they are in many cases contractually obliged to support the standards they set.
Most folks here seem to think that it’s natural to dump yesterday’s investment in equipment without getting any ROI out of it just because the Macbooks have no fugly VGA port to tarnish their looks. 

That’s not how it works, if you want to be in business and still make profits.

VGA is being replaced, but slowly. New Projectors come with DP/HDMI and still carry VGA. When the several thousands of 5+ year old projectors already installed at considerable cost begin to reach their EOL, you will see VGA diminish further. 

Using Apple’s external display systems requires that you build an ecosystem around products that are confirmed to work with the Macbooks. That can (1)work out to  be Expensive (2)be more cumbersome than the VGA port (3)cause you to tear out your hair when suddenly the Connector is made obsolete, or is not supported anymore.