Well, they didn't qualify it that way. So no, it's not "perfectly usable." It's perfectly usable for people who don't do much with it. If I need a modern mainframe terminal, it barely matters what laptop or OS I use.
If I need to hold 2TB of samples and have room for 2TB of video I'm working on and prefer it onboard, I can't get that at any price on a MacBook Air, and a soldered on 2TB is hundreds more than plopping a 2TB in my laptop's spare slot. In fact, I can max it out with 8TB storage and 64GB RAM for the markup to get a 2TB SSD/16GB RAM Air.
You see the problem. I'm not saying everyone needs it, but the broad claim that a $999 Air is perfectly usable has some large and varied edge cases. If a $999 Air were enough for me, then I would have put a new battery in my old laptop and put Linux on it instead of upgrading. Apple's lineup was considered and dismissed for the absurd markups on storage and RAM.
If I need to hold 2TB of samples and have room for 2TB of video I'm working on and prefer it onboard, I can't get that at any price on a MacBook Air, and a soldered on 2TB is hundreds more than plopping a 2TB in my laptop's spare slot. In fact, I can max it out with 8TB storage and 64GB RAM for the markup to get a 2TB SSD/16GB RAM Air.
You see the problem. I'm not saying everyone needs it, but the broad claim that a $999 Air is perfectly usable has some large and varied edge cases. If a $999 Air were enough for me, then I would have put a new battery in my old laptop and put Linux on it instead of upgrading. Apple's lineup was considered and dismissed for the absurd markups on storage and RAM.