I’m starting back to school in August for yet another degree and I’m thinking it’s time to get a new computer. I’ve always been a PC person, but being in the sciences, I’ve worked on lots of Macs. (For the uninitiated, academics really like Macs. Almost every lab has at least one.) I’ve never been tempted to switch to a Mac until they introduced the MacBook Air. It’s beautiful and elegant…and I want it. But, I figured I should poll here to see what the general opinion is of them.
So, if you have an Air, what say you? Or, if you just have an opinion of the Air, I’ll take that, too.
ETA: I tried searching for old threads, as I figured they must be there, but Air and Mac are unsearchable, leaving just MacBook, which didn’t turn up anything about the Air.
This product is all about Cool – how Cool it is! Like the iPhone.
I don’t own one, but I know someone who does, and every time she pulls it out, people gather round and ohh! and ahh! over it. That is what you are buying.
My wife has one. She loves. loves. loves it. She upgraded from a MacBook Pro (which I inherited).
Her usage is mainly web browsing, email, MS Office use for work/school, and some photo organizing/editing. We bought the external SuperDrive, but I’ve only seen her use it twice to install software. We did recently buy the external Ethernet adapter, but only because she stayed several nights in a hotel that only had wired internet in the rooms.
Battery life seems fine (several hours, as far as I can tell). Screen is gorgeous, but smears easily (she uses it out on the porch in the evenings, and ends up with lots of bugs).
And it runs so much cooler than the MacBook Pro does. The Pro gets uncomfortably hot while running, and the Air barely gets warm, even after heavy use.
The Air is great for people who travel a lot, or who don’t need the full compliment of ports (FireWire, external video ethernet), there are external adapters for ethernet and an external optical drive available if you need them, but the Air has other shortcomings that may or may not matter to you…
1; the RAM is not upgradeable, you’re stuck with the factory ram
2; the battery is not user-upgradeable, when the battery loses capacity (after approx. 500 charging cycles), the unit will have to be shipped to Apple for a battery replacement, typically 3-4 days of downtime)
3; the hard drive is not upgradeable
4; the base model MacBook outperforms it in processor speed, upgradability and connectivity/expandability (RAM and hard drive are user-replaceable, full compliment of ports)
the Air does, however, have these good points;
1; it’s the thinnest Mac laptop on the market
2; it has a backlit keyboard (the MacBook does not have one, the MBP does)
3; there is a solid-state hard drive option available, no moving parts, extremely fast data access, however it’s quite expensive
Basically, the Air has been optimized for someone who spends a lot of time on the move, it’s been optimized for travel, if you plan to do a lot of traveling, it;'s a great machine, otherwise, you get far more bang-for-your-buck with the MacBook or MacBook Pro
Are you sure about this? I went to the forums on Apple’s support site, and found a couple of people who had bad batteries replaced. It sounded like they were able to get them replaced right there in the store. Maybe varies by store?
This fits my wife. She started with a 15" MacBook Pro, and found it to be too hot and heavy. Which means I got the Pro.
On a side note, I took the Pro with me on vacation this week. It runs a LOT hotter at 10,000 feet than it does at home.
But, I figured I should poll here to see what the general opinion is of them.
