I ordered me a Macboook Air and to kill time I’m searching the net for articles about it. What I really often found especially in forums where people complaining what a useless machine it is and why anybody should buy it.
Therefore I thought I write up my thoughts about this very controversial discussed laptop.
Maybe a little bit about my computer background. I used windows for a very long time, tried Linux the first time 8 - 10 years ago and did a complete switch to Linux in 2002 or 2003. One day in 2004 my Thinkpad got stolen and I needed fast a new laptop that would run a *nix-based OS but wouldn’t need a long time to be set up because I had a lot to do back then and no time for fiddling around with drivers for several weeks or searching a machine with specs that would run out of the box on Linux. At this time I decided to go for an iBook G4 12" with 800 MHz. Anyway - had a lot of problems with the machine but I got to love the OS. In 2006 I bought me an iMac and unfortunately in the midth of 2007 the iBook broke finally down and warranty was gone.
No laptop and I actually didn’t need one. With time I got my hands on an old Toshiba SP6000 on which I ran FreeBSD 7.0 and an eeePC 700 on which I use Ubuntu 8.10. Both machines should fit my needs. I can surf the web, have a decent text editor available with emacs, can do my TeX-stuff for university and if Keynote is necessary for a presentation I could lend the Macbook Pro of my girlfriend.
But both machines had several problems. The Toshiba is too heavy and it is too big to be carried around every day and the eeePC has a keyboard and a screen that is not usable when you want to get serious work done. Surfing and stuff like that is on my iPhone more comfortable than on the eeePC…
In addition I miss my tools of the trade. Namely TextMate, as a text editor (emacs is just not the same), BibDesk for managing my BibTeX-files, JEdict as an EDICT-client and other stuff as well. There is for everything an alternative in Linux or FreeBSD but they do not let me work as efficient as I do with the software I am accustomed to. In addition I was all the time missing the OS - exposé, a GUI which looks imho nicer than any theme in KDE, Gnome or any other WM you can think of on the free *nix (and the OS X-clones don’t work well enough), stuff like quite consistent keyboard shortcuts throughout the whole system.
While there are people who say they can’t move from windows because of this or that software, it seems that I can’t move away from OS X anymore because of the same reason.
Ok - that’s for the reason why I didn’t decide for a X300 or anything else in the form factor. If Mac OS X would run on Thinkpads I would always have a hard time in deciding between a decent T- or X-series Thinkpad and an Apple-product.
Ok, why didn’t I decide for a Macbook or a Macbook Pro. The Unibody-Macbooks are finally aluminium, have LED-backlit displays, the new cool glass trackpad, more ports, an internal dvd-drive and all that for a lot less money and only 700g more.
And exactly that’s the reason: 700g. When you carry a laptop around every day, and also at least a liter of fluids, books, notepad and so on 700g matter. They matter a lot.
The power adaptor is smaller as well and the size factor is important, too - those few mm are the difference between a second bag or not.
When I’m on the road (so to speak usually in university) I don’t need a DVD-drive. Actually I rarely need the drive at home. On my home-PC I need all the USB-ports - one to sync the iPhone, one for my external hard drive (time machine), one if a friend brings a USB-stick.
The network at home is WLAN-only (for the computers and other devices except the printer) and on my router my printer is connected. With the Macbook Air there will be a Time Capsule as well and then I do not even need on my iMac anymore the USB-port for the external hard disk - that will be connected to the Time Capsule.
Keyboard and mouse are connected via Bluetooth. I hate cables on my desk - all are hidden, none is to be seen - except the one of my headphones when I’m using them.
And we do not need to speak about when I’m not at home. I do not need an extra mouse or so (and if I would use a BT-device), I need a dvd-drive so rarely that I do not want to carry it around with me all the time. The ethernet-adapter I bought, though - and that will be in my bag all the time. At work I have access to the DFN (article is in German - the German Science Net is access to the internet via 100MBit (and even more I guess)) and I-Net with 100MBit is nice to have. And I wanna do the first TM-backup with ethernet - that’s the main reasons for having the adapter. But usually I have WLAN available.
I just do not need all the ports. The Macbook Air will be my secondary machine that I can carry around all the time. And for this reason weight and thickness are mattering a lot to me. More than performance, available ports or a dvd-drive.
Finally I will have a laptop that I can carry around and have the tools available I need to be productive and work efficient :)