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The MacBook Air Conundrum
Posted on May 22nd, 2009 7 comments
It’s no big secret that ever since my Pismo PowerBook in BestMacs’ earliest days, I have been a laptop guy. So, I’ve learned a few things about “best practices” for laptops and while I wouldn’t call myself an elite road warrior, I am setup to be portable.
My feeling has been that today’s laptops have all the power and capability of their desktop equivalents. Look at the specs of a MacBook Pro versus an iMac. They are close enough that switching between one or the other, you might not notice a performance difference.
Obviously, you pay extra $ for the portability of the MBP, and the iMac has a bigger screen. But if you need portability, you need it. I can’t operate off a desktop – I need my data at your offices more than my own. And I just love sitting with my laptop in my living room or deck when I’m home. Yes, the iMac has a bigger screen, but when I actually am sitting at my desk, I plug my laptop into a 23″ Apple Cinema Display. So, that takes care of that.
I’ve been pretty satisfied with this arrangement over the years. And I also find that the trend held up with clients who felt the need to buy a laptop when they already had a desktop. Most if not all of them (or you if you’re reading this) found over time that they favored one computer over the other (usually based on how much they travelled) and dumped/repurposed the one they used less.
But then, Apple threw a monkey wrench into the equation: MacBook Air.
I’ll be honest; when Apple introduced the Air at MacWorld a couple years ago, I was underwhlemed. The specs are weak compared to the low-end Macbooks, yet the price is higher. It actually reminded me of the G4 Cube, which ultimately failed because the price tag was higher than the better-equipped G4 towers of the day.
But now that I’ve actually held and worked on a few Airs, I see the appeal. They are LIGHT. You almost can’t tell you’re working on a computer. It almost feels like you might break the thing but at the same time it’s remarkably sturdy. If you’re used to a 13″ MacBook, the screen won’t bother you. In fact, the only major hindrances I see are:
- lack of a CD/DVD drive
- lack of an Ethernet port
- lack of a Firewire port
- tiny hard drive
The processor would and screen size would be a deal-breaker for anyone doing any kind of serious design work. But for someone who primarily operates on office work and servers, like me, those are not huge factors.
The tiny hard drive and lack of connectivity lead me to feel like the Air could not be anyone’s only computer; thus destroying the laptop theory I presented to you a few paragraphs back. So, go to the counter-argument: could the Air be a laptop made specifically to suplement someone who uses a desktop?
Admittedly, since holding an Air for an extended period of time a few weeks ago, I’ve been thinking about it. I’m wondering if I should put a 20″ iMac on my desk to do the heavy lifting and be the big storage pool. Then make the Air my road computer.
Look at the hurdles: The iMac will store all of my stuff, so, I’ll just sync up the data I really need to the Air. Leopard and MobileMe’s “Back to my Mac” feature could take care of anything I forgot. I don’t use my optical drive very often, and the iMac will have one that it can share with the Air (a feature built-in to Leopard). Push comes to shove, I can buy the external USB CD drive for the Air. Apple also sells a USB to Ethernet adapter for instances where a wireless access point is simply not available; I’d definitely need one of those.
And actually, the Air now ships with a 120GB drive which isn’t horribly tiny (I’m just filling my 160GB now) – so if I really wanted to push it and save some cash, I could just put my extra stuff on my Time Capsule or an externa USB hard drive, and get a DisplayPort adapter to hook up the Air to my 23″ display when I’m home. I’ve already got an old used iMac floating around if that really gets me stuck.
The only hurdle left is a Firewire port. New Macbooks don’t have Firewire either, so, if this is a deal-breaker, my next computer is a 15″ MacBook Pro. I can probably get away with USB for most things at this point…I think.
What say you, BestMacs friends? Should I give the MacBook Air experiment a shot, perhaps in the name of trying it out so my clients and friends don’t have to? OR should I stick with tried and true and just go with the MacBook Pro?
4 responses to “The MacBook Air Conundrum”
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brian May 25th, 2009 at 11:11
That’s the same argument I had when I first saw the Air: is the extra cost plus the lack of capability really worth 1.5 lbs?
But I’m comparing against MBP (due to Firewire) so we’re talking about 2.5 lbs difference (almost double Air’s 3 lbs total) and about $200 less. (And you know I’m going bargain hunting.)
I think I am going to give the Air a shot, just to see if it’s do-able and to broaden my horizons. Anyone want to buy a black, lovingly cared for, and well-traveled MacBook?
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b.growcock May 26th, 2009 at 12:17
Weighing this same dilemma myself…
Thought I’d found my “ultimate” single-solution a few years back with a MacPB 12″. Alas, time (and processing requirements) move on, though I still pine for my aged MacG4PB 12″ and it still serves a (decreasing) minor-role in my portable arsenal.
Think you’ve nailed the key points of contention. Personally, the weight-tradeoff isn’t so much the issue for me; it’s connectivity & flexibility…and in an increasingly Firewire-less world, it’s more about:
-the lack of CD/DVD media exchange; though, does a USB-Flash possibly circumvent this need?
-the lack of an ethernet port; though can’t think of last time I needed to hardwire to a network, printer, etc. and the adaptor nails this issue
-HD size…with the 120+ mb options, this really isn’t an issue for me
Very curious to hear your report about making this switch.
And in revisiting this Air conundrum, I may have opened up a new one for myself…with some rather cool apps & v3.0 features in the near future, how much does my iPhone (or iTouch) replace my need for any laptop, let alone an Air?!
Guessing that’s a topic for another day. Thanks for the post, and again look forward to hearing your Air report.
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I think I’d go for it if I were you; especially with the newest model and the 9400m graphics processor. I’m trying to decide the same thing myself, but with a slight twist. When the G5 Power Mac went south on me, I sold it and bought a used Mac Mini just to test it (I wanted one for some media projects) and I was very impressed with how it runs compared with the older G5 1.8Ghz Power Mac. We have two MacBooks from within the past 18 months and they are very nice, however I rarely use the optical drive or firewire on them. When I’m out and about, I think the MBA would be ideal. I find that 120GB drive in a laptop is pretty ideal to force me to keep from adding apps ‘just for kicks’ that I rarely would use on a 13″ screen given (and it’s an essential ‘given’) that I have a desktop setup with large screen(s). We also have a fairly late model 24″ iMac Extreme and it runs the pro software just fine.
Sometimes the ‘limitations’ of NOT having a -do-everything- laptop can be a good thing in that it forces me to use the BEST tool for the job and my workflow is often more efficient. This assumes one has the space and budget for a desktop AND a laptop. Plus, I find that it’s much easier today to work with multiple computers than in my Pismo days when keeping data synced was more laborious. There are many useful ways to keep important data available to multiple computers that there was back than, including DropBox, Evernote, Far Finder, ShareTool, etc. Sometimes, I even find my iPhone is all I need, and it has probably taught me as much as any tool has, that a one size fits all approach isn’t necessarily the right approach for everyone.
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molly May 22nd, 2009 at 11:50