The MacBook Air Experiment So Far

Avid readers of BestMacs.com might remember that back in late May, I wondered aloud about whether a MacBook Air, despite its limitations could function as someone’s only computer. And further pondered the thought of whether the Air fills a void for someone who needs/has a powerful desktop Mac and wants an ultra-portable for traveling.

A couple weeks later, I “traded in” my trusty black MacBook (Mid-2007) for an original MacBook Air (January 2008).

To put the trade, and further analysis in perspective note that I did not upgrade from a nearly 2 year old Mac to a brand new computer. Rather, I “side-graded” to keep the machines around the same age, and thus same capability. Primarily, this was financially motivated; I wasn’t slated to get a brand-new computer until next summer…and I ended up selling the MacBook and its accessories for more than the Air cost. But it was also to make sure I wasn’t including the natural “bump” of an upgrade in the comparison. Take a look at the specs:

Most other important specs are the same, notably the 13″ screen and the 2GB of PC2-5300 RAM (the RAM is the same speed). And the ports lacked by the Air are previously noted. (For reference, it only has wireless, USB, video out, and audio out. No optical drive, no Firewire, no Ethernet.)

At first glance, the Air looks like it might have some specs that are better – like the bus and the video card – but they seem like they’d be negated by the slower hard drive interface (SATA is faster) and that processor! A whole gigahertz slower?! So, you might be surprised to know that the Air actually feels faster. It launches apps almost instantly, it switches between programs quickly. It’s incredibly responsive.

This is the problem with processor speed being the de facto benchmark of computer speed. This Air is a whole gigahertz slower, but that’s only really felt when working on something processor intensive like Photoshop filters, or video encoding, or iMovie transition rendering. For the stuff that I do (which is mostly Internet, remote desktop, and office work) the processor isn’t as important as the system bus and the hard drive. Ah, the hard drive. (More on that at the end.)

You might recall I wrote about cramming my stuff into 64GB. Well, I did it. The rest of the stuff sits on the hard drive I carry around for diagnostics. I’ve needed it twice so far. It also sits on a hard drive attached to my Airport Extreme base station at home. So, when I’m at home, I can pull it all up over the network like a file server. And I have my base station set up with MobileMe so I can do the same anywhere a router lets me.

In fact, the biggest issue so far has been in USB. There have been many times where I had the Air on a platform where it would sit ergonomically correct, then I plugged in a keyboard, with a mouse plugged into it. Then depending on the type of keyboard attaching any other USB2 device can be a challenge. If its the new flat Apple keyboards, no problem. Anything older? Forget it; you’re disconnecting the keyboard to plug in the device. At home I had to go get a new USB hub because my old one screwed up my iPhone’s connection.

I’ve also used my USB Ethernet adapter more than I’d like because sometimes I push a network harder than wireless will handle effectively. But that’s a minor gripe. In fact, if I had it to do over, I probably would not have purchased Apple’s Ethernet adapter and instead got one of these: an AddLogix 3-port USB hub with Ethernet.

I did need something off a CD once and got to use the disk sharing service of another computer. It was incredibly simple. Pop the CD in, turn on CD Sharing. Then click “Remote Disc” in the Finder on the Air. It shows you the other computer and it’s disk.

What I’ve learned most so far from this experiment is that I will never own a traditional hard drive again. Solid-state-drives are amazing. Here’s the short version of the concept: a hard drive takes energy, it takes time to get the heads and platters to the right place for the data you want, it generates heat and noise. Solid state is slightly less capacity for data in the same form factor – but no moving parts. And read access speed is magnitudes faster. I think that’s where my speed increase is coming from. Especially after I watched this video (gets good at about the 2 minute mark). I strongly suspect this also accounts for better battery life and less heat since I’m not constantly spinning motors.

But now that 128GB SSD is available in MacBook Pro too, this isn’t a MacBook Air advantage any more. In fact, the prices have dropped enough that SSDs are easily found on the open market. Someone even rigged one up in a Mac Pro.

No, the MacBook Air equation is easy: lack of ports and CD in exchange for lack of weight. If you carry your laptop everywhere like I do, you’ll appreciate Air’s unique proposition. It’s easy to dismiss that weight difference until you live with it for a while; I did too.

Overall the lack of ports and optical drive has not been a major hindrance to me. But then I wonder how typical my experience is; would any BestMacs clients be able to tolerate the “lack” in exchange for the weight loss. Tell me what you think with a comment or a tweet!

Next up, I’ll put an iMac on my desk and relegate the Air to second-in-command to see what it might be like for someone who has that powerful desktop and occasionally needs a travel partner.

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