MacBook Air -- why I have ordered one

With all of the talk surrounding the MacBook Air (much of it being "Apple, WTF?!?!"), I thought I'd share why I have one on order.



I work at a Mac software company; over the years, my job has morphed from doing development to designing products, managing their development, and in general running the company. As such I have 3 computers I use on an almost daily basis: work desktop Mac, home desktop Mac, and a laptop. I find that what I tend to do more than anything else these days is talking to people; via email, AIM, Skype, and over the phone.

Any real intensive work, I do on either desktop... but I end up using my laptop more than any other machine. I find that the bulk of what I do on my laptop is answering emails, browsing the web, and sometimes product testing. I also travel relatively frequently to various meetings, trade shows, and events, at which I keep in touch with the office via my laptop.

I've used a MacBook Pro for this, and it has served me well. However, it can weigh heavily on your shoulders lugging it through airports all day... and don't even think about trying to open it and do any work on a flight in coach. Not happening.

So I'm open to the idea of a smaller, lighter, but still full featured laptop that can be my "third machine." Clearly I'm a bit of an exception; I'm in the industry, so it makes sense for me to have multiple machines to work on. It's what I do for a living.

However, I don't think I'm alone in the desire for a lightweight "sidekick" machine. I will let you know how the MacBook Air works out in this regard.

Regrets? I have a few. The way Apple has outfitted the MacBook Air, it is essentially a lower-weight, thinner, feature-trimmed version of the MacBook Pro. That's fine for what it is, but there are two major things Apple could have done to make this machine more than just a MacBook Pro "lite", and turned it into something else entirely.

Better battery life. If this is truly meant to be a wireless, cordless, untethered laptop, give it battery life that sets it apart from the pack. Allow me leverage its waif-like nature to use it on the go for extended periods of time. Make the freedom offered by its thin profile and light weight be matched by the lack of a need to constantly be suckling a power outlet. Certainly I realize the dichotomy of wanting more battery life in a lightweight package, and yet I remain hopeful.

Give me EVDO (3G). A truly liberating laptop would offer me cellular wireless connectivity, so that I can use it anywhere on the go. If this is truly an "Air", then it should offer wireless Internet via EVDO (3G), if only as a BTO option (and they could offer GSM in other countries, again as a BTO option). A number of existing laptops offer this capability, and it would fit in with Apple's "Air" wireless concept perfectly.

That's it; a modest list of desires. Other things that people seem to have their panties in a bunch about really don't bother me. The DVD player on my MacBook Pro hasn't worked ever since the TSA repacked my bags like a rabid orangutan one trip, so I won't miss it.

I can't remember the last time I plugged a firewire device into my MacBook Pro, so the loss of that port (and others) means little to me, given what I use the laptop for. I also surprisingly don't really care about the lack of an Ethernet port; on trips I bring an Airport Express with me for Ethernet hookups, which allows me to use my laptop... well, like a laptop!

Even the lack of a user-changeable battery isn't that big of a deal to me. I never bring spare batteries with me. The downside here will only come into play when the battery no longer holds its charge well. Assuming Apple does a decent job of replacing it quickly -- and securely -- I think it will largely be a non-issue, at least for me.

Really, it's just about perfect for a sidekick/road warrior machine for me. Just give me more battery life, and don't make me hang a USB dongle off of the machine to use the Internet via EVDO, and it'll be downright perfect for me.

Your mileage, of course, may vary. But this is clearly a niche laptop, an expansion of the line rather than a replacement for anything that exists already. It's important to see it in that light.

However, I don't expect this machine to be a massive hit for Apple. It's too niche for that... and if the product does end up flopping with consumers, there's at least one thing you can count on: it'll be featured in an awful lot of movies and TV shows.

That's pretty well-thought out as to why you'd get one. Perhaps Apple will add in EVDO with the next revision-that would be nice. As for battery life, how big of a battery can fit in that thing? I wonder.

Did you spring for the SSD drive or go with the regular 1.8in?

Thanks for your post. Could you elaborate on how you'll handle file management? How will you (and how have you in the past) sync(ed) your three computers? How will you backup the Air? Etc. It's really more complicated than it seems (Time Machine can only back up to one destination drive, for ex.) I'm trying to decide whether or not to buy an MBA and fit it into a three-machine system like yours. Some functionality mysteries remain for me.

All of my emails are automatically synced, because I use IMAP. Other settings, contacts, calendars, etc. are synced with .Mac.

I probably will not back up the Air at all.

I could not agree more about battery life. You'd think that somebody would have figured out how to get 10 hours active use of battery life out of a laptop by now, I don't care how much bulkier it might make it, they'll get smaller once somebody makes battery life more of a priority. EVDO is something I have thought about as well (although I'd settle for free wi-fi across the entire nation ). It does sound like we have similar needs for a laptop. My PowerBook never plugs into ethernet, rarely uses CDs/DVDs, and is mostly for getting online using an airport express when not at home.

I would probably not get a MacBook Air though. There are enough times when I need more CPU speed, and I prefer a 15" screen. For pretty much the same money, I could get a MacBook Pro that had more screen real estate and can run Photoshop relatively well, and have a lot more hard drive space.

I'm definitely in the market for an iTouch as an ultra-portable internet device, once they offer a large enough hard drive so I can carry around some large files too. As soon as they make a 32GB model, they'll have my money.

so you'll just manually move files on and off the Air, from either of your desktops and back onto both of them?

I assume you keep the two desktops synced in some way? How do you do that? It was that challenge that motivated me to scrap them and load up a single macbook (320GB internal for it arrived today) so I'd always have all my files with me, never finding something or other was the old version, or a set of images not on the computer i was at, etc.

Based on how I use my laptop now, I probably won't be transferring large files that often. Any source code edits (which I rarely do anymore anyway) would get checked in with SVN. The only "large files" will likely be beta seeds of our products, which I get from our central server anyway.

I expect to use it primarily for email, web surfing, word processing, access to our wiki, IM, product testing, etc. on the go and at home. These may seem like "trivial" uses, but it's how I do quite a bit of business.

I have yet to see anyone who claims to be buying one of these as their only computer. It looks fantastic as a satellite to a more capable machine, but if you can only afford/justify one computer, that one computer usually ends up being a MacBook (Pro). I would love to have one of these Air thingies if only because my MBP is kind of a pain to lug around, but I need the extras provided by the more powerful computer.

This is what a lot of the whining is about. People that are limited to a single computer don't want it. Personally, I'm more than a little miffed that the 12" PowerBook is well and truly gone, with no successor, spiritual or otherwise. I replaced one with this MBP when I couldn't stand the slowness any longer, but I still miss its compactness. That 12" served as my only computer for four years, something an Air could never do. And so I'm stuck lugging this (thin, sleek, but still huge) 15" MacBook Pro instead, and for this reason alone, the Air annoys me.

But, hey, you're in a position to use one, so good for you. If I could I'd join you in a heartbeat...

From what I understand, battery technology is fairly lacking across the board.

The main problem with Electric cars, for example, isn't that the engines aren't powerful enough (you can easily build one that will out race a petrol car), the problem is storing the electricity required to do so. I can imagine similar problems exist with Laptop and computer batteries.

I thought I saw a topic about that on Yahoo!

Let me check.

http://www.mobilemag.com/content/100/334/C14347/

The energy density of batteries is certainly a problem for several industries. Electric cars need a huge amount of storage to run an engine for hours with enough power to drive at high speeds. Obviously a laptop can't be the size of a car, but a laptop needs a lot less juice than a car too. So we have small batteries that power low-powered mobile CPUs. Both industries have a space problem, but it seems that the electric cars care more about letting you drive a long distance than how big your back seat is, and the computer companies seem to care more about how thin the thing is instead of how long you can use it. And the computer companies only report battery life based on tests using low screen brightness and minimal CPU usage. Right now people can carry around extra batteries (well, not for the Air, but for other laptops). How about instead of worrying about shaving off every millimeter they can, just add a few millimeters, throw two extra batteries inside the thing, and triple your battery life. Think of this as being similar to the increasing number of cores that the CPU manufacturers are resorting to now that they can't bump up the gigahertz much anymore. Until new technologies come along to vastly increase energy densities, just take the low tech approach and stick more of them in there.

The amount of thickness we're talking about here is pretty small, since they could spread it out over the entire width of the thing (make it non-removeable if you need to, people only have extra batteries to swap in and out because their laptop has such crappy battery life as it is). Think about how thin the battery is inside the Air, since it doesn't have to be removed. Probably very wide and not very thick. Add that thickness to a MacBook or a MacBook Pro, and that's several hours of battery life for not a lot more size. Apple won't ever do this, because increasing the size of their laptop doesn't look as good as decreasing it. They need their big advertisements with words like "thinnest laptop ever", complete with charts. This is the price you pay for laptops being designed by a company that makes the sports cars of the computing world, instead of some two-seater hybrid.


For more rants about increasing stuff in low-tech ways, see: http://www.ambrosiasw.com/forums/index.php...t&p=1844027 (third paragraph about USB thumbdrives)



Looks interesting. Too bad it's still years away from the market. If companies would prioritize battery life, even if it's just a one step backward, two steps forward approach of making the battery larger in the meantime as overall miniaturization takes its course, more people are going to work on the energy density problem.

The main problem they face here is not size, but weight. The battery is the heaviest single component in any laptop. Tripling the battery capacity would probably double the weight, and it's the low weight more than the thin dimensions that is most attractive about this machine.

This is why you don't often (ever, really) see laptops with a 10-hour battery life. Most users most of the time don't need more than the 3.5 hours real-world that they're given, and thus don't want to lug the extra weight of that mostly-unnecessary extra battery life. Those that do need the extra battery life lug two batteries. We're stuck with this compromise until the energy:weight ratio of batteries gets much better.

Of course, the energy:weight ratio of batteries has been improving for years, yet laptops still get the same battery life they always have. It's like the auto industry - they've been increasing the efficiency of the internal combustion engine for a century, but all those gains are poured into power output instead of fuel economy. Looks like instead of increasing battery life, manufacturers are adding power-sucking features (brighter displays, faster drives, etc.) and decreasing the weight. Can't say I blame them, nor am I complaining.

Yeah, they've been improving. If they'd spend one or two generations keeping the size and weight the same, they could increase battery life, and use those gains as the new norm.

[quote name='cheleball' date='Jan 22 2008, 09:37 PM' post='1844285']
I have yet to see anyone who claims to be buying one of these as their only computer. It looks fantastic as a satellite to a more capable machine, but if you can only afford/justify one computer, that one computer usually ends up being a MacBook (Pro). I would love to have one of these Air thingies if only because my MBP is kind of a pain to lug around, but I need the extras provided by the more powerful computer.

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I am one for whom this computer is targeted and I plan on it being my main computer. I use a G4 iBook 1.5 meg Ram all day long, run a generally paperless law office on it. I use a 7 port USB hub connected to one USB port, and the phone jack to pipe sound to speakers. This would be a nice upgrade for me. I backup wirelessly already, mouse and ethernet are wireless, and it would make my load lesser heading into court. And for something that I would use all day for 3 years or so, what's a couple of hundred extra bucks? I have only 3 tools, computer, printer-all-in-one, and a phone, on a per hour or daily basis of use for three years, a Mac Air is laughably inexpensive ($1800-$500 resale)/(3*365). Is there any tool that can be used all day for less than $2.00 a day?

Quite a bit of gripping about the MBA by people who measure value of a tool down to the third and fourth decimal place. That's one reason I'm glad I left PC's, supernerds comparing 24x CD drives with 32x CD drives that were $5.99 more, and calculating which was the better deal. Geez.

There's one other thing I'd like to have, in addition to what Andrew mentioned...and it seems like most folks either love it or hate it....is the Kensington Security Slot. I use it with my laptop all the time, even though I never leave it unattended. Living in a large city, it's just the place for a "grab and run", and the MBA will be an even better target because of it's smaller size. So, that's a pretty major issue for me. Still not sure if I'll be getting one, largely because of that. I was sold until the Apple employee confirmed it was absent, at least in the initial release.

I have recently decided to invest in an air.

With my previous job, I used to use my PowerBook G4 fairly regularly. I often did video work and other highly demanding stuff on it (I was a freelance technician), as a result I needed the power.

Now, however, I only ever need that sort of power for a thing I do maybe twice a month, the other time I only use my laptop for long train journeys or taking to meetings. As a result, I shall be keeping my PowerBook, for those rare occasions and purchasing an Air for the day to day laptop usage.

I need something small and light, that allows me to check e mail, write text files and perhaps a bit of web browsing in hotels at night. Not to mention light computer usage at home on the sofa, which the PowerBook isn't great for. It does a brilliant job of keeping your lap warm however!

My only decision now, is when to get one. My local Mac shop expects stock in a few weeks, however I'm planning a short trip to New York in a few months, and I'd save about £300 buying one in the States. I just need to decide if I can live that long without one!

Nice post man! I'm printing this baby out and sticking it on my wall, no joke.

I took delivery of the MacBook Air today. Very nice machine; it's the SSD model, and there's something really peaceful about using it... no fans, no hard drive whine. It's an intangible and probably not very important attribute of the machine, but it is very nice.

I've also never seen this before on my other Apple laptops:



I'm sure it won't quite get that much time in real world usage, but I bet for writing and other light-duty tasks, it very nearly will. This is with the airport connection active. Cool stuff. I'll write up more later.

Hm, I don't have a laptop so you're going to have to spell it out to me: What are we looking at in the screenie? Is the battery indicator different in some way?

I think the fact that the battery life remaining shows as nearly 6 hours is pretty significant. When my PowerBook was new, I could barely get 2.5 hours out of it. Now I am down to less than an hour if it is not plugged in. Six hours would be really nice.

xander

I think that in a year or two, if prices drop somewhat, I'll be seriously considering an Air

(that battery life is great! I only get that on my one-year-old MacBook if I dim the screen to 30-40% brightness, turn AirPort off, and have only Quicksilver and Pages running… whereas this is with iChat, Bluetooth, AirPort, Safari and good brightness on [and maybe more])

The MacBook Air is what I expected it to be. A nice thin, light "satellite" computer that is a good compliment to my desk machine.

The form factor is, of course, quite nice. The keyboard is excellent (I actually prefer this keyboard to the MBP keyboard), and while the screen is very good and quite bright, the viewing angle isn't as good as the MBP screen.

The MBA doesn't get nearly as warm as my MBP when using it or when charging it... and the SSD model is eerily quiet, as noted before. I only had the fan kick in when I rested it on a pillow for an extended period of time, allowing the heat to build up because of the insulation and blocking of the heat vents.

The window server process works a bit more than it would on a machine with a dedicated video card, but performance has been a non-issue thus far. It's performed well.

I am slightly annoyed that my existing MBP chargers can't be used with it if it is sitting on a flat surface. They stick out too much.

I realize that it's only a few pounds lighter than the MacBook or MacBook Pro, but somehow it feels significantly lighter than they are. Side by side, it makes the MacBook and MacBook Pro look bulky and somewhat... dated, despite being less feature-full.

I'm taking the MBA on a trip this week, and we'll see how that fares... it'll be nice to shed a few pounds in my traveling backpack. I've not used the Remote Disk feature, and probably won't bother with it.

I do have the external SuperDrive for it, but I haven't used it. Most of my software I've just installed by copying it over and configuring it.

That's about it really... it's well done for what it is. What is is may not be for you, but as a lightweight wireless access portal, it works quite well.

Now, about that lack of EVDO... if Amazon can do it, so can Apple. That's my one major disappointment with it.

The Air looks so sweet at the store. I would love to have a nice small laptop, sure it's slower than the other Macs but it's faster than my iBook!

I am currently in school again, working on my secondary ed credentials in mathematics. Most days, my wife drops me off on campus at around 8 or 9 in the morning, then picks me up again around 5 or 6 in the evening. During that time, I have several classes, each of which requires a book and a pad for notes (I don't like typing in class -- it seems rude to me; and I prefer to write with a pen). Thus, I have a rather heavy bag that I have to carry around with me. I also carry a computer with me, in that bag. Until recently, that machine was a 15" TiBook. The TiBook is heavy and bulky.

I recently got a MacBook Air, for which I am eternally grateful. The machine is significantly lighter, and takes up quite a bit less space in my bag. I love the machine -- while it has not replaced the older laptop, it allows me to leave the older machine at home.

xander

I went into the Fifth Avenue Apple Store yesterday and got my hands on one of these. Even the ladies that accompanied me were impressed by it's size.* I really liked the trackpad. It felt great, and I loved the multitouch. It seems to be a very solid machine. I wouldn't get one, simply because I have a perfectly good MBP and do not have a need for the space. Also, I'm a college student, so I really can't afford a purchase like this. I wasn't able to stay in the store for very long, as girls seem to have short attention spans when it's comes to electronics, but I had a good experience on the MBA.

*Please do not take this statement out of context. Thank you.