Why My Next Computer Will Be a MacBook Air

There has been a trending topic lately on the internet: would a MacBook Air be fit as a primary machine?

I’ll dispense you all the blathering about its screen size, its lack of connections, etc. since most reviewers have done a terrific job at this already.

Disclaimer: I do not own, nor have I ever used a MacBook Air. All I’ll say here forth is from my perspective as ex-user of both a Power Mac G5 and a PowerBook G4, and as current user of a unibody MacBook.

To discuss whether or not a MacBook Air would eventually be fit as my primary machine, let’s see first how I use my current setup.

I have an unibody MacBook, those that were later rebranded 13-inch MacBook Pro. It’s a 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4 GB of RAM and a dedicated NVIDIA GeForce 9400M. So, no crappy chipset. All in all, it’s a damn fine computer.

Size-wise, it’s far smaller than my 15-inch PowerBook G4 — which was to be expected — and a lot thinner too. Lastly, it is noticeably lighter. It is still too heavy though.

At home, it sits comfortably on top of my Xbox 360 and plugged into a 24-inch external display, with accompanying keyboard and mouse. I’m pretty much OK with my home setup.

When I’m on the move however, I have to carry it in a laptop bag, which is OK too. The size — that is the 13-inch diagonal — is proper I guess, but it’s both the height and weight that I find too much for my taste.

Again, I have never used or carried or even touched a MacBook Air in my life, so I wouldn’t know for sure. Though from what I’ve read, it’s something everybody praise about and one of the reasons we could call it magical.

Given that it’s noticeably lighter than my MacBook, which is noticeably lighter than my PowerBook, I’m confident to say that the MacBook Air would be a joy to carry around and use all day long.

Moreover, the MacBook Air’s battery is truly magical too: it holds charge more than seven hours. This value was benchmarked with better, real life tests. Hence for a lighter use of the battery — e.g. not watching any movie — it usually last much longer.

While, again, I don’t know how long its battery will last whilst I use it like I use my MacBook, I’m pretty confident to think that it will last longer than my MacBook’s — i.e. 4 hours at most with 50% luminosity.

Let’s not forget also that the MacBook Air’s battery is sealed-in¹. While many have criticized Apple’s choice, I don’t carry the extra battery². When I was still using my PowerBook, I used to carry a spare battery and plug it in around noon so that my Mac would last all day long. I don’t think it is necessary since most of the time I’d find a electric plug anyway.

My point with the MacBook Air’s sealed-in battery is that my MacBook’s is acting weird: it doesn’t fit snugly into the battery compartment. Instead, it pushes off the trap door. Therefore, my unibody MacBook isn’t quite unibody… I wouldn’t have this issue with the MacBook Air.

Oh, and this shiny, gosh-these-colors-look-amazing glass screen. What a nightmare! Sure, colors do look nice. But I’m not willing to sacrifice readability for crispier colors. All year long, I have been sitting back to a huge window³, and working on my MacBook has proven to be quite hard. That is not to say that I wouldn’t have had the issue with the MacBook Air, but it surely would have much less glaring, and as such be less disturbing.

Update: Grégoire corrected me on the MacBook Air’s screen and it illustrates my lack of actual knowledge. The 2010 version has a glass screen, as opposed to the first version which had a matte screen. So…

Lastly, while it is not the case yet with the current MacBook Air, I’m sure Apple has it ready around the corner: a Thunderbolt connector. This will be a blessing for all minimalism aficionados and Mac users. Two USB connectors will utterly suffice since Thunderbolt allows daisy-chaining multiple devices — e.g. my external drives, a USB hub for older devices and my external display — with a single connector⁴.

The only gripe I’d have about the MacBook Air is that it has no built-in Ethernet connector⁵. My parent’s house is old and has extraordinarily thick walls through which Wi-Fi does not pass. But as I’ll move out of my parent’s home next year, I figured this is a non-issue.

Let’s recap then why the MacBook Air would be fit as my primary machine:

• noticeably thinner and lighter
• day-lasting battery life
• compact, all in one design (I.e. no removable battery)
• matte screen (see update above)
• a Thunderbolt connector (soon)

So, how much this magical machine does cost? $999 to $1,599.

Inexpensive.