First Month with a MacBook Air

When the MacBook Pro was announced I preordered and could not wait for it to get to me.  I ended up having to wait a couple months before it was finally shipped to me, but it was well worth the wait.  I kept it for three fantastic years before finally upgrading to a newer MacBook Pro.  Then about three months ago I was looking to upgrade again and started thinking about whether I should get the 17" instead of the 15" or go with a Mac Mini.  I actually got a Mac Mini only to find that it was not for me.  That is a story for another day, but after having the Mini I realized that portability was something that I valued a lot and the processing power of the Mini was plenty for most of my needs.  So why not try a MacBook Air I thought, and here I am writing this post on my MacBook Air.

Reasons the MacBook Air is Great

The MacBook Air is unmistakably small and light.  This is the main reason that I decided to give it a try.  I went with the 13" since I had my doubts I could transition to such a smaller screen as the 11" would have been coming from the MacBook Pro 15".  It is still incredibly thin and light at least as compared to the pro I had.  Having a smaller laptop really makes a difference when carrying around and using in bed.  The screen is still excellent as compared to my work laptop (its a dell), and the built in camera which is standard on all Apple laptops is perfect for video chat.  The instant on feature when you just let it sleep is great, but not a lot faster than my MacBook pro was from sleep.  The big difference is in booting which is much faster due to the SSD instead of HDD.  The SSD is also much zippier when opening programs or files.  If you open a lot of programs frequently or boot every time you use your computer then the SSD is a definite advantage.  You can get an SSD for a pro however and it could be an even faster model since the one in the Air is not user replaceable and therefore you do not get any choice aside from size.

Reasons the MacBook Air is Not so Great

So not everything is all that great.  First and most obvious is the lack of a physical disc drive.  Although I thought I could do without it has actually been annoying and I have found myself really wanting a disc drive again.  However, it did give me a good excuse to get an external blu-ray drive which it seems Apple will never carry in their laptops so at least there is that.  Ripping blu-ray movies in order to get them on other devices though is not that fun due to the size of the file, so really the blu-ray is not that big of an advantage unless you just really need to use blu-rays versus DVDs or you are planning to play blu-rays on your computer and output to your TV.  Another large complaint I have is the lack of user replaceable components.  The 4GB of RAM and the 250GB SSD are good and plenty for my current needs with the exception of those blu-ray rips, but if down the road I need to upgrade I will be forced to get a new computer entirely rather than just refreshing.  The last point to make on the disappointments list is the super loud fan which seems to kick on at the slightest load to the processor which happens frequently with the 1.7 Ghz i5 in there.

Conclusion

At this point, the tradeoffs are worth it.  I love the size and weight of this MacBook Air and it matches or exceeds the performance of my previous laptop in almost every way.  I still don't think I am entirely ready to rid myself of the disc drive as I still rent from Blockbuster and use my computer to watch the movies often, but the quick SSD and excellent portability are great.  If you find yourself looking for a very portable computer that still has good specs then the MacBook Air is a very difficult computer to beat.

I Sold My Geo for an iPad

It was time to get a new car for my growing family and so I had to get rid of my 1995 Geo Prizm.  I loved that car, but it just wasn’t big enough for the entire family so it had to go.  My buyer was looking to sell his iPad so that he would have enough money to buy the car so logically I just said “how bout the iPad for the car?”  It worked out and I am the proud new owner of an iPad 2.  People have been crazy for the iPad and act like it is the end all device that you can use for everything, but my impressions of its abilities have not changed even after owning one.  The iPad just doesn’t fit nicely between my iPhone and my MacBook Pro.  Is there really any need for a tablet between those two devices?  I have been thinking about what I can use the iPad for to make it really worth the money, but I have not really come up with anything yet.  It is really cool and I love watching NetFlix on it, but I do not really see myself using it for GPS in the car and it cannot do things like Hulu unless you subscribe to Hulu plus.  The best use I have come up with so far is to put it in the car for my daughter to use for movies.  It would be a very good looking screen and we can load the movies to it and get some Bluetooth wireless headphones so it seems like that is the most reasonable use. 

There are a couple of things that shocked me about the iPad.  First, it does not come with any headphones.  Those ear buds that Apple usually provides with iPods and iPhones have got to be really cheap to produce and therefore it seems like an odd exclusion on a $500 tablet.  I have my ear buds from my iPhone so there is not really any problem, but if I were getting this device to be in place of the laptop or the iPhone I would definitely need some way of listening to it without using the external speaker.  The second thing that seems odd is that my MacBook Pro came with a microfiber cloth to wipe the screen off because it is a glass screen, but it is not a touch screen so in theory it should rarely be necessary.  On the other hand, the iPad does not come with anything to wipe the screen off with.  I find myself constantly trying to wipe it off with my shirt or something just so that I don’t see all of those awful smudges on the screen.  Why would they not include a way to wipe it clean?  The Smart Cover certainly would not do the trick because you would really need to wipe the screen to get it clean and from my understanding the Smart Covers also take dirt off of the table and get smashed between the screen and the cover every time you close the cover so it seems like a lose/lose situation. 

 

What are your impressions of the iPad?  Have you come to love this Mac in tablet form factor? Does it do everything that you need it to do to take the place of your laptop and do you find that it can really be useful in between an iPhone and a MacBook?  Let me know what you think in the comments.

New MacBooks and MacBook Pros Announced

The event today proved to be quite an exciting event for fans of Apple notebooks. The MacBooks and MacBook Pros got plenty of revamps and they look stunning. You should definitely check out the Apple webpage to get the nitty gritty specs, but here are a few of the things that were rumors and I love that they turned out the way they did:

- The trackpad is glass and doesn't have a button; instead it is a button itself and it is bigger and allows for much more multitouch support
- The NVIDIA graphics cards are confirmed so the graphics are going to be a lot better on the new MacBooks and especially the MacBook Pros which incorporate not only one graphics card, but two so that it can use one for lower power consumption and one for better performance.
- The screen are all LED and this means less power consumption and thinner brighter screens.
- The ports are all on one side and the disc drive is on one side so plugging cords in only mean manuevering the notebook to one side and the DVD will eject more easily if the notebook is in my lap



There are plenty of other great features that I have not mentioned here just because of course it will be better explained at Apple and with more pictures and videos; get it from the source if you really want to know everything there is to know. Now there is one great thing and one bad thing about the notebooks. The bad thing is that they appear to only include DVD drives and not blu-ray support; bummer, I was really looking for the blu-ray. The great news is that these puppies are available tomorrow, so check em out and order it now.

New MacBook and MacBook Pros Coming Soon

I always get excited about new Apple products coming out and new notebooks are long overdue in my opinion.  I love my MacBook Pro and I got it when they first came out (yes I am one of those crazy people).  Sometimes you just have to have it I guess.  That exciting time for new notebooks has finally come again though.  Apple will announce the new MacBook and MacBook Pro models on Tuesday the 14th and will likely explain all of the new exciting features.  I have been checking out the rumors and general rumors and photos indicate a few things about the new laptops:

 - There is going to be an aluminum version of the MacBook now and not just the Pro

 - The new notebooks will be using a dedicated NVIDIA graphics cards to provide higher quality graphics 

 - The larger trackpads that are included on the MacBook Air are going to be on the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros

There are other rumors surfacing about possible LCD HDTVs made by Apple that would include the Apple TV functionality right out of the box.  I am not so sure about the HDTVs, but most of the notebook stuff seems to be feasible.  the other thing is the possible inclusion of Blu-ray drives in the notebooks rather than the DVD drives included now.  We will have to see on Tuesday how it pans out.  In  the mean time take a look at these pictures at Mac Rumors; they should wet your appetite for the new all aluminum notebooks.