Legal Commentary

Lovin' the MacBook Air

By Ernest Svenson

Okay, this shouldn't surprise many people: I ordered a MacBook Air (a/k/a "the world's thinnest notebook computer").  I had been planning on upgrading my notebook computer for a few months before Steve Jobs announced the new computer at Macworld 2008.  Up til then, I hadn't thought about what my 'dream features' would be.  The MacBook Air was interesting, but at the same time a bit skeptical.  Or maybe I became skeptical reading reviews that complained about the lack of removable battery and lack of built-in DVD player.  I didn't care about those issues but, still, I was afraid I'd be disappointed.

Well, it arrived last Thursday and so far I'm thrilled.  The lack of an internal disc player is not an issue because of the innovative Remote Disc feature.  I have a desktop mac so I can use that to wirelessly install software onto the laptop (I never used my disc player on my old laptop for anything else).  If I want to put data on the computer I use a flash drive connected to the USB port.  I also don't care about not being able to swap out my battery because I never did that either on my old computer.

But here is what I do care about.  The MacBook Air is incredibly light!  My old laptop weighed 5 lbs versus the new computer, which weighs only 3 lbs.  I didn't appreciate how much of a difference that was until I started carting the new computer around.  It feels like nothing.  The best analogy I can offer is that it's like carrying around 2 letter-sized stationary pads.  The dimensions are slightly larger than that, but not much.  Obviously, it weighs more than two stationary pads, but --for some reason-- it doesn't feel like it.

If you want to order an external CD-DVD player you can, but I'm not going to do that.  I want to see if I enjoy the computer without any of the add-on options. So far I am.  I'm actually quite surprised by this computer.  Most of the complaints I heard about the MacBook Air suggested that it's a niche product that won't sell very well.  Now that I have one, I have to disagree.  When people get a chance to interact with it first hand they'll understand how revolutionary this product is. 

It's the thinnest notebook every, and yet it has a full sized keyboard.  And the keyboard is backlit so that when you work in dark places the keys light up.  It's got an 80 GB drive, which is plenty of basic storage (I keep my client data on an 80 GB external drive attached to my desktop so I really don't need much on my laptop).  And 2 GBs of RAM is a healthy dose.  I know that there are lots of people who want a laptop that functions as a desktop replacement.  The MacBook Air ain't it.  It wasn't designed for people like that.

I feel like it was designed for people like me.  And I'm quite pleased with it!

Full post as published by Ernie the Attorney on February 11, 2008 (boomark / email).