MacBook Air: not just lightweight
For two weeks I’ve been testing the MacBook Air. I’m looking for the electronic equivalent of a pencil and notepad: a robust computer with a full-size keyboard that’s portable enough for days when all I want is word processing and internet access—the kind of tool that means I can work on my novel without lugging around the sumo wrestler that is my Toshiba P20 laptop. The MacBook Air has a lot going for it. I tested the 1.8GHz model with 2GB of memory and a 64GB solid-state drive. Like all Apple products, even the packaging is worthy of a Japanese wedding gift, and the Air feels built to last (although, of course, Apple has been taking flak lately, with consumer groups complaining about design flaws in many products—a disadvantage of outsourcing your manufacturing). Pros: The backlit keyboard’s ambient light sensor adjusts automatically, making the Air perfect for use on a long flight. Battery life is excellent; I worked on it for four- and five-hour stretches and the charge never dropped much below 50%. The keyboard is responsive and solid and, although the Air is extraordinarily light (1.36kg), this notebook can stand some knocks. With the entire case acting as a heat-sink, Apple seems to have cooling sorted; a major bugbear on the Tosh. Although there’s no DVD drive, link wirelessly to the drive of your Mac or Windows PC and you can synch files and install software. Cons: The all-metal case and trackpad remain cold to the touch, so starting work on cold winter mornings is disagreeable. The single USB slot is undercover in the base and the hinge doesn’t open wide enough to plug in many designs of key drive. The keyboard lacks Home, PgUp, PgDn and End keys, so if you’re familiar with PCs and can’t be bothered learning a bunch of new shortcuts, navigating around documents will be slow. Apparently even a solid state hard drive can only take a limited number of read-write cycles before it expires. And, oh yeah, I don’t have NZ$5139.
posted by Chris Bell at 4:14 PM
3 Comments:
Eons ago when I was blogging I described what I thought would be the perfect writer's laptop and felt pretty smug about it until a reader congratulated me on re-inventing a Sinclair Z88. Likewise Apple produced what was (I think) called the e-Mate, basically a Newton with a keyboard. The Newton being solid state, was always on, ran forever on AA batteries and had a modem for connecting to something called the Internet. So write anywhere, upload: brilliant. The features would be laughable now, of course.
I would have described the MacBook Air as overkill for a Novel Tool but then another well connected (sic) friend got one on trial and offered me a go, and I admit I was impressed. The ergonomic issue, as with the MacBook, is overheating which prevents you really writing on your lap. The other issue in NZ is basically that we don't have the wireless connectivity that makes the design ideal in Europe or the US.
(I use a Powerbook G4, end of line, which is still a thing of functional beauty.)
Chad said:
"The ergonomic issue, as with the MacBook, is overheating which prevents you really writing on your lap."
As I say Chad, it looks as though Apple has the cooling problem sorted with the Air. It never even got remotely warm while I was using it; in fact, it was occasionally uncomfortably cold. Still, after the Toshiba P20 (which simply decides to shutdown without warning and without saving your work), that's a minor gripe indeed.
I make do with a 1993 Aptiva IBm which has a mouse that runs away from me. It is a bit like flying a Dakota these days, but offline, all you realy need is a PC that starts, so it does the job. As for the mouse, can find loads secondhand. If anything goes wrong with the sleek Air - well I cannot imagine all the difficulties of getting it rectified. But of course the IBM is too hefty to put on the lap!
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