MacBook Air Impressions

MacBook Air; a hit or a miss?
After my house was burglarized last year and my nice 12 inch PowerBook was stolen I purchased a MacBook computer. I choose the MacBook, rather than a MacBook Pro, because of its smaller size. I loved my 12 inch PowerBook and miss it. When Apple came out with the Intel processor equipped MacBook/MacBook Pro line to replace the PPC processor equipped iBooks/PowerBooks there was not an Intel powered equivalent to the 12 inch PowerBook G4. The MacBook was the smallest portable and it has a 13 inch display. The MacBook Pro is 15 inches minimum. To me portability was everything. Immediately after I got the MacBook I decided that I needed to upgrade the memory, which I did. Recently I decided I needed more hard drive space so I could also run Windows, so I replaced my 80 GB laptop drive with a 160.

Of course a year ago the 13 inch MacBook Air was not an option. It is much lighter and much thinner than the same sized MacBook. If I were making the decision today I might maybe consider buying a MacBook Air. Maybe I might, maybe not. It is almost impossible to upgrade anything in this machine. As a user you cannot replace the memory or the hard drive, you cannot even replace the battery in the MacBook Air without shipping it to Apple. It is like a cross between a laptop and the worst features of an iPod. You only have one USB slot and no firewire! For me, I think that would be too high a price to pay for the lighter, thinner, but not much smaller footprint of this machine. I wish they had come out with a 12 inch MacBook Pro.

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