Okay, how about a post where I’m not talking out of my ass? Let’s talk technology, people. I replaced my 1st gen 15″ 2.4GHz Unibody MacBook Pro with the new 13″ 1.86Ghz MacBook Air and I’m going to share my thoughts on the matter.

Now for those who know me, you may be wondering why I would get such an underpowered machine to replace a MacBook Pro. In a nutshell, I’ve always liked the concept of the MacBook Air; that is to say that as much as I’m a power user, it being underpowered was never the “deal breaker” for me. I didn’t really mind compromise because I had a desktop for the real heavy lifting. So the question was never “How powerful is it?” but rather “Does the power/experience it offers justify the price tag?”

Recap

It’d do you good to read an old post of mine explaining the logic in how I determine if the premium paid for the Air is worth it or not. As it is with life; nothing is black and white (surprise surprise!) – it’s all relative; and technology is no different.

I didn’t really mind the Air being expensive for an underpowered MacBook (MB). What I did mind, was the fact it was being positioned at the price point of a MacBook Pro (MB). At the end of the post, I mentioned a price point ¹ While I did mention an actual number, that was relative to the going prices of all Apple portables that year. As we all know, prices have dropped considerably on all lines the recent years that I considered to be the place where they should’ve always put the Air in: in competition with the MacBook, not the Pro.

Long story short, it now seems to be “properly priced” this year (and hopefully in years to come) and so I’m quite literally, out of reasons to be dismissive of the Air as a legitimate contender in the laptop space 😉

But you already had a MBP, why force the downgrade?

Honestly, it was because I wanted to help a friend out. She wanted to replace her old laptop… badly. But she also wasn’t that hot about dropping a huge chunk of cash for a brand new one. Then I realized some other things:

1. I never got to use the MBP as much as I had expected ever since I bought it ² Since I was always a desktop user
2. I stopped using the MBP altogether after getting an iPad

So the only reason I really have an actual “laptop” is for the “just in case” scenarios ³ i.e. going on long trips where I might need more power than the iPad could give which to me, is still a good enough reason to have one 😉

All the same, my MBP’s re-sale value was just going down while it was [metaphorically] gathering dust. A friend told me unless I was planning to use it for all it’s worth ⁴ Which wasn’t going to happen – that it would be more practical to just sell it while it still had good value.

I had also been hearing a lot of good things about the most recent Air, things that made me extremely curious – because it really seemed to have improved so much, there were even reviews that stated it stacked up pretty well against the MBPs. Imagine that; in addition to the obvious visual and weight benefits, a machine that was technically weaker than a MB, could now hold its own on against a MBP – while not being priced like a MBP! If these claims were true, then who wouldn’t consider getting an Air right?

I figured now was the a good time to bite the bullet and see what was up – and help out a friend while I’m at it ⁵ This isn’t the first time I actually was compelled to buy new stuff so I could sell my old stuff to people who wanted it.

So, how is it?

In short, it’s awesome. The SSD (solid-state disk/drive) makes all the difference; what the Air lacks in CPU power, the SSD makes up for (quite stunningly, I might add). It’s this exact same observation that I’ve been hearing around the grapevine, and now that I have the Air myself, I can confirm it. But simply telling you about it would do it no justice – so I made a video demonstrating how fast this motherfucker is.

Take note, this is a 1.86Ghz machine. But I can confirm (as other reviews did) say that its even quicker than the 2.4GHz C2D (Core2 Duo) MBP I just replaced. And no, this has nothing to do with it being “new” or that there are few applications installed. The time I made this video, I had already loaded the Air up with the stuff I use in my MBP. ⁶ If you would notice the menubar, there are a lot of background applications already installed/running like Dropbox, Little Snitch, Interarchy, etc. In short, this is already setup exactly like my old MBP.

It goes without saying that if you put SSDs on any MB/MBP, they’ll probably start to kick the shit out of the Air, but that’s the beauty of the Air’s [current] market positioning: SSDs are expensive, no matter where you put them. So a MB/MBP’s price [where you’re already paying a premium for the “features” they have over the Air] will shoot up even more if you choose to upgrade them to use SSDs (unless of course, they come built-in like the Airs)

Since the Air has already “downgraded” a whole lot spec/feature-wise, they were able to drive the overall cost down so much – that the premium added by putting in an SSD isn’t enough to put its final that far over a non-SSD MB ⁷ Assuming they even exist, I always thought the option was available to MBPs only, but you know what I mean

Also take note that I’m comparing it to my MBP (1st gen) not the newer ones with the newer cores, so adjust your expectations accordingly 🙂

In any case, the video pretty much speaks for itself. After seeing that, it’s either you’re a believer in the potential of the Air or not – and nothing else I could do could convince you otherwise. I personally am.

Likes/Dislikes

So while I think the Air is very much usable for my type of “routine” here are things that I have to mention just in case it might matter to other people. After all, different strokes, different folks 🙂

Likes

1. SSD
   Can’t stress this enough. The fact that the Air outpaced my MBP makes me very happy because it’s like I didn’t downgrade at all. And a 10 second cold boot – are you kidding me!? That’s just awesome! Now I’m even considering investing on an SSD for my desktop.
2. Light
   While I expected it to be much lighter given the dimensions/design, it’s really different once you actually hold it in your hand. It’s frightening how light this is. Psychologically it’s like it’s just as heavy as an iPad (but I’m figuring it’s twice as heavy)
3. MagSafe design
   While I know the newer portables already had this for quite a while, ⁸ the MBP I got was the last to have the old design it’s still lovely how sexy and practical they are.
4. 15″ Resolution on a 13″ form factor
   Take note that screen size is different from screen resolution. The 13″ Air has the same resolution as my 15″ MBP (1440×900) so it’s literally just smaller physically. Compared this to say a 13″ MBP which has lower resolution (1280×800) than the 13″ Air – despite both techincally being “13 inch machines.”

Dislikes

There’s only one major dislike I have: the display isn’t glass coated. So instead of being like the recent unibody MB/MBPs, etc. where you have the whole screen in glass, now it’s back to having a plastic bezel with regular [glossy] LCD. They probably did it because glass can be pretty heavy 🙁

The lack of a backlit keyboard – was also a bummer, but no real a biggie – I guess I was just spoiled by the MBP having one hehehe.

Lastly, the Air not having a CD-ROM was never was an issue to me, I never really used the CD drive on my MBP, so I’m not necessarily missing it here. I guess if you’re the type of person who only has one laptop as your main computer, then this might be a dealbreaker. I’m just saying it isn’t for me.

Conclusion

Overall, I’m very pleased. I had already lowered my expectations of the Air because of its limitations (it’s hard to get your hopes up only to be disappointed). Also I had noticed that I never really was a “laptop user.” I still prefer lugging my iPad on the go, and using the desktop at home. Quite frankly, I think the only reason I have the Air now is because my desktop is a Hackintosh, and I need a backup machine with a legitimate OSX in case the Hackintosh bugs out on me. Maybe I should’ve gotten the mini instead 😉

But the Air turned out to be much better than I had anticipated. Having bought something that turned out to retain the same “overall performance” (and even better in some parts) of the machine I had replaced (and even upped the ante in terms of size, weight, and even “practical speed”) makes this purchase a very worthwhile “downgrade” – if you can even call it that.