But It Doesn't Go To Eleven

I find it funny that in all the polarizing posts about the MacBook Air, the reasons why I didn’t recommend it to Merrystar are conspicuously absent.

Those reasons? Compared to her current laptop, the MacBook Air:

1. is heavier,
2. has a bigger footprint,
3. has a shorter battery life, and
4. is more expensive.

And for her, these are critical requirements. So the MBA is a no-go.

The MacBook Air looks to be a great, small Mac. It may be the best little Mac ever, although I think the iPhone is strong competition for that title.

It is not, however, the best subcompact notebook available right now. The MacBook Air needs to shed some weight and stretch some battery life before it can claim that. And since I’m talking about an Ubuntu to OS X switch, yes, this matters quite a bit.

I am confident that the MacBook Air will improve. Solid state drives will get cheaper, faster, and bigger, components will improve, etc. — but it’s just not there yet. But once you remove the necessity of running OS X, the field opens up… and there are honestly better options out there right now.

If you want the lightest, smallest Mac laptop you can get, then obviously the Air is a great machine. The protests about sealed batteries and non-expandable drives are pretty silly and you should ignore them as such. You want the SSD? Don’t worry about the cost, just go and get it (and please provide benchmarks for the rest of us!)

But if you want something even smaller, and aren’t committed to OS X, then you should probably keep looking.