I am a writer and teacher and because I have always lived in small spaces I've been using laptops and notebooks as my primary computer since graduate school in the 1980s, when a laptop was either a Tandy 102 (anyone remember those?) or a Toshiba 3100, a fifteen pound AC only behemoth with a 10MB hard drive and a bright orange plasma screen. That was cutting edge, and I was on it. Since then I have used Toshibas, many IBMs, Sharps, Lenovos and more, until roughly 2000, when Windows 97 sent me fleeing to Apple Powerbooks, MacBooks, Macbook Pros, Airs, and now the MacBook Retina.
This may be the most remarkable combination of portability and features since the introduction of the Air. Keyboards are completely subjective and I am pickier about them than any other element. I miss typewriter keyboards. But this one began working for me after about 24 hours and now I am racing away. The screen is light years better than the Air -- so long as you don't need the extra space. If you do, you'll want to 13 Retina, trading in the remarkably light weight, or the Air, trading in the screen. The lack of ports mean nothing to me but simplicity. The USB-C to USB 3.0 adapter is all I need, and even that I'll only use a few times a year.
The key is that I am a writer, with very very limited power needs. For word processing and web surfing for research and downloading even huge text files and doing email, the power that so many of you need for photos and video and number crunching and presentations is completely besides the point. I'd urge others with similar needs to mine to check out this machine. I often carry books and notebooks that weigh much more than this laptop, in its case.
This may be the most remarkable combination of portability and features since the introduction of the Air. Keyboards are completely subjective and I am pickier about them than any other element. I miss typewriter keyboards. But this one began working for me after about 24 hours and now I am racing away. The screen is light years better than the Air -- so long as you don't need the extra space. If you do, you'll want to 13 Retina, trading in the remarkably light weight, or the Air, trading in the screen. The lack of ports mean nothing to me but simplicity. The USB-C to USB 3.0 adapter is all I need, and even that I'll only use a few times a year.
The key is that I am a writer, with very very limited power needs. For word processing and web surfing for research and downloading even huge text files and doing email, the power that so many of you need for photos and video and number crunching and presentations is completely besides the point. I'd urge others with similar needs to mine to check out this machine. I often carry books and notebooks that weigh much more than this laptop, in its case.
