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Is your MacBook Air your main computer?

Is your MacBook Air your main computer?

  • Yes

    Votes: 262 67.5%

  • No

    Votes: 126 32.5%
  • Total voters
    388
I would like to have my 11" MacBook Air as my main computer, but my employer gives us HP notebook PCs to use at the office with our standard software installed (Vista, Office 2007, our internal software).

That said, there is no technical reason why this software couldn't run on the Air (substituting Windows 7 for Vista), and it is my only home PC.
 
Jordan9 said:
I plan to get a 11" MacBook Air with the i7, 4GB ram and 128GB SSD in the next month or so. I was originally going to get it along with a refurb 21.5" iMac Quad-Core, but after reading around I may just stick with the Air for a little while and see how it handles my daily tasks.

I currently use a 2.0 MacBook C2D from '07 plugged into a 23"HD Dell monitor. And have an iPad 2 that I take to school, since I don't need to have the MacBook everyday at school.

I only need my machine to do the usual word, powerpoint, safari, and iTunes on a regular basis. I like photography as a hobby and have been using iPhoto lately but want to get a better photo app. I also recently moved all my media (iTunes music, movies and tv shows) to a 1TB portable external HDD. So the SSD storage on the Air isn't a concern since I will carry the portable drive everywhere.

How well do you think the 11" Air can handle photo apps occasionally?
And will probably end up with a portable SuperDrive too.
Click to expand...

Well I was going to wait and get the 11" with i7, but decided to get the 11" i5 with 128GB SSD. It's what they had at Best Buy and I was able to use my Best Buy CC and get the no interest for 18 months. This will be paid in half that time, but nice to have it in case something comes up. I still plan to get the iMac eventually but not till early next year.
 
Quick question to 13" owners: When watching a movie on Hulu, are there black bars at top and bottom? On the 11", there doesn't appear to be but I'm wondering about the 13"

I tested the movie "Ichi" (by Funimation) and there are no black bars when watching full screen on 11", but what about 13"? Anyone know or can test this with this movie? Thank you!
 
DieterRams said:
Quick question to 13" owners: When watching a movie on Hulu, are there black bars at top and bottom? On the 11", there doesn't appear to be but I'm wondering about the 13"

I tested the movie "Ichi" (by Funimation) and there are no black bars when watching full screen on 11", but what about 13"? Anyone know or can test this with this movie? Thank you!
Click to expand...

Here's a screen shot from my 13" air. Yup.
 

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the 13inch base model is my only computer. I was freaking out thinking that 128 gigs was not going to be enough, turns out it is :) usually any large files that I mess with end up going on my small 250gig external pocket drive.
 
As a Mac newbie (having used PCs for 25 years) I've just recently bought the 1.8GHz 13" 256GB Air with a view to migrating to an Apple environment throughout (In the family we currently have an iPad, 2 x iPad 2s and 2 x iPhone 4s).

My plan was to use it as my main machine and migrate away from my Windows machine which I have pretty much done. I also bought a 3TB Time Capsule with a plan to use this as my main router (migrating away from my old NetGear one) connected to my existing 16 port gigabit switch.

My music is on a NAS which is streamed throughout the house using Sonos (a brilliant solution).

The only thing I've yet to migrate across to my Air is my iTunes library - which is predominantly my iTunes purchases and the backups of my IOS devices (currently totalling about 90GB I think). I tend to put music on my IOS devices manually - not entirely sure why but a historic thing from when I got my first iPod years ago and didn't trust all the syncing.

My video/movies/TV shows are delivered centrally by Windows 7/MyMovies onto my TV, and a couple of TVs upstairs, so unless I can find a very flexible Apple solution to replace it I'm pretty happy with that.

I travel quite a bit so my Air comes with me (along with my iPad 2 and my iPhone 4) so as it is my main machine it disappears from the house - not a big problem as the music is still there on the NAS and all the video content is still there too as that is a completely separate solution.

So, my questions are:

1. Should I migrate my iTunes library to my Air or should I migrate it to a central location (a NAS) to save disk space on my Air? Obviously if it was on my Air I could sync my iPad/iPhone when I was away from home and when I was at home my iTunes library would be backed up to my Time Capsule.

2. If I bought an external drive for the Air (but didn't necessarily have it connected all the time) would Time Capsule still backup the contents of the external drive when it was connected to my Air and I was at home?

Hopefully in the future the IOS devices will be able to backup directly to the Time Capsule (what are the chances of that?) so that I wouldn't have to store the iTunes content locally on my Air.

My longer term goals are to migrate my son away from his two year old Win7 machine to an Air or a Pro over the next six months and my missus is happy with her iPad 2 and her iPhone 4 (for the time being at least!).

Is my plan sensible or am I missing something blindingly obvious?
 
Main

Im using my Macbook Air as my main computer. Before I bought it I even just had a Macbook 13" which was from 2006 and kinda slow, so this is actually a beast compared to my old main machine.

I even play QuakeLive on it.

BTW, because Im using it as my main machine I bought the biggest version of the new 13" MBA with the 1,8 i7 and 256 GB SSD.

I love it so far and it's so fast to my old Macbook, and even so fast compared to all my friends notebooks...
 
I've had my 13" MBA for about a month now, couldn't be happier. There were a couple of teething problems to begin with, namely iTunes and NAS, but these have settled down.

I use mine for Office work, browsing and 1080p movies, all of which it performs without a fuss.

There are iMacs and Pros at work that I use for hardcore image work so the 13" fits my needs perfectly.

I'll keep it for at least a couple of years before deciding to upgrade to whatever the Air will become.

Overall, a satisfied customer.
 
KPOM said:
I would like to have my 11" MacBook Air as my main computer, but my employer gives us HP notebook PCs to use at the office with our standard software installed (Vista, Office 2007, our internal software).

That said, there is no technical reason why this software couldn't run on the Air (substituting Windows 7 for Vista), and it is my only home PC.
Click to expand...


I have the same issue with my company.

Back in 2009 I bought a Refurb 2008 13" 2.4G White Macbook and loaded Virtual box and Windows to run company specific software and corporate vpn.
I have since tried VMware and Parallels with similar good results.

In 2010 I replaced the Macbook with a 2010 13" 256 SSD 4GB Macbook Air.
For speed, portability, and battery life I have never looked back.

Could not get a decent price for the older 2008 Macbook so I kept it. Added a 500GB drive and now use it as a server for the Air. Since its a laptop it has a built-in battery backup that handles the power glitches I get. Between back-to-my-mac and remote desktop it offloads (photos & music) and backs up my MacBook Air. Couldn't be happier. :)
 
My 2010 air is becoming my main computer more and more - my 4 year old but still very proficient Windows 7 PC is used less and less these days, mainly as a server for my Squeezebox, and the occasional surfing session..
That may change when I get my iMac which has had sign-off by my wife finally !
 
KPOM said:
I would like to have my 11" MacBook Air as my main computer, but my employer gives us HP notebook PCs to use at the office with our standard software installed (Vista, Office 2007, our internal software).

That said, there is no technical reason why this software couldn't run on the Air (substituting Windows 7 for Vista), and it is my only home PC.
Click to expand...

Just use parallels you can run any windows program on you mac without running a dual boot system, love it.
 
Over the course of 18 months I radically consolidated. Mac Pro and two 23" ACD's went on eBay. Mac Mini went on Craigslist.

Today I only own a MacBook Air 13/1.7/4GB/256GB with an expensive hub (Thunderbolt Display) on it's way.
 
No matter what computer I try I always end up coming back to the 13" Air.

I can choose any Mac I want, MBP, iMac or a Mac Pro, between my work and home we have a lot of Mac's and I still choose the 13" MBA.
 
I just slimmed down myself. I had a iMac 21.5 i5 16gb RAM, 11 inch MBA 1.6. Sold them to get a 13/i5/1.7/256gb. Love it. Thinking about getting a 27inch thunderbolt display.
No regrets!
 
Have been using my MacBook Air 11" i5 with 256GB SD as my sole machine for about 1 month now.

I've used it for iTunes, mail, web surfing and watching many YouTube videos, Netflix, downloading movies and music, using Spotify, Pages, Word, iPhoto, Photoshop CS4 (jpegs and RAW photos), and Final Cut Pro X (haven't tried anything heavy).

It works beautifully for all of those tasks, and is a very fast and powerful machine. This machine is so portable, and to me is better in every way than my (2009) 13" MacBook Pro that it replaced. I'm very pleased with this computer, and I haven't felt restricted in any way having it as my only computer.
 
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