Why a MacBook Air is the best purchase in my life
I get into the nitty gritty of my (un)healthy fascination with Apple
Bong!
Thats the sound any Mac products makes when you turn it on. Like a metaphorical warm up for an orchestra, it prepares you to conduct the symphony that is about to unfold. If the preceding sentence sounded cheesy, congratulations, it is. But when I think about my Macbook Air, objectivity goes out the window(sometimes it flies back in) and I am enamored by the device.
Life before getting a Macbook
I had portable computers before having a Macbook but they had the problem of being bulky and had awful battery life. Before my Macbook, I had a gaming laptop which was like 2.6 kg and it started my back pain because I used to carry it to my work and I loathed taking it. So you would think I have gotten a Macbook after it? No. I got a Mac Mini M2 because I had an iPad to act as a laptop replacement(it barely did it).
The Mac Mini gave me a taste of the beauty that is MacOS. Yes, my favorite OS is Linux but MacOS’s main competition, Windows is awful at user experience from what I’ve dealt with. For example, it took me only a minute to setup my Mac Mini where as my ROG Ally which was the latest Windows paired device I bought took over an hour(no joke, it took an hour to update itself).
But the Mac Mini, no matter how good and power efficient it is wasn’t portable. At the back of my head I knew I will have to get a Macbook for my personal work.
Cometh, the Macintosh
One day while walking by a Croma store, I caught a glimpse of the Macbook. I was in desperate need of a laptop as my other jerry rig attempts were cumbersome (using my ROG Ally, carrying my Mac Mini with a portable monitor). So I walked in and bought a Macbook Air. Surprisingly, as I already had my iPhone with me, the Macbook instantly set itself up, even took all the saved WiFi passwords, information from my Apple Account. That was less than a minute. Afterwards, I found these features that make Macbook Air the definitive laptop experience.
- MacOS - MacOS is in like in the middle of the Windows and Linux spectrum. As a person who dabbles into programming and art as a hobby, I wanted something that could do both. Linux excelled at programming but didn’t have Clip Studio Paint or Affinity for art stuff and Windows, the less we talk about, its better.
- Weight - MacBook (the Air model to be specific) is pretty light. Even the Pro model is lighter than the gaming laptops(should we even call them laptops?). As I am growing older and trying to respect my spine, I prefer carrying a lightweight laptop that packs in all the power I need.
- Battery Life: The gaming laptop I had earlier was like 2.6 kg and the charger was like 400-500 grams shaped like a brick, even after that it barely had 4-5 hours battery life on Ubuntu while just doing basic coding. The Macbook, its ARM processor, powers through an entire 12 hour Starbucks coding session like a champ.
- Display: The display of Macbook, the Retina Display, is the stuff dreams are made of. The text, which if you are a programming you will interacting with a lot looks sharp and the colors are hyper-accurate for designing(ok hyper-accurate was bit too much).
- Processor: How can I forget the processor, its ARM, it doesn’t consume much power, yet it delivers like a champ. The other manufacturers just can’t compete with Apple Silicon with their own ARM chip(as of now).
How it improved my productivity
The Macbook Air made me want to code more products as its lightweight enough that it can be an amazingly powerful for programming and can be an amazing anchor point for your laptop-desktop setup which I have.
Should you buy a Macbook?
Your money, you can do whatever you want.
Closing Thoughts
Well, thats was my love letter to Macbook Air. The laptop of my dreams, the anchor being of my creative universe, the love of m.. ok I will stop now.