Saturday, December 31, 2011

Macbook Air December 2011 review

I returned the Macbook Air to the store yesterday. Here is why in no particular order:

1. cold surface! on a rainy day in a cold room, typing a long memo... I kept rubbing my hands and avoided touching the flat cold surface, it felt like a metal sheet placed on snow.
2. no USB3, the Macbook was supposed to be all about connections (it is short on ports anyway) I invested in this technology already and a lack of a fast port is a big minus.
3. the Wi-Fi is finicky, I have to re-enable the DHCP lease a few times a day, every day.
4. the Lotus Notes client crashed every single day, after ctrl-option-esc function - a reboot needed (I have not rebooted a computer so many times since Windows 98!! way to go Apple)
5. no ethernet port as in #3, I could buy a connector ($39) but don't want to drag with me another dongle
6. server access on the corporate network is only available via their IP address no host name resolution, so I need to make a list of all servers I use??? great.
7. no Mac drivers available for my Dell 3100 Color laser printer at home
8. menu fonts in the Mac MS Office 2011 too little for my eyes (it's not really Apple's fault I guess)
9. when hooked up to my 22" external Acer monitor, the display showed the 1050 resolution but the edges of windows were fuzzy as well as text and the colors faded (the monitor is great when used with my old HP laptop)
10. Macbook Air appears really cool, thin, yet the sharp edges of the laptop had already dented my backpack's bottom and if you are not careful with your hands, you may get a scratch too.
11. no Mac version of the Cisco soft phone (cannot use for business then, super)
12. no VGA port, meaning I would need to drag with me another dongle converter (another $39)
13. could not find all the work printer drivers, mostly Minolta and HP
14. "finder", this program dates back to the 80-ties and screams for an update. the MS Windows Explorer is far superior and intuitive.
15 built-in VGA camera is still way behind comparing to the industry standards.

After a month and a half of testing I came to a conclusion that this was not really what I would replace my main home laptop with. Mac is not ready for work either. (even though I was able to access the servers, when I ran reports on them, they showed errors due to the lack of name resolution support). Did I mention the laptop surface was cold!! Again what appears to be one of the "selling" points of the laptop (the thin metal sheet), for me became a deal killer. Currently typing on my old HP6910p, nice and warm keyboard.

the conclusion: have returned Macbook Air; it's a nice piece of industrial design but found no reason to have it.


To balance off, a few nice things:

1. looks great in a cafe shop, people notice
2. the display is fantastic, not the full 1080 resolution but close and eye friendly
3. the OS Lion, great, I think the best ever OS by Apple, swiping between desktops, gestures, etc.
4. multi-touch track pad - really really the best feature of the laptop, genius.
5. quick startup
6. fairly light weight although my old Panasonic Toughbook CF-W2 was lighter AND made in 2003




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