Off Topic -- A New Toy

OK, I succumbed to techno-lust this weekend.

Like many of you, the MacBook Air is just too slick to not notice.

And ever since it came out, I've been tormented with technology angst -- could it be my primary work machine?

After many weeks of research and anxiety, I finally broke down and bought one at the local Apple store last weekend.  My wife was egging me on a bit -- I think she thought it was pretty slick, too.

So Far, The Answer Is "Yes"

I travel a lot. Lugging around the corporate-standard Dell plus all the supporting gear was making my shoulders lopsided.

My travel bag is a whole lot lighter now. Thinner, too.

I really don't push a laptop that hard. I do text editing, email, web access and the usual PowerPoint stuff. Not exactly heavy lifting. I don't watch movies, rip CDs or DVDs, or do genome sequencing. Having a machine with limited CPU power, storage, ports, etc. -- all fine with me, I've got ready access to beefier rigs if I need them.

I didn't spring for the $999 flash drive.  Neither should you, based on what I've read.  But I did opt for the $249 extended warranty.

Supporting The Corporate Laptop

EMC, like many large corporations, doesn't offer any official support for our hardy band of Mac users, but I've worked around that.  It was surprisingly straightforward.

I downloaded VMware Fusion, cloned my PC, stored the vmdk image on the LifeLine-based home NAS device I mentioned a while back, and loaded it up on my new Air.

After a bit of futzing around, my entire laptop image was running nicely in a virtual machine.  Performance is not great, but acceptable for what I do.

And, running in full-screen mode, it can almost fool you that you're running on a real Windows laptop, warts and all. The virtual image connects to the corporate network, supports VPN, runs all the official corporate apps -- basically does everything I want it to.

OK, Where Are The Compromises?

You get one (and exactly one) USB port, so I certainly need a port expander. There's no internal optical drive, but I don't mind that. You'll carry around a dongle or two for ethernet, VGA support, etc. -- but they're small and weigh almost nothing.

When I was loading my 30GB vmdk file, I noticed that hardwire LAN speed (using the USB network adaptor) was abysmally slow. Like 2.5 MB/sec slow.

The one compromise that all the online reviews complained about was battery life. Now, I haven't run any scientific tests, but I've gotten 3+ hours out of the battery today, including multiple cold boots.

I think I'm going to give out before the battery does. Then again, I'm not pushing it hard.

And What Do I Really Like?

It's small, light and very sexy in your hands. It feels like it came out of a science fiction movie. When I take it out, people tend to notice and comment -- but I'd expect that to change as more of them get out there.

It starts very fast. Shuts down very fast. Finds wireless networks and connects fast.  No contest when compared to my standard Windows laptop.

The screen is drop-dead gorgeous. The keyboard is completely intuitive to me. OS X -- well, I'm still working on that, but I'm making progress.  The mouse pad is going to take some adapting as well, including learning to use some of the new gestures for scrolling, changing font sizes, etc.

And, as a special added bonus, there's a real UNIX environment underneath that I can go play with if my inner geek starts calling.  For the record, I cut my teeth on BSD and Version 7 flavors of UNIX way back in school.  It was nice to see "vi", "awk", "grep" and "man" all over again ;-)

The Bottom Line

Because it's lighter I take it everywhere. Because it starts and stops faster, I find I'm using it much more than I ever used my laptop.

And, since it's smaller, I can actually get work done sitting in seat 23E when the bozo in front of me is fully reclined, which is exactly what I'm doing now.

Is It Right For You?

Everyone's needs are different, right?

I took an honest inventory of what was important to me -- and what wasn't -- and I found that the MacBook Air wasn't that much of a compromise.

And I guess the big surprise is -- I really like using it.  I haven't felt this way about a laptop -- ever.

And I suppose that's worth the premium.

Comments

[Mark Kraemer]

Welcome to the Mac community, Chuck! Many of us thrive inside EMC using VMWare in "Unity" mode for Windows running side-by-side with our favorite OS X applications. Be sure to check out the Apple User Community on EMC ONE for other tips and tricks for using Apple gear inside the enterprise.

The next big wave will certainly be the new 3G iPhone to be unveiled in early June. The promise of full Exchange connectivity will certainly increase demand for iPhones, and for enterprise support of iPhones (obviously not just inside EMC).

[Jonathan Broskey]

Chuck,

Welcome to the Mac Community. I just wanted to say hi and let you know that I actually work for EMC MSP. I am the only Apple Technician on Staff in the MSP on site. If you have any question hit me up, I would be more then happy to help you with any Apple Mac related issues. I use VMware Fusion on a daily bases for EMC internal things but I mainly stay in OS X for all my work. There is nothing I can't do on my Macintosh except for viewing my paycheck from iPay. ;-)..

- Jonathan

[Jonathan Broskey]

…also the Apple iPhone will work great with EMC ActiveSync mobile eMail by June... I know this first hand. You can contact me to find out how.