[encoderer]

I went shopping a couple weeks ago for a MacBook Air to replace my 15" MBP as my primary development machine. (The endorsement a couple weeks before from Linus about the simplicity and silence of the Air sold me)

I picked it up at BestBuy and when I was there I glanced at their Ultrabooks display. They had 3. The Asus and Toshiba seemed complete crap. Flimsy. Trash.

The only one that seemed a plausible purchase was the Samsung. I wasn't a persuadable customer: I'm not going to switch my platform choice because of one credible alternative. But for those customers that are, I think it's fantastic that they at least have 1 credible windows 7 alternative to an Air.

(Not that it matters, but if you're interested, this MBP is a work-supplied machine and it's the first Mac I've ever used. My other PC is a sony vaio core 2 duo circa 2008 or so running Windows 7. I was very impressed with Windows 7 when it came out. But as an engineer it's only a credible option because I was running a Ubuntu VM. When I took my current job and had my choice of machine I finally took the plunge and I've loved it ever since. I still use Ubuntu VM's for sharing dev environments but having a fantastic terminal app and a clean experience is something I have no interest in giving up. Thus, i'm not a persuadable.)

[nodata]

Two questions:

1. Are you happy with the Air versus the MBP?

2. Seems a strange time to buy. Why not buy in six months time?

[encoderer]

> 1. Are you happy with the Air versus the MBP?

Yes. Very. Largely due to portability but also because the Pro didn't have an SSD. The pro was about 18 months old so it had similar specs in other aspects but no SSD.

I wouldn't hate more RAM of course. But the SSD in here is anecdotally faster than an aftermarket SSD I installed in a windows machine last year and it definitely helps you overlook the 4GB limit.

> 2. Seems a strange time to buy. Why not buy in six months time?

I have a zen about these things. There will always be something right around the corner.