Ordered MBP 13, Rented Air While Waiting, Changed Mind

[JasG]

I ordered a MBP 13 but needed a computer while I awaited its arrival so I rented a Rev. A Air.. Loved it so much--starting with the weight and imagining the weight with the few but still significant changes between Rev. A and Rev. C--that I couldn't stand the thought of carrying an extra pound and a half for features that I really don't need. I am a writer. Arrived today and I am in heaven. Screen looks perfect. Airport connection seems reliable. And the fan seems normal for so hot a day and machine of this size. I can't hear it over the rain when it is on.

I must say Apple was great about the change of mind. I am sure cynics will say that they simply want to get rid of the Airs while the MCP are flying off the shelves, nonetheless the MBP was on its way to my door from China and they let me do a full exchange. I'll be happy to fill in the details if anyone is interested or needs advice.

 

[entatlrg]

That's great to hear, congratulations on your Air!

I too owned a 13" MBP for about a day, then returned it. I have three Mac's, the little Air is my favorite, it's just so much fun to use, anywhere.

Enjoy!

 

[Thorbjorn]

Like you, Jas, I'm a writer and I adore my rev. A MBA. I use it outside a lot and the screen is beautifully legible in any light, even full-on sun. I sometimes bring along my dog and work in the woods or, to beat the heat, on a slope by the ocean, catching the sea breezes. My dog is grateful, as am I. Also, because my PDA crapped out and I'm waiting for the upcoming revision of the iPod Touch, I'm currently using my MBA as my PDA--a little overkill, true, but it's light and portable enough to do the job, and then I've got it with me for the odd bit of downtime in waiting rooms or elsewhere. It's a lovely machine. Enjoy!

 

[JasG]

Thanks, and yes. My former Powerbooks and MacBooks I carried for miles and miles, but as me and my back got older I began calculating whenever I went out -- and I work away from home, on trains and coffee shops and an office at school several days a week. Do I really need it? If so, what else, books, notebooks, etc, can I leave at home? A pound and half doesn't sound like much, but in that week I had the rental not once did I think twice about throwing the Rev. A Air in my pack. I got nervous reading all the complaints about the screens and the fans and the like, but I figured that with Apple Care it might be a headache but in the end I'd end up with the machine that was best for me, and I did. Enjoy all those Airs.

 

[LizKat]

~snip~ A pound and half doesn't sound like much, but in that week I had the rental not once did I think twice about throwing the Rev. A Air in my pack. ~snip~

Yep that's why I got the MBA when it first came out. I was running up and down stairs with a Powerbook all day and by lunchtime that thing felt like a ten pound sack of cat litter. The Air is more like toting a magazine around, and a skinny one at that.

 

[jdechko]

Where, may I ask, did you rent the machine from?

 

[entatlrg]

Like you, Jas, I'm a writer and I adore my rev. A MBA. I use it outside a lot and the screen is beautifully legible in any light, even full-on sun. I sometimes bring along my dog and work in the woods or, to beat the heat, on a slope by the ocean, catching the sea breezes. My dog is grateful, as am I. Also, because my PDA crapped out and I'm waiting for the upcoming revision of the iPod Touch, I'm currently using my MBA as my PDA--a little overkill, true, but it's light and portable enough to do the job, and then I've got it with me for the odd bit of downtime in waiting rooms or elsewhere. It's a lovely machine. Enjoy!

I was sure glad to read your post! I thought I was 'weird' for liking to be away from my desk as often as possible, (at a desk I'm more stressed, pressured... it's too formal a work environment sometimes for being creative, designing product idea's etc), so I too as much as possible get outside with my Air, to the woods, park by the river it's great! The MBA makes it that much more enjoyable, you can hardly tell it's in your bag...

Thorbjorn - are you Scandinavian by chance?

 

[JasG]

I rented from MBA at Tekserve, a major Apple shop on W. 23rd Street in Manhattan. Honest to heavens I rented it hoping to get it out of my system and then settle happily with the new MBP, a gorgeous little machine that my about to leave for college younger son is thrilled to own. My heart has wanted the air since Jan. 08, but my head has kept telling me: except for the weight it doesn't make sense.

Well my head was wrong--for me. As I said I use an optical drive about twice a year, and use my USB port only when I don't back up wirelessly. I'll file reports as the weeks pass, but I feel today that I did the absolutely right thing, head and heart in harmony. As you can tell, I struggle with these choices.

Laptop user since the Tandy 102, circa 1985.

 

[jdechko]

Thank you. I think that shop is a little far for me (Seattle) so I might have to find another place. I would love to be able to rent an Air for a week to put it through its paces with my usage. I've always thought that they were sweet little machines as well but found myself leaning towards the 15" pro. Now that I travel a bit more, though, I think I'd enjoy the Air and would take it practically everywhere with me.

The only thing I use USB for right now is my iPhone. And the optical drive is only when ripping a CD or DVD, something easily done on my desktop. So neither of those bother me really.

 

[JasG]

I understand, having almost bought the Air once a month since it was released. If that photo is any indication my back is a little older than yours (my sons are both in college) and it was when I started leaving my MB at home when I really wanted or needed it that I decided to go for the Air. But even then I almost bought the MBP instead. It is so easy to justify, except for that pound and a half. These forums are incredibly useful, but they do exaggerate problems somewhat. So far I am finding the Air, both the Rev. A rental and the Rev I bought, better than I expected. These machines are not perfect, none are, either in design or production, but I must say that in ten years of MAC use (I was a late convert) I have found Apple Care to be remarkable. I never buy service contracts or product insurance, but this is the exception. My older son, about to start his senior year at college, was having network connection troubles with his three year old MacBook. There was about a month left on Apple Care (this was about a month ago). The machine came back in two days with a new hard drive, a new network adapter, a new heat sink, a new optical drive, and half a new case. Very hard to complain about that.

 

[stoconnell]

I think the forums do reflect a "more passionate" set, so you do see people whose needs would be better served by a different product complain about the short comings of the Air for their particular use case or couldn't imagine it being an only computer, etc.

I have been quite pleased with my Air (faint line issue and minor creaking aside), and it does pretty much everything that I ask of it, and it is, effectively, my only computer (in interests of full disclosure, I have a work-provided MacBook Pro, which has sat idle since I got my Air. I did use it for a moment or 2 and was struck by just how massive and bulky it felt).

Anyway, I am glad you (and your back) are enjoying the Air. I certainly very much enjoy having 2+ pounds and added thickness removed from my back pack on my commute

 

[dborja]

I think the forums do reflect a "more passionate" set, so you do see people whose needs would be better served by a different product complain about the short comings of the Air for their particular use case or couldn't imagine it being an only computer, etc.

I have been quite pleased with my Air (faint line issue and minor creaking aside), and it does pretty much everything that I ask of it, and it is, effectively, my only computer (in interests of full disclosure, I have a work-provided MacBook Pro, which has sat idle since I got my Air. I did use it for a moment or 2 and was struck by just how massive and bulky it felt).

Anyway, I am glad you (and your back) are enjoying the Air. I certainly very much enjoy having 2+ pounds and added thickness removed from my back pack on my commute

I think you hit it on the head in your first paragraph. Some people expect the MBA to be something that it's not... And within that is the war between Rev A, B and C users. Granted, the later revisions are more capable, the Rev A is still the perfect match for a certain class of users (myself included)...

"Use case", eh? 'Sounds like you're a brethren software engineer...

 

[stoconnell]

I think you hit it on the head in your first paragraph. Some people expect the MBA to be something that it's not... And within that is the war between Rev A, B and C users. Granted, the later revisions are more capable, the Rev A is still the perfect match for a certain class of users (myself included)...

Plus, you have the added bit of fun that it is a polarizing design by its very nature, so people tend to react one way of the other to it.

"Use case", eh? 'Sounds like you're a brethren software engineer...

... well, the truth lies somewhere between system administrator and software engineer

 

[dborja]

Plus, you have the added bit of fun that it is a polarizing design by its very nature, so people tend to react one way of the other to it.



... well, the truth lies somewhere between system administrator and software engineer

The "fun" gets tiring after a while, though. Some don't get the point of the MBA and some are almost on a crusade to eradicate one version from existence in favor of another. And both groups are convinced that only they are right!

Hahahaha! Another indicator is that your location is where my first alma mater is...

 

[JasG]

Part of the problem is partisanship, which some find great fun , and others could live without, and part of the problem is material: many of us who pay for our own computers are paying a considerable amount of cash for machines that we use only a wee bit of the capacity of--and which the manufacturers would like us to replace in a few years. As I writer, I need the best keyboard I can find (in the OS X world: for me nothing beats a Thinkpad keyboard, it is not better enough to justify windows), a sharp screen, and not a whole lot more. Yet even the relatively savvy lay person has to resist getting caught up in the hype of the latest and greatest, most memory, largest hard drive, most ports . . . . . . . and try to figure out exactly what he or she needs.

That's why I almost bought the wrong machine for me right now: the MBP. Until I carried the AIR around for a week, and even the Rev. A did everything I needed it to do.

 

[dborja]

Part of the problem is partisanship, which some find great fun , and others could live without, and part of the problem is material: many of us who pay for our own computers are paying a considerable amount of cash for machines that we use only a wee bit of the capacity of--and which the manufacturers would like us to replace in a few years. As I writer, I need the best keyboard I can find (in the OS X world: for me nothing beats a Thinkpad keyboard, it is not better enough to justify windows), a sharp screen, and not a whole lot more. Yet even the relatively savvy lay person has to resist getting caught up in the hype of the latest and greatest, most memory, largest hard drive, most ports . . . . . . . and try to figure out exactly what he or she needs.

That's why I almost bought the wrong machine for me right now: the MBP. Until I carried the AIR around for a week, and even the Rev. A did everything I needed it to do.

Very true!

Congrats on circumstances working out so that you got the right machine for you!

 

[stoconnell]

Part of the problem is partisanship, which some find great fun , and others could live without, and part of the problem is material: many of us who pay for our own computers are paying a considerable amount of cash for machines that we use only a wee bit of the capacity of--and which the manufacturers would like us to replace in a few years. As I writer, I need the best keyboard I can find (in the OS X world: for me nothing beats a Thinkpad keyboard, it is not better enough to justify windows), a sharp screen, and not a whole lot more. Yet even the relatively savvy lay person has to resist getting caught up in the hype of the latest and greatest, most memory, largest hard drive, most ports . . . . . . . and try to figure out exactly what he or she needs.

That's why I almost bought the wrong machine for me right now: the MBP. Until I carried the AIR around for a week, and even the Rev. A did everything I needed it to do.

It is kind of par for the course on enthusiast forums that you will get a some amount of noise to signal. For the most part, I have been pleasantly surprised with the signal to noise ratio -- there are a few infamous threads that got a bit off-putting.

I was a bit worried about the "chiclet" style keyboard coming from a PowerBook/MacBook Pro keyboard (after a some trepidation moving from a Thinkpad T30 to the PowerBook), but I really do like the keyboard on this machine a whole lot. I recently was using the T30 and didn't find it to be the bees knees anymore .. plus, the touchpad was sooooooo small

I am glad you ended up with the machine you were seeking. Enjoy it

 

[JasG]

Absolutely. The clear and useful signals have kept me coming back to these forums time and again, though it is only now that I have joined in. I've learned a ton, including how to interpret the noise. Thanks to all.