I resisted getting one for weeks – which was actually easy because I couldn’t afford one. But things have a way of working out somehow, especially because of where I work. So I serendipitously got hold of a Macbook Air.

I’d been making noises, contrarian ones, here and on other blogs, that sorta made me look like I really didn’t want one and couldn’t care less. But deep down I knew the truth.

I had a long dalliance with another computer, the Asus EEEPC 701, for several long months (I even started a blog for it), and just lived on the fringes, on the periphery of MacDomWorldLand. Coupled with tons of work, plus a lot of personal issues I needed (need) to sort out, I’ve been remiss in updating this blog. I’m sure you noticed. My apologies for the neglect.

But once you go Mac, you can’t go back. I got some Air. So it’s here and here I am.

Been using it exclusively for almost two weeks now, and I’ve written my review for my magazine (the short version anyway – this is the long, detailed one I wanted to print).

So how is it?

[Read the rest of this entry »]

World’s 1st 24k Gold and Sapphire-inlaid MacBook Air. Sheesh.

Here.

It’s funny how the Macbook Air is turning to be a finicky little customer. Lotsa little quirks.

This afternoon I found out that even the power cord is a bad thing if used carelessly.

Risky business using an MBA these days in my country, where the temp this summer is starting to hit a hundred fahrenheit. So I used it on my very flat table in the office, eight feet from an air conditioner. No chance of overheating much, right? Wrong.

The outlet was underneath my table, and the cord wasn’t long enough to comfortably and leisurely coil around the environs. So I put it out behind the MBA and let it stretch back and across the rear edge, and down to my power strip.

Soon after, I started getting a core shutdown. Didn’t need the iStatPro widget to tell me that the MBA was overheating; I could feel it on the palmrest.

Apparently I had blocked the air vent out back with the cord of the power adapter and had boxed in the heat. I repositioned the cord and everything went back to normal. Sigh.

It’s a tough life being an Early Adopter.

Much as The Doodler would love to actually put the MacBook Air through its paces himself, availability and resources have conspired to deny him the pleasure.

Not so our friends at Ars Technica, where Jacqui Cheng recently did a detailed, comprehensive review of the base model. More interestingly, she just got a unit of the higher-end, slightly faster and US$1300-more expensive Air with the 64GB Solid State Drive, did the same benchmarks as with the base model, and then put the results head-to-head.

So, is the MacBook Air with the SSD worth the extra $1300?

No.

Read Jacqui’s comparative review here.

As we’ve been expecting, our beloved friends at iFixit have done their magic and sliced up a fresh new MacBook Air to see what’s in the air tonight. Amazing feat of engineering, guys.

Take a look at the autopsy here.