Mark Dalton

Back in October I wrote about a few issues I was having with my MacBook Air, well thankfully I managed to resolve them without spending any money! The main issue I was experiencing was a reduction in battery life, leaving work with a full charge I would use it on the train journey home and be left with a 20%-30% charge. Well, what I didn”t do was look at what I was doing during that journey.

The first thing I usually do, once comfortably seated, is plug in my 3G dongle and check my email, and try and catch up with the mess that is my inbox. Once we are moving however I would fire up the BBC iPlayer application and try to enter “unwind mode” by watching some of the programs the BBC shows that I actually like (few and far between these days).

Now it would seem that this combination is the perfect setup to drain the battery, at least on a MacBook Air. The BBC iPlayer content had been downloaded to the local drive, so I wasn”t streaming, but I still had the 3G Dongle plugged in and connected, and was checking my email while using iPlayer. So I tested the obvious combinations.

What I found wasn”t a real surprise, but both iPlayer and the 3G Dongle do make the machine work harder and therefore take their toll on the battery. I didn”t do any really scientific tests but simply using the 3G Dongle and working on email left me with 40%-50% battery life, and just watching iPlayer left me with 20%-30% charge. Now the MacBook Air hasn”t got the best battery but I have found I can get 2-2.5 hours out of it using it moderately, but if I am using BBC iPlayer or indeed watching any type of media, I can only expect 1-1.5 hours. This doesn”t really work for me!

My second issue was with the hard drive. Now this was initially triggered by an issue I was having with SuperDuper and errors during the backup routine, the support technician from ShirtPocket made it sound like the drive was going to fail at any minute, and he wasn”t to far out, as not long after I had a nasty “Will not boot” (I forget the exact error message) issue on the MacBook Air.

After doing some research I found a number of posts that all pointed to the same solution, format the hard disk drive and restore from backup. Now luckily I did have a SuperDuper backup that was 3-4 weeks old, and I don”t keep any data on the laptop (I use DropBox), so all I was missing was a few application updates. After doing this however the whole system picked up and was much more responsive, and I haven”t had any issues with the hard drive since.

So the question about what to do came up again. As I said back in October I love the MacBook Air in terms of its weight but after two years I am starting to find it somewhat limited. The more powerful, but slightly heavier, MacBook Pro is one option but we all knew there was a special event due and the much rumoured Apple Tablet device was what everyone was talking about. Every Mac fan know”s you don”t go and buy anything prior to a Steve Job”s Keynote!

When Steve stood up at the end of January and announced the iPad to the world, what I needed was clear. When I purchased the MacBook Air it was so I could browse the web, send the odd email, and look at my pictures while around the house or traveling. It however transpired that I did more on the move than I originally thought and the MacBook Air quickly became my main mobile computer. The iPad for me is what I really wanted when I brought the MacBook Air. What I then needed was a laptop that really is a laptop and capable of doing those more advanced and resource intensive tasks. This for me is the 13″ MacBook Pro. So decision made. I am going to replace the MacBook Air with a 13″ MacBook Pro, and when the iPad is available will be buying one of those.

So I love my MacBook Air but after 19 months the battery has started to lose it’s ability to hold a charge and the disk is starting to show signs of ill heath.

Considering that it has travelled the globe with me and has spent much of it’s time operating in conditions that really aren’t conducive with humans let alone any type of computer I am amazed it has lasted this long, but it has, and it has become more of a travel companion to me than my iPhone.

So I started to look around at how much it would cost me to repair. I nearly dropped to the floor when my local Apple Authorised Reseller quoted me £125 + VAT for the labour plus the cost of the battery (which they couldn’t provide without the serial number of the MacBook Air itself?). I didn’t even bother to ask how much to swap out the hard drive, fearing my back manager would drop dead. To put it into perspective a new top of the line MacBook Air would cost £1,350, putting the repair easily over 10% of the price of a top of the line new replacement, let alone the entry level version.

So the thought of a new MacBook Air started to run through my mind. It was then I started to think about what I actually liked and didn’t like about the MacBook Air and started to look at the new MacBook Pro line. Now the main thing for the MacBook Air is it’s weight. At only 3 pounds you really don’t even know you are carrying it, whilst it still offers a full keyboard and a respectable 13″ screen. The major downside for me is the connectivity, whilst I have grown used to it a single USB port just isn’t enough. If I am brutally honest I would also have to say my first generation MacBook Air is under powered (1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB RAM, 80GB HDD). Now whilst the latest MacBook Air (entry level) comes with a 1.86GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and a 120GB HDD, it is not really a significant leap in my book, especially for the £1,149 price tag.

So enter the MacBook Pro. Now my introduction to the Mac was a 17″ MacBook Pro and it served and still is serving me very well, but I wouldn’t want to be carrying it around with me after using the MacBook Air. The new line up however is much improved. The new entry level MacBook Pro comes with a 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB RAM, and a 160GB hard disk drive and a price tag of £899.00. Okay so it’s heavier right? Well yes, two and a half pounds heavier! It has the connectivity though? Yes, it comes with an gigabit ethernet port, a FireWire 800 port, a mini display port, and two USB ports. Add to that both Audio in and out, a superdrive, and an SD card slot, you have to ask yourself what else you could possibly want, except maybe a third USB port.

So an easy decision right? Well no, not quite. It’s that extra weight you see. Now I am not doing the international travel that I was but commuting to London each day I still like to travel as light as possible. Is the trade off worth it? Well at this point in time I am thinking yes but will be popping along to the Apple store in Regents Street to hold them both in my hand at the same time, something I will add my local Apple Reseller would not let me do. I also have to think about how I pay for for the transition. The MacBook Air isn’t a lost cause, it just needs some love, but if I pay for the work to be done will I see that in the resell value or am I better off selling it openly and honestly (like there is any other way) and taking a reduced price?