2011 MacBook Air 11″

Recently I bought a 2011 MacBook Air 11″ to replace my MacBook Pro. And it is definitely the best laptop that Apple has ever made.

After using my MacBook Pro for well over three years, I am quite familiar with many of its quirks. One of the problems it, and every other laptop, has, is that it is far too big and heavy. Even though the MacBook Pro is lighter, thinner, and better sized than most of its competitors, it still wasn’t light enough.

At the other end of the market there are netbooks, which are somewhat good in terms of size, but extremely poor in terms of performance. Netbooks are meant to be used as a second computer, and are simply too slow to substitute for a normal computer in terms of speed and power. On top of that, netbooks are built to a budget, and thus tend to be with flimsy materials, cramped keyboards, and terrible displays.

The MacBook Air 11″ is what laptops are meant to be. Not only is it small and portable, it is just as powerful as bigger computers, and definitely powerful enough to replace a laptop, seeing as its CPU easily outruns most of the Core 2 Duos which, until recently, were considered fairly fast in the computer market, especially for laptops. The MacBook Air, then, is easily fast enough for the majority of computer users.

And unlike netbooks, the MacBook Air has a stunning display with a resolution of 1366×768 and a wide viewing angle. It also has a full sized keyboard, making it fantastic for typing on, and even has backlighting for typing in the dark.

But let’s not only look at the specifications. The purpose of a laptop is to provide a mobile computer, a computer which can be taken to places and has the same, or as close as possible features that a desktop computer has.

The problem with most laptops is that they really are not that mobile. Yes, they’re easier to move around than desktop computers, but they’re just not portable enough; taking my MacBook Pro around was quite a chore, especially since its battery was dead and I had to carry around a chunky charger as well. And wherever I was, I had to look for an outlet to connect to, since the battery was fairly useless.

The MacBook Air 11″, however, is small enough that it is almost as portable as an iPad. That means carrying it around is no more difficult than carrying around a notebook, ironically. It has a battery life long enough to last a day(at least, for me it does) and its charger is so small that I have no problems with carrying it around all the time, just in case.

The SSD or flash based hard drive in the MacBook Air continues to aid it in its mission to be as portable as possible; the Air starts up faster than any other Mac, and applications load extremely quickly thanks to the fast transfer speeds. This makes a computer feel much faster, especially to average consumers who don’t know about processor speeds and other technicalities. People who judge a computer’s speed based on how fast their email application opens, or their web browser opens, or other tangible things.

The only possible drawback that the MacBook Air has for everyday computing is the lack of a CD/DVD drive. But over the three years that I’ve owned a MacBook Pro, I’ve found that I rarely use the SuperDrive. The few occasions where I did use it was either to install Windows or view a DVD, which only happened once when I was traveling in Europe. And to be honest, I could have been just as happy without watching a movie and instead spending my time checking out Paris.

Nowadays, I take my Mac with me everywhere, and I am finding uses for it that I had never before done so with my MacBook Pro. In many places, it has replaced pen and paper for me, and undoubtedly if everyone resorted to computers to replace things such as notebooks and textbooks, a huge amount of paper would be saved.

The MacBook Air is also better than an iPad, because an iPad is too big to be ultraportable like an iPhone, yet does not have enough features to qualify it as a fully capable computer. The MacBook Air is essentially just as portable as an iPad, but it has many more features, and its only drawback is a shorter battery life.

But most the most amazing thing about the MacBook Air is its speed. Having seen tons of computers over the past few years, anyone would instinctively believe that a laptop the size of the MacBook Air simply couldn’t be fast. And a few years ago, this was very true, as the technology needed to creature small, efficient, yet powerful CPUs simply did not exist. However, thanks to the Intel Core i5 chip in the MacBook Air, it is possible. Combine that processor with Apple’s extremely slim, and very strong unibody design, and you have a small laptop which is ultraportable, strong, and powerful for everyday use.

And on top of all that, the MacBook Air is priced like any other notebook. Starting at 999, which is a very accessible price point for the majority of the market, and heading upwards towards the 2grand mark. In other words, the MacBook Air has a version for everyone. It’s the ultimate notebook that all notebooks are meant to be. The MacBook Air could cover for the needs of the vast majority of the market. The few people who need extremely powerful laptops can stick with higher end MacBook Pros, but the other notebooks sitting in the middle of the range(MacBooks, 13″ MacBook Pros, etc) cannot hold a candle to the MacBook Air’s portability, power, style, ease of use, and the fact that, as a laptop, it is far superior.

In conclusion, the MacBook Air does have some drawbacks. The lack of a CD/DVD drive, and the small(compared to the rest of the market) storage space means that it cannot handle every possible need in the market. However, for the majority of the market, it is the best notebook out there, and is the best laptop that Apple makes.