startup hustle

I bought my first laptop shortly after I graduated from college. The problem was I missed the point of a laptop. My first laptop was what they called a “desktop replacement” which meant it had the power and memory of a desktop and weighed about as much but with a flip up screen. This was at a time when the desktop was the norm and years before tablets.

Realizing the error in my ways, I went the opposite direction, bought another Dell, but this time one with a 12-inch screen. Super mobile and short battery life. There wasn’t really a need for a laptop at this time in my career (as my job provided one), and I always had a desktop around but I liked the idea of a laptop. The mobility was great, but when I got my first job at a startup and my laptop became my main work computer, the 12 inch screen was killing me. A monitor was provided but the software was not super excited with the addition of an external monitor and the system was slow. It was time for a change.

Once again, I looked to Dell for my next laptop and went for high end XPS model. At the same time, a .NET developer (oddly enough) was trying to convince me to jump to Mac. I went forward with the Dell, which was delivered broken and Dell recommended a motherboard replacement. I took that as a sign to jump ship and try out a white MacBook. I really wanted a MacBook Pro but could not afford one, startup life is a bit rough at times. The 13-inch MacBook was not as small or mobile as the 12-inch Dell, but the battery was better and I really liked OS X. The small things, like the OS adjusting to an additional monitor on its own, sold me on the platform.

From there it was all about Apple. I got the first iPhone shortly after it was released (and 2 more since then) followed by a new laptop upgrade to the MacBook Pro in 2010. I was excited to make the jump to the top of the line MBP, but after about a year the 15 inch laptop was a bit much to carry around. During SXSW I finally got to realization that the MBP might be more computer than I really needed. This was the same time that the iPad 2 was launching but it was slightly (really) hard to find.

The first iPad was a disappointment in my opinion. I loved the idea of a tablet with a touchscreen, and the price was awesome but I was willing to pay a grand for an entry level tablet that had OS X like features. Already having an iPhone (I believe a 3GS at that time), the first iPad seemed like a big iPhone with less native apps but was much more friendly for browsing (bigger screen), but the lack of Flash sucked. I am not a fan of Flash, but enough sites used it at the time to make browsing “spotty”.

I started to change my mind when the iPad 2 was released. My son was getting to the age where the iPad would be a learning tool, I was tired of hauling out my MBP to surf the internet and the iPhone’s small screen was crappy for browsing. I convinced my wife that the iPad would be a great “family” device and proceeded to wait in line at the local apple store for way too long. I fell in love with the iPad 2 and so did my son. The mobility, battery life, and enjoyment of a touchscreen that size turned my most used device, the iPhone, into strictly just that, a phone. I used it at work as I jumped from meeting to meeting, leaving my laptop in my office for hours each day. My son, just a few years old, quickly learned how to navigate iOS. He could find the page with all of his apps, learned YouTube to watch train videos and watched kid movies on long car and plane trips. The number of apps to help learn numbers, the alphabet and interactive books of classic stories is impressive. But after several months I found myself falling back to the MBP because I needed the power of a real OS, not a mobile operating system.

I never really saw they Macbook Air as a real computer but more of a fun toy like the iPad. My biggest concern being the hard drive size and what looked like the under-powered internals compared to the MBP. Then I read a quote by Steve Jobs (that I have spent an hour looking for and cant find) that basically said the MBA would be Macintosh’s response to the iPad if they were made by competing companies. Then I thought about my current device state. The iPhone is awesome but I get tired of the small screen for web browsing. The MBP does everything I could ever need but is big and heavy comparatively, and the iPad has the best form but is not enough computer.

After much back and forth I took the jump to the MacBook Air and it was the best computer choice I have ever made. The MacBook Air is super light, thin and fast. The model I bought (1.8 GHz i7, 4 GB memory, mid 2011) was faster than the MBP from the pervious year I was currently using. The 13-inch screen is perfect (11-inch is too small in my opinion). While I love a touchscreen as much as the next guy, the use of a physical keyboard outweighs a screen keyboard because of the speed I can type on the former.

Not sure where everyone draws the line on “mobile” but a laptop is close to that line and a MacBook Air easily falls into that realm. Of course this is completely my opinion but I was so impressed with the MBA after I had convinced myself that it was not up to the task to handle everyday use, that I felt the need to write a long and non-climatic blog post….on my MacBook Air.

image source: businessinsider.com