Academic

SO I CRACKED AND BOUGHT the 11? Macbook Air on Friday. I got the basic, bottom-end model since it?s?

By Glenn Reynolds

SO I CRACKED AND BOUGHT the 11″ Macbook Air on Friday. I got the basic, bottom-end model since it’s mostly for web-surfing and column-writing. Conclusions so far:

(1) It’s really small and light. And thin.

(2) The keyboard doesn’t feel little at all.

(3) The screen’s excellent.

(4) Battery life is very good. I spent Sunday afternoon at the Lakeside Tavern writing a Popular Mechanics column on airport security. They don’t have wi-fi, so I was running the broadband EVDO card which uses a lot more power than wi-fi. I was there for a couple of hours, then came home and surfed with it on-and-off for a couple more hours, for a total of maybe 2.5 to 3 hours. Had 48% power left. Not bad at all.

(5) I do most of my column-writing, etc. — basically anything less than a law review article or book chapter — on Google Docs now, but I like having a word processing program. I thought from the reviews that the Mac App Store was already open, but it’s not. So I just downloaded OpenOffice for free instead of buying iWork. Did I mention it was free? Sorry, Apple . . . .

If I didn’t already have a 13″ Macbook Pro, I might have gone for the 13″ Air. It’s better than my Asus netbooks (which are good little computers), especially in terms of the keyboard. Helen hates the small keyboard on those. I don’t mind so much, which is odd, because my hands are size XL and hers are tiny. But this keyboard is like a fullsize Macbook, not like a netbook.

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on November 22, 2010 (boomark / email).