A year ago to the day of this writing, May 2nd, I first started using my MacBook Air. I originally went to purchase a refurbished MacBook Pro, due to not wanting to spend the extra $300 at the time for a brand new one, and Apple does quite a good job with refurbished products that it really doesn’t seem like they were used in the past at all, but when I went to purchase it, they were sold out and had the MacBook Air at the same cost refurbished, so I decided to buy it instead of waiting for who knows how long for the Pro. I was a little weary at first, not too sure how I would like it since I’ve used Pro’s in the past, but after a year’s use, I can say it’s been the best purchase computer-wise I’ve ever made. The way things are set up are quite simplistic, and since it’s based on Unix I’ve learned a lot of command line things to use in Terminal to speed up certain tasks, such as emptying the trash quickly instead of waiting for the actual trash program to empty and take it’s time when there’s a lot of things to get deleted, and I could go on but I won’t. I do still use Windows 7 and Ubuntu within a Virtual Machine, the program of choice for me is Parallels. But when it comes to day to day use, OS X is my operating system of choice. I do have a purpose for using a Mac as well, not for the “cool” factor just in case there are people out there thinking an average user gets a Mac just for that. I use Logic Pro for music production, Aperture and Pixelmator for photography, and for those who don’t want to pay for Photoshop and want a cheap (very cheap) alternative, Pixelmator is the way to go, just a side note. There are still quite a few things I’m still learning, and the same can be said for both Windows and definitely Ubuntu since I’ve had limited experience on it. All in all, after a year’s use, I can’t see myself buying another Windows-based laptop, not because I hate the platform, I’m still quite fond of Windows since it’s what I grew up using, but because of the build quality of MacBooks. The only problem I’ve had with my Air is the screen had very, very bad graphical issues and was rendered useless (I’m going to place the blame on it being refurbished, haha), but a quick call in to customer support, and within a little under a week I had it sent out and returned, and thus far I haven’t had a single problem with it. I honestly think this will be the first laptop that I own that will last me for more than a year/year and a half without having to replace it. Here’s to another year with it.
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