Thinking of getting a Macbook Air (UPDATE: 2/16/12)

Posted by barock3ts on February 8, 2012 02:20 pm 52

Back in the summer 2010, I bought an ASUS UL30VT. It was, and always has been, a great laptop and I haven't had any software problems with it. The problem is, I dropped it a while back and one of the hinges broke, as well as parts of the chassis, leaving some of the internals exposed. My laptop has had a host of hardware problems since the accident, including the screen "blacking out", getting dust on the internals of the computer, overheating issues, etc. Needless to say, I feel like it is time for a new laptop. I've been looking at buying another thin-and-light because the UL30VT was really lightweight and performed pretty much all the tasks I asked of it. The problem with many Windows thin-and-lights though is that they don't have everything I would like in a new laptop such a high-res screen, backlit keyboard, SD card slot, great trackpad and/or non-plastic boUDAy (first world problems, I know). My other choice is the Samsung Series 9 (2012) when it eventually comes to market. Now I've never owned a Mac, and though there are dozens of Macs in our university library for student use and I'm somewhat familiar, I don't know the operating system all that well. I imagine at some point, if I end up getting a Mac, I'll end up getting BootCamp and buying Windows, simply because I like using Windows, but I had a few questions about Macs and OSX, nonetheless:

  • What are your FAVORITE things about OSX
  • What are your LEAST FAVORITE things about OSX
  • I usually run a dual screen set-up. How is dual-screen on the Air?
  • Any people who switched from PCs to Mac, what do you notice are the main differences/frustrations?

I'm honestly curious and I'm not trying to spur any Mac v. PC debates. Any input you have is great. Thanks in advance.

UPDATE(2/16/2012):

Thanks for all the input. I have another question: I don’t love the look of OS X. I'm not a big fan of th skeuomorphic UI, but I'm still big fan of the functionality. What kind of themes/customization options are there to make it look a bit more attractive?? Posting desktop screenshots would be awesome.