A Review and Tutorial of the 2nd Generation Macbook Air

Before the Macbook Air appeared on the market, there were already plenty of (well-meaning) netbooks on the market. But the advent of the Apple's Macbook Air brought the Cupertino into yet another new market in which it had been absent beforehand. The iPhone was Apple's world-changing foray into the mobile handset market and the Macbook Air was Jobs and Company's shot across the bow of the netbook market.


The Macbook Air followed the same logic as its competitors: small size, on-the-go portability, just enough hardware and software to get you by when on the road. The Macbook Air took some more bold stands however, such as the absence of an optical drive. With the first generation Airs software was installed over the air using the optical drive of a full-blown computer on the same network. With the second generation Airs Apple included a proprietary software-loaded flash drive that plugged into one of the machine's two USB ports. From this drive Mac OS X could be re-installed, Disk Utility tools accessed and even iLife installed or re-installed.


Recently I acquired an 11" 2nd-generation Macbook Air and here are my thoughts on this machine and how I intend to use it.


There are two computers in my house. To be exact, there are two Macbooks. A Macbook Pro, two iPhone 4's, one iPod, one Apple TV, and now a Macbook Air! The Macbook Air replaced my 2007 white Macbook. The "Macbook White" had been a great addition for our household but was getting long in the tooth. I hesitated on purchasing a Macbook until the Mac App store went online and suddenly all the software I could need from Apple and elsewhere was available right there in the store. No need for using AirDisk or fumbling with external drives. Also the second generation Macbook Air was perfect in size (11") relative to my 13" Macbook Pro and the specifications had improved to a point that made it worth my while (1.4GHz processor and 2 GB of RAM). Also moving to the Macbook Air meant something new for me: instead of a traditional hard disk drive, the Air sports a snappy, always-ready-when-you-are flash-based solid state drive.


The Set Up

As with all new Macs, setting up the Macbook Air was mind-numbingly simple. The computer takes you through a simple wizard that takes care of all the basics and gets you right to doing what you want to do and that's get to your desktop.

The way you restore all of your media (pictures, music, files, etc.) is dependent on how you backed them up. If you are coming to the Air from another Mac you can use the Mac's built-in Migration Assistant. You are given an opportunity during the initial set-up to use Migration Assistant, Time Machine, external hard drive, or you may skip import at that point.



If you have an external hard drive with an old Mac you can back up to it using Time Machine and then restore the information to your new Air using Time Machine. There are many ways to do which are outside the scope of this article. Perhaps I will feature a future article on Mac backup options (in the meantime I have written an article on how to prepare your old Mac for resell).


In short, what I did was I backed up the Macbook White's music to the iTunes on my Macbook Pro. I then uploaded all of my text files and like documents to Dropbox.com. As for my pictures, I backed those up to an external hard drive. So it was simple. Once I had my new Air up and running, I went online (or to the Mac App Store) and re-installed any software I had downloaded (such as Google Chrome); I then re-imported my iTunes music from my Macbook Pro using iTunes' Homesharing feature; I downloaded my documents from Dropbox and finally I re-imported my photos into iPhoto from the external hard drive. Everything was now back the way it should be.


The First Day
Being that I opted for the 11" Air, I had to get used to a smaller screen. Typing was not an issue since it features a full-size keyboard. But that screen is tiny! But it will work fine for my purposes. If I need more screen size I can always hop over on my MBP.


The trackpad is different than my old Macbook. My previous white Macbook featured a trackpad and a button. On the new Air, the trackpad is ALSO the button. Just press down on the trackpad and you produce a click. Also this meant I could take advantage of multi-touch gestures. With the flick of my finger I can invoke Expose, or flick through web pages, or even turn and zoom photos...all with my fingers without clicking anything. Here is a tip: if you are viewing a document or web page and you need to scroll just swipe down with two fingers on the trackpad. There is a myriad of ways to customize the use of the trackpad through the Trackpad section of System Preferences.


The battery is going to provide less longevity than a typical full-size notebook. The battery for the new Air is about 5 hours. This is a few hours less than, say, my Macbook Pro. Also drive capacities are less for the Air since it is a solid state flash drive. The size I bought is 128GB and is comparable to that of my old Macbook so I am pleased with that.


So How Well Does It Perform?
In a word, beautifully. The cutting edge solid state drive has no moving parts, so there is no risk of damaging it (like with previous standard hard disk drives). Also it's very snappy. Applications launch quickly, it awakens from sleep mode in a flash, and shut down and boot up times are in seconds. Thanks to the efficieny of the solid state drive I do not feel like I have lost much performance value due to the lower processor speed. So even there is some give and take associated with moving from a standard Macbook to the Air, it is not as much as you might think at first glance.


I was a little nervous about how the Air would fit into my life but it appears that it is going to fit perfectly. The Macbook Air is the perfect balance between a full-size notebook and a tablet, like the iPad. I will have to think about things differently (such as installing software) but I believe that solid state, optical-drive-free computers like the Macbook Air are the wave of the future. If you have any questions about my experience or need more information, just leave me a comment. Thanks for reading!