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13 inch Macbook Air. * It's powerful enough for my development work. * It's small/light enough to take with me. * For my work the battery goes for 14 hours.

13 inch Macbook Air. * It's powerful enough for my development work. * It's small/light enough to take with me. * For my work the battery goes for 14 hours. * It's not so expensive as "premium" laptops go. * OSX with homebrew has all the things I like about Linux, but wifi and power management work flawlessly out of the box.

thearn4 10y ago
Same, still running a 2012 13" MBA. I recently replaced the battery, but it's still doing the job as my primary personal machine. I'm considering getting a new machine in the coming year, but also don't feel like its critical that I do it.
ambivalence 10y ago
I use two 13" Macbook Airs. One is an 1.3 GHz i5 from 2013 which is admittedly slowish at times with heavy Atom and browser use. The other is an 2.2 GHz i7 from 2015 and that one is pretty awesome. The batteries on those machines are amazing. They really last for 7-9 hours depending on use. The 2013 one is starting to show the "Service battery" warning every now and then but no performance degradation is noticeable yet. It's been through 380 cycles so far. If you use a non-Retina Macbook like those, I suggest using a bitmap font for programming (I'm using Terminus myself). It's totally sharp and easy on the eyes. Crank up the contrast in your editor's color theme and you're all set.
- cillian64 10y ago
  Thanks for the recommendation of Terminus! I normally use Inconsolata with ITerm's anti-aliasing, nominally 18pt (though it's nowhere near as big as that sounds). Terminus (without AA) is amazingly sharp! I'm not sure if it's as readable as Inconsolata, but I'll try it out for a few days and see how I feel.
- Humphrey 10y ago
  I've got the min-2012 i7 Air -- love the machine, and it still runs fast and great. The battery is pretty terrible though. I'm probably due for a new one. When I took it to my local Apple reseller, they told me that they didn't think the battery needed replacing -- but they are wrong, and I should just pay them to do it anyway :-p
jrgifford 10y ago
What specs for the MBA?
- cillian64 10y ago
  1440x900 resolution, 128GB SSD, 1.6GHz dual-core i5, 8GB RAM. Plenty of go for web browsing, compiling embedded code, and LaTeX, so long as you don't need to run 20 virtual machines, do video encoding, or play games.
digikata 10y ago
Yup, me too with the caveat that I don't really use it as a primary work machine - have a desktop for that. But, if i'm on the Macbook Air, and I need more power, I remote into a machine with more power. The battery life and portability are perfect for me. That said, I've been keeping an eye out for alternatives for future replacements after my current Air dies, as Apple seems to be flirting with ending the line? Or it least it seems like a stepchild wedged between the Macbook and Macbook Pro lines. A premium build, portable laptop that runs well integrated Linux would be nice - but honestly I'm skeptical that a competitor will emerge. Maybe a librem 13.

thearn4 10y ago

Same, still running a 2012 13" MBA. I recently replaced the battery, but it's still doing the job as my primary personal machine. I'm considering getting a new machine in the coming year, but also don't feel like its critical that I do it.

ambivalence 10y ago

I use two 13" Macbook Airs. One is an 1.3 GHz i5 from 2013 which is admittedly slowish at times with heavy Atom and browser use. The other is an 2.2 GHz i7 from 2015 and that one is pretty awesome. The batteries on those machines are amazing. They really last for 7-9 hours depending on use. The 2013 one is starting to show the "Service battery" warning every now and then but no performance degradation is noticeable yet. It's been through 380 cycles so far. If you use a non-Retina Macbook like those, I suggest using a bitmap font for programming (I'm using Terminus myself). It's totally sharp and easy on the eyes. Crank up the contrast in your editor's color theme and you're all set.

cillian64 10y ago
Thanks for the recommendation of Terminus! I normally use Inconsolata with ITerm's anti-aliasing, nominally 18pt (though it's nowhere near as big as that sounds). Terminus (without AA) is amazingly sharp! I'm not sure if it's as readable as Inconsolata, but I'll try it out for a few days and see how I feel.
Humphrey 10y ago
I've got the min-2012 i7 Air -- love the machine, and it still runs fast and great. The battery is pretty terrible though. I'm probably due for a new one. When I took it to my local Apple reseller, they told me that they didn't think the battery needed replacing -- but they are wrong, and I should just pay them to do it anyway :-p

jrgifford 10y ago

What specs for the MBA?

cillian64 10y ago
1440x900 resolution, 128GB SSD, 1.6GHz dual-core i5, 8GB RAM. Plenty of go for web browsing, compiling embedded code, and LaTeX, so long as you don't need to run 20 virtual machines, do video encoding, or play games.

digikata 10y ago

Yup, me too with the caveat that I don't really use it as a primary work machine - have a desktop for that. But, if i'm on the Macbook Air, and I need more power, I remote into a machine with more power. The battery life and portability are perfect for me. That said, I've been keeping an eye out for alternatives for future replacements after my current Air dies, as Apple seems to be flirting with ending the line? Or it least it seems like a stepchild wedged between the Macbook and Macbook Pro lines. A premium build, portable laptop that runs well integrated Linux would be nice - but honestly I'm skeptical that a competitor will emerge. Maybe a librem 13.