macbook airhead...

I have a weakness for little laptops. The first laptop I bought was a 12" Apple Powerbook g4 (866mhz). I have a boxful of old Toshiba Libretto ct's that I keep saying I will one day cobble into a working one. Over the years I've owned a couple librettos and portege's that I've bought and sold. My current (work-owned) laptop is a 13" Macbook "blackbook", and I recently got a freebie Sony Vaio ultraportable that I'm having a hard time bringing myself to eBay after bringing it back to life, despite the fact that I don't need it and could get several hundred bucks for it.

The reason for my small laptop lust is that I'm a two-computer kind of guy. I can't be tied down to one machine. My theory is that it doesn't make sense to try to compromise and use a laptop for everything. At home, I want a big beefy desktop with lots of storage, a dual-monitor display, and kicking speakers. When I'm traveling, or just surfing the web while watching TV, I just want something small and light that I can easily use.

So I have mixed feelings about the Airmac, I mean, macbook air. I like that it's incredibly light. The multi-touch trackpad, lighted keyboard, and thin form factor are awesome. The fact that you can get a solid-state drive (even if it is a grand)is awesome, because they are the wave of the future, plus every hard drive I touch seems to fail on me.

But I can't imagine using an airmac as a primary machine, especially without an optical drive. I understand the logic of taking the optical drive out - it takes up a bunch of space, and these days so much can be done over the network - but it is very nice to be able to watch a DVD on your laptop every now and then while traveling or the like, and it makes installing software much easier. Yes, I know there are ways around it, but it's still not as easy as just popping it in.

I love the idea of a small, portable pc, but for what I would use it for, something like the Asus eeePc makes more sense. It's hard to justify spending $1800 to $3100 for what is essentially a toy.

But it's a very nice toy, and I'm sure it will sell decently to people who can afford such nice toys.