Does Buying A MacBook Air To Run Windows 7 On Make Sense?
It seems that Apple’s hot-selling second-generation MacBook Air has a lot of appeal in the Windows orbit as well as to Macheads, which no doubt accounts for part of its stellar sales performance. Sales have fallen off a bit recently, but it’s a sure thing that a revision incorporating an Intel Core “i” processor upgrade and the new ultra-high-speed Thunderbolt I/O interface is coming, so savvy MacBook Air fans are holding off until the new one hits the channels.
In the meantime, WinSuperSite’s Paul Thurott notes that there’s a “cute little trend in tech circles” where Windows bloggers will try to justify recent and otherwise “embarrassing” Mac purchases by writing about their walk on the dark side (sic) and offering up years-late observations about how Windows and Mac OS X differ.
Thurott emphasizes that he purchased his first Mac, a 2001 iBook, before Apple released Mac OS X, and has used every version of Apple’s flagship OS on one or more Macs ever since, having probably bought more Apple computers and devices and thrown more money at Apple than most Apple enthusiasts, so he knows whereof he speaks, and he’s just bought a MacBook Air that he’s going to run Windows 7 on, thereby inviting criticism from partisans on both sides of the platform divide.
By way of explanation, Thurott allows that the MacBook Air represents the state of the art in laptop design and in in mobility and portability, and since he doesn’t use his laptop as his primary machine but only when he’s traveling, or around the house to catch up on email or the news while watching TV or otherwise relaxing, and netbooks or most PC ultraportables just don’t cut it because their small keyboards and wrist rests are just too uncomfortable for serious use.
Apple’s second-generation 13″ MacBook Air, on the other hand offers a full-sized keyboard but weighs just 2.9 pounds, has a very high-res for its size with its 1440 x 900 display, although tricked out as required his Air came to almost exactly $1500 taxes in, plus needing to buy a full, retail version of Windows 7 to run on this machine as well, adding an other $200 to the cost. Then there’s Office, but Thurott travels a lot, portability is important to him, and he says he can afford it.
For the full report visit here:
http://bit.ly/heyDTW
In a follow-up article Thurott discusses how he configured the MacBook Air for Windows, including a discussion of the relative merits of using VMWare Fusion or Parallels Desktop to allow you to install and run Windows in a virtual machne environment vs. dual-booting using the built-in Mac OS X Boot Camp utility or alternatively just wiping out Mac OS X and installing Windows only, as Thurott did but doesn’t enthusiastically recommend for most folks.
You can check it out at:
http://bit.ly/eHroH8