I have been using my MacBook Air Laptop for the past 200 days. The more I use it, the more I like the machine. My Air is now my perfect traveling companion.

Many people have been complaining the shortfalls of Air. Like only one USB port, battery not swappable, no CD drive, etc. Until you use it like a road warrior, you will truly appreciate the ultra portability of Air.

One USB Port Only. Yes! One is enough. Think about it. How often do you two USB Ports concurrently. Road warrior like us will use Bluetooth to replace USB. We connect devices, like mobile phones, mostly by Bluetooth. My main use of the USB port is USB security key issued by bank.

USB port is hardly use these days unless I am performing an extensive backup to my external drive or transferring huge files. When I say huge files, I am taking about size of 100GB. With wifi running 802.11n, transferring files of 10 to 20GB over wireless is not a problem at all. 10GB can be transferred within 10 minutes.

Why carry a CD drive. Seasoned traveler like us, will rip the DVD and playback from the hard disk. When on the move, we do not swap the CD in and out of the CD drive. We copy our required data into the hard disk and use it while on the road because we all know that accessing the CD drive will drain the battery faster.

Since this is the typical behavior of a road warrior. Then removing the CD drive from the machine and make it an external device is a strategic move. It will conserves battery power and lighten the weight. Road warrior usually use the CD drive before traveling and after that the drive will not be used until the user is back to the base. If the user really need the CD drive, then take it along with him.

I do not need extra battery pack. The battery can last 2 to 6 hours depending on how I use. My Air has survive a 12-hour journey from a single charge. Of course a seasoned traveler like me, knows how to conserve and maximise the battery to last as long as it can. With combination of turning on and off wireless and use the lighted keyboard sparsely, I am sure you can prolong the battery life of MacBook Air as good as me.

MacBook Air Laptop does have it shortfalls. The most important shortfall is, there is no security lock. You cannot secure it to an unmovable object. Thus this make my Air really portable, I have to bring it to the toilet to pee with me if I have no one to look after it.

Another shortfall for me is no built-in LAN port. There are times I just need to get a quick task done, I would prefer to get connected faster by plugging in to the LAN port than configuring the Wifi. This problem is still bearable if I remember to bring along my USB-Ethernet adapter.

Running Windows Vista through Parallels Desktop, the performance is still acceptable. But running Windows XP through Parallels, I gain back more CPU resources and reclaim 4GB of hard disk space.

Is 80GB of hard disk space too small for the Air? Removing my seldom used mp3 and movies files and relocate them to my external storage. I still have 28GB left on my Air. If you are not a porn collector, 80GB is more than enough.

2GB of RAM and running on integrated graphics, I can multitask Photoshop, Parallels Desktop, iPhoto, iMovies and iTunes comfortably. I am also using Final Cut Express on my Air. The trick to run Air at it best is to keep the exhaust fan RPM as low as possible and that is around 2000 RPM. The lower the RPM, the more applications you can run and faster.

Remember MacBook Air Laptop is not a MacBook Pro. But Air packs much more performance in the slimmest chassis ideal for the road warrior.

Want to know more about how I use my Mac?
http://www.hosealim.com/

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Tags: Companion, Laptop, MacBook, Perfect, Traveling