Worth Reading: ‘A Final Laptop’

Matt Gemmell lo0ks at the current MacBook Air and wonders whether there’s much room for it to evolve further:

“Rumours abound at the moment about an upcoming new 12” MacBook Air, with a Retina display, further-reduced thickness and weight, and of course a slightly larger screen (made possible by the bezel being smaller, giving more room for the display without making the lid bigger). I’m intrigued, and all other things being more or less equal, I’ll certainly buy one.

“It’s tough to see what the next step will be, though. My wish list has been exhausted. Every checkbox is checked.”

What drew me to Matt’s piece, though, is how he explains that he really doesn’t need all that even an 11-inch MacBook Air offers. In addition to my late-2012 MacBook Air, I own an iMac from early 2011. Neither is all that new—my iMac is pushing four years, and my MacBook Air is a bit over two years old—but both of them offer plenty of power for what I do.

Like Matt, I’m mainly a writer, so I don’t require a ton of horsepower—I just need enough to enter text into WordPress, do so light image editing and photo management, play a few games, maybe write some webpage code—and for all that, my current hardware is more than adequate. In fact, the only reason I’m considering replacing my MacBook Air is because I have a bunch of minor issues with it that would be costly to repair—I may as well put that money toward a new machine.

(Yes, I know this post is ostensibly about laptops. And yes, I know the top photo is of an iMac. Deal with it. :P )

Nick spends way too much time in front of a computer, so he figures he may as well write about it. He's previously written for IDG's PCWorld and TechHive.