I’ve been eyeing the new MacBook Air to replace my 2009 13” MacBook Pro. I was excited to hear that Apple might be releasing the Sandy Bridge refresh of the MacBook Air this week, only to be disappointed when it didn’t happen.
My main motivation to get the Air is the higher screen resolution. The 1280x800 resolution on my MBP is starting to feel a little cramped. Up to this point, my main concern with the Air is the 4GB RAM limit (I find that 6GB is the sweet spot that avoid unnecessary disk swapping), and the limited disk space (256GB max). The Sandy Bridge refresh is supposed to up the memory limit to 8GB, though the disk space is likely to remain the same.
This is where iCloud becomes important. For the most part, 256GB and even 128GB is plenty of space, if it were not for music and photos. I actually have a 120GB SSD and a 500GB hard disk (on an Optibay that replaces the DVD drive) in my MBP. All my Apps and documents fit fine on the SSD. The hard drive is mostly empty at the moment, filled mainly with:
Music - 36 GB
Photos - 50 GB
Movies – 19 GB
The movies are mostly ripped DVDs that I figured I might someday watch again on a long flight, but have never ever done so, and they are really not needed in the age of Netflix. With Apple’s $25/yr. iTunes Match, I could theoretically eliminate the need to store my entire music collection on my laptop.
PhotoStream is a brilliant idea, but I also want a way to have my entire photo archive available to me over the Cloud. I hope Apple revamps iDisk for iCloud, but if not, I could also use a PogoPlug.
The MacBook Pro is already my only computer. With iCloud, I see the potential that a MacBook Air with less storage could be my next only computer. This means that for many people, the day when an iPad or an iPhone could be their only computer is not too far away.