My daily-use work notebook (the trusty old MacBook Air) was replaced with a 2018 MacBook Air a few months ago.

The Good

• “Looks like 1680 x 1050” means more space for seeing things. ✅
• There is a physical Esc key. ✅
• The keyboard lights up. ✅
• Battery life is pretty good. ✅
• Performance is fine. ✅

The Bad

• The clackity-clack keyboard is already goofing up sometimes. There’s a chance I’ll get more than one “o” when I type one “o”. Anecdotally, this seems to happen most when writing email, which is both weird and exactly when I don’t want a goofy keyboard.
• I now have a USB-C adapter that has become part of my life, mostly for connecting to presentation equipment. It’s one of those Dell hockey-puck devices, and it works, but the fact that it must exist and be with me is unpleasant. I put it in my pocket when heading to meetings and it looks like I’m carrying a can of dipping tobacco. (Unfavorable flashbacks to my retainer case in junior high.)
• Touch ID worked for a while, now it doesn’t. I don’t know why, but I think it’s local to our environment. This one is weird and we’re working on it. Fixed! ✅
• I would like to stay on our internal WiFi, but I have auth problems that are weird and totally disrupt the “minimum ceremony upon opening lid” requirement. I think I know why, and I’m sure it’s local to our environment. This one will be solved soon. Fixed! ✅

The Verdict

It’s a good computer, and definitely what most people should use unless they have specific requirements. Should Apple get it together and replace the keyboard on this model, it will be a great computer – as long as you don’t mind dealing with an adapter from time to time.

There’s a lot of hubbub about the state of Apple notebook computers these days. Here’s a fine list for those who want the details.

I have a job. Many people I know there rely on a notebook computer to get things done. I see plenty of shiny modern MacBook Pro models around the place. I can’t get excited about it.

• Here’s a $2,500 computer that manages to be a half pound lighter than the previous model, but requires a two pound DongleBag™ to be useful for many people in a work context because there are no USB-A or HDMI ports.
• I agree that Blu-ray was (and still is) “a bag of hurt”, but stable, reliable USB-C interoperability appears from my sideline view as a literal DongleBag of Hurt™. Maybe you have what you need in that bag, and maybe it will work most of the time.
• The butterfly keyboard is prone to being damaged by dirt or just generally failing, causing a multi-hundred dollar repair because it’s not very serviceable. How this remains a topic of debate at this point is hard to understand. Nice design, bad in practice.
• Don’t get me started on the Escape key. I use the Escape key all the time. I want an Escape key.

What I Want From a Work Computer

• It should always work. No force quitting things all the time, and I should have to restart it only when updating the system software.
• It should allow me to start working within five seconds of touching the keyboard, without ceremony or multi-step incantations.
• I like to walk around and be productive with just a notebook computer. Light is good.
• I never ever want to plug my computer into power during a meeting. In my view, this would be an admission of personal failure and a sign to my colleagues that I do not have it together.
• Most of the heavy work I do runs in a very nice data center with very nice computers in it. I need to get to those things with near-100% reliability. Wireless must be frictionless.
• It should have a physical Escape key.
• I like macOS because it lets a suit be a suit, and a geek be a geek.

My Favorite Work Computer Ever

My absolute favorite computer I’ve ever used for work is the one I use every day for all of the above. It is the 13″ MacBook Air (Mid-2013). It features a cruddy plastic third-party shell I bought with my own money, being held together with dark grey duct tape. I have dropped it more than once. It still works.

I am a computer guy, and I could get a newer computer, right? Sure. I’ve been asked if I want to upgrade. But why? This is working, and the new models require me to give up things I want for things I don’t want.

“She may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts, kid.”

After five years, I believe I have plugged it up to power in a meeting room perhaps four times. You would not believe the number of meetings I attend. The battery life remains magical. I don’t carry an AC adapter with me.

Side note: when I’m at my desk, I use a Mac mini (Late 2014) with two external monitors. I have lots of things happening all at once on that machine, and it is never the reason I can’t get work done.

Things I Might Change About the Five-Year Old Allegedly Obsolete Notebook Computer I Use Everyday for Work

I regret getting 512 GB of internal SSD storage. It’s about 400GB too much for me.

It does not have a Retina display. I have those on my personal devices, and it’s very nice, but I don’t really need it. I would take a Retina display if battery life remained amazing, even after five years.

It has a constrained screen resolution. I agree more would be better. If I had a Retina display, I would use it for more real estate, not crisper images.

I would like an HDMI port for the rare occasions I need one, because I am not going to carry around a DongleBag of Hurt™ 100% of the time just in case. I would trade the SD card slot for this.

Performance: Not much. There was a short period where I was getting intense PDFs to review, and this computer could not handle it running Preview. I just held my nose and started using Adobe Reader for those documents, and that short-lived problem was solved.

Yes, I Know

This is one of the many bits of writing these days about Apple notebooks and how they meet (or don’t) the needs of an individual. I know I’m just me, and I am different from a lot of people.

I think writing this has helped me decide what I need to do about my work computer situation. Nothing. It’s fine.