My Birthday Comes Early This Year

Decided to get myself a birthday present this year; A new MacBook Air in Space Gray. First time shopping at the Apple Online Store and it was a pleasant experience. The Education Pricing provided an additional 10% discount and apparently, anyone can get it, even if you're not a teacher or student. Don't worry, they won't call and check.

Do you know that all your online purchases will be shipped from China? I didn't.

What Happened to the Old MacBook?

I bought my MacBook Pro almost 10 years ago and I posted about it here. In the post, I said that I was going to use it for 7 years and it actually lasted longer than that. It was money worth spending. In fact, it is still working fine, but it gets a bit too slow when running a lot of apps all at once.

How long do you think this MacBook Air is going to last?

I now pass down the MacBook Pro for my kids to use. They are super excited, I'm not sure why. I created each of them their own account so that they can feel the sense of ownership. They'd usually use it for their online classes and YouTube (what else!). I will need to educate them on how to use other apps like MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

There are a lot of good things one could say about the new MacBook Air, but what about the not-so-good things? For me, here's what I'm giving up when I decided to replace my current MacBook: 

• When the MacBook Air is turned off, there is no indication of it charging. You will have to turn it on and find its status on the menu bar. For someone like me, I'd like to know when it is time to disconnect it from the charger.
• Unlike my old MacBook Pro, the new MacBook Air does not have a button on its side which when pressed, would give an indication on how much battery is left in your machine. Without this feature, the only way to find out is to turn it on and see it in the menu bar.
• Absence of the MagSafe magnetic charger system. Having 3 kids running around the house, I constantly worry for the safety of the new MacBook Air, whether it's gonna get knocked off the table when it's charging.
• Limited built-in ports.

What Else Did I Get?

While I waited for my new MacBook Air to be delivered, I did a bit more shopping for stuff to support and protect it. Online shopping is very addictive!

USB-C Adapter

One of the changes Apple made to their MacBooks that I hate is getting rid of the different types of ports and selling the multiport adapter separately for RM 349. Luckily, there's Shopee! I got my adapter (for 7 different ports) for RM 130.

MacBook Sleeve

Apple has a really nice leather sleeve specially made for MacBook Air, but it's too expensive. Again, thanks to Shopee, I got mine for RM 66. It is not leather, but it is as nice and I think it provides better protection.

HDD Carry Case

It's a shame Apple only gives 256 GB of storage space for the new MacBook Air and it costs too much to upgrade to the next level. Getting a portable HDD is much more econimical. I figure that I'd now need to bring my HDD's everywhere and decided to get a carry case. Found a really nice one on Shopee.

Protective Equipment

I bought a guard skin, palm film guard, screen protector and keyboard cover from iStand Store.

I think these would do just fine for now.

Happy Early Birthday to me!