Switching To Laptop-only

Since 2009 my home computer has been a i7-powered desktop behemoth:

• Intel i7-920
• 12 GB DDR3 RAM (triple channel)
• 2x WD Velociraptor, configured in RAID0 for system and programs
• 2x some other random HDDs configured in RAID1 for data
• NVIDIA GTX 275.

A couple years ago I recovered a second screen, identical to my previous one, so I started having a dual-screen setup even at home.

A couple weeks ago one of the two monitor started showing its age:

F***. Secondary monitor has a 1px vertical blue stripe. Doesn’t go away.

— Dario Solera (@DarioSolera) September 4, 2013

Pretty much at the same time, one of the two Velociraptors started doing scary noises, with the occasional BSOD.

Not wanting to spend time and money on it anymore, I decided to throw my desktop away and go with a laptop-only setup. I put my old 2010 MacBook Air on eBay and purchased a new one with maxed-out specs. I’m now about a week into this new setup:

• 13″ MacBook Air (Intel i7, 8 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD, 1440×900 16:10)
• external keyboard and mouse, connected via USB hub
• external 20″ monitor (1680×1050 16:10).

I installed Windows 7 64-bit with Boot Camp. The setup was flawless – much better than the last time I tried in 2010. Keep in mind that I never use OS X.

The Good

• Overall, the Air is fast, and I don’t regret my desktop.
• The SSD is superbly fast, at least 4x faster than the RAID0 Velociraptors and anyway faster than the 2010 Air – the SSD speed probably compensates the slightly lower CPU power.
• At near-idle workloads (e.g. writing code with the occasional build), set at “Balanced” power mode (I tweaked it), the Air is totally silent – so silent, in fact, that I can hear the faint buzzing of my desk fluorescent light.
• I no longer have to carefully sync stuff when switching between desktop and laptop (I use Dropbox, but some things cannot be synced that way).
• At rough estimate, I’m using 5x less energy than before – the Air’s “power brick” tops at 45 W and likely idles at 30 W or less, while my old desktop idled at ~150 W.

The Bad

• 2 USB ports are, in my opinion, 1 too few. I’m using one with a USB hub I had around for keyboard and mouse, and the other for the USB-etherned adapter – I guess I could switch to wifi, but at any rate I don’t have much other stuff to connect except a printer that can go into the USB hub as well.

The Ugly

• I didn’t see this coming, but the difference in PPI between the Air’s screen and the secondary monitor is driving me nuts – I guess I just have to get used to it, or buy another monitor with the same PPI as the Air.
• There’s a bit of untidy cabling and adapters around (USB hub, external monitor with Display Port-DVI adapter, USB-ethernet adapter), but “docking” and “undocking” is fast nonetheless.

Conclusions

For a long time I joked about using a laptop as main PC as I deemed it too slow and to small, but I ended up doing it myself, albeit only after I found appropriate hardware. The Air is a big step in this direction. I’m not an Apple fan – quite the opposite in fact – but I’m amazed at how much stuff they’re able to cram into such a small form factor. It’s not the only good ultrabook on the market but now, in my opinion, it’s one of the best, although a bit on the pricey end of the scale.

For what I use my home PC, I think I’ll be more than happy with this setup. It feels much less cumbersome than before, and it’s fast. Visual Studio Ultimate 2012 cold-starts in 4 seconds, and warm-starts in less than 2. As I write this, MongoDB is eating more than 90% of my memory and I don’t even notice it.