Given the recent Hard Disk fatality and the generally disheveled state of my well-travelled (and much abused) early 2007 MacBook, at some point in the next year I’ll be in the market for a new machine.

Before this little workhorse I was known (by my wife at least) as a serial purchaser and reseller of Macs. I’d been through an 12” iBook and PowerBook, lampshade iMac G4, early MacBook Pro, Intel iMac to my current MacBook (main machine) and Mac Mini (iTunes/iPhoto storage) combo.

I’d even gone to the length of shipping (as luggage) an 20” Intel iMac from London to Singapore – before realising that sitting on my own in a new country for days on end was doing nothing for my sanity. Plus moving a 15kg machine around Asia via a 747 hold wasn’t practical (or fun).

To me the main drawback of having a portable ‘main’ machine has disappeared: storage. Laptop hard disks can now hold a significant number of gigabytes. Meaning my iTunes and iPhoto library can stay with me without constantly bouncing my hard disk to capacity.

The MacBook

I’m currently happy enough with my work machine, however in the next iteration there’s a few things I want to improve on. I’m of the opinion that any current machine has enough grunt to do what I do, program, music, email, surf etc. As long as you whack 2GB of RAM in it for any image work!

However the last two weeks have shown me that the screen resolution just isn’t enough when regularly designing on it; I’ve badly missed my 20” monitor and the extra work room that provides.

The quality of the machine itself is also suspect, I know about 30% of the developers at wego have had problems with failing machines and I have suffered from the classic cracking of the plastic but a little superglue fixed that.

The limited graphics isn’t much of an issue for me, although it’d be nice to have a graphics card that could run Spore. I realise the latest revision MacBooks do play it, but my point is that an 18 month-old graphics card shouldn’t be obsolete, it’s not like I’m trying to play Crysis!

The Pro

Expensive. For what is mainly a graphics boost and a metal enclosure.

As much as I’d like to convince myself that I use my Mac for gaming… I don’t. Hell I don’t even use my Xbox 360 as much as I’d like to, GTA IV remains unfinished and Call of Duty 4 sits unplayed! It’d be a nice to have if I was in an office and wanting to get stuck into a little TF2 via BootCamp. It is a ‘nice-to-have’ though. The extra screen estate would be very much worth it over the standard MacBook given that there is so little weight increase.

For running repairs on the road it is not easy to replace things if they go wrong, I was able to replace the Hard Disk on my MacBook on the ‘run’. However with the new backup regime all I’d need to do is plug the mobile backup into any Mac and boot straight from that. So I’m going to discount that as a drawback from now on.

Also I don’t know if it’s just me but the design is looking a little tired. I’m a massive fan of the ‘new style’ Apple keyboards (as found on the MacBook) and the silver keyboard with speaker-grill either side just isn’t cutting it for me anymore. Needs a design update quite badly to bring it into the ‘iPhone’ era of Ive-ian design.

Air time

In many ways the perfect machine for me. I’m drawn to the low weight and tight build quality mentioned by DHH in his sermon on it’s greatness. Plus it looks great. Actually great doesn’t cover it, I’m a tiny bit in love with it the same way I was when I first saw the iMac G4 (sigh).

I hardly use the DVD drive on my current machine, or the firewire, or more than one USB, so those aren’t really compromises for me.

However it suffers from the small screen size, the same as the MacBook and also has a peculiarly large footprint and shares the large bezel around the screen. For me the current dealbreaker is the limited hard disk space. I was surviving comfortably on a 120GB drive before the crash, however it’s predecessor in my MacBook, at 80GB, left me bumping my virtual head. Let’s not even get to the 64SSD option!

Peculiarly though it’s the option to which I’m most drawn. The compromises it makes are ones that are good for me, however the little voice in my head keeps screaming about the price! It’s so monetarily close to the MacBook Pro which eliminates the compromises (except machine weight), and 50% more costly than a replacement ‘middle-level’ MacBook which is functionally equal. I can’t quite reconcile the price, against the compromises, in my head.

The Perfect Macbook (for me)

In a magic world I’d want a high resolution 14” widescreen at 1440×900, as seen on the Asus A8Js and a bit more poke in the graphic department (a litle more than the standard MacBook), and I’d like it in the Air form factor, build quality and with a 120GB (or bigger) hard drive. Thank you Santa Jobs.

However I do realise that wishing for the perfect Mac somewhere between the current models is common pass time amongst the faithful (headless iMac anyone?) so I’m going to look at reality…

In reality

So, I’m thinking my next machine will be the next revision of the MacBook Air. The major sticking point for me would be the hard drive space, and that’s bound to be bumped in the next revision (given I assume Apple have done a deal on 120GB iPod Hard Drives). If they could increase to a higher resolution 14” screen I would probably give an Apple Genius a hug.

However, if Apple manage to squeeze down the size (and weight) of the MacBook Pro in it’s next revision, and give it the MacBook Air keyboard, the relative expense of the Air along with the lower screen resolution, in comparison to the Pro, would push me in that direction.

It’s gonna be a year (probably less if I know my own impulses) before the MacBook is going to be retired, so any proposed redesigns will hopefully have run their course by then. Of course, then I’ll be looking at the next machine coming around the corner…