Goodbye Dell, Welcome Apple Macbook Air

My old Dell XPS finally gave away last month. It was one of those millions of Dell computers made with defective NVidia graphics cards. These cards were apparently not 'glued' well to the motherboard and had a tendency to become detached when overheated. And the fact that Dell XPS already had overheating problems did not help the matters. I bought the laptop in August 2008 and it worked well as long as it was under the warranty period. Its speakers gave me some problems once, and I got them replaced. But otherwise it did well. I did play a lot of games on it, including Quake 3, Quake 4, COD MW, NFS Carbon, IGI etc. 

It started giving problems in the March of 2011. I stopped playing games on it completely. The screen would often start showing up black lines and then wash out completely. Since computer was outside warranty any repairs would have been expensive. Dell support got me to download new BIOS version and it stopped the problem. But the increased fan speed (which was supposed to vent away heat and avoid 'detachment') killed the battery quickly. I continued with the old battery, as it still managed to provide 20 minutes of back-up (down from 3 hours prior to new BIOS). The operating system was Vista, and it had its own share of problems. That shitty OS must have been responsible for causing half of the problems with the comp and damaging the hardware by its demanding needs. 

My laptop was on crutches by this August 2011. I could not play any full screen videos, ppts or anything involving graphics. Then I installed windows 7. All the problems suddenly went away. I did not get washed out screen for next couple of months and was able to complete my research thesis with it. The computer was no longer mobile though. It would give me problems whenever I attempted to take it outside my room. It continued to work well till this August, when it crashed in the middle of a n intense assignment. Thankfully, I was editing something on a flash drive and had saved my work. I tried getting it repaired at the Dell service centre (and was ready to pay for it). But they told me that the laptop has approached end of life and they will not provide any more support. I did not use it for next few days, and it came back to life on its own after that. It worked well for another month. And washed out again this November. This time, I got it repaired at a local service centre right outside IIM Bangalore. 

They told me about the graphics card problem. I spent 1200 INR, and they told me that the problem cannot be fixed and will recur after 2-3 months. It will continue even if I replace my graphics card. There is no permanent solution to the problem. I started backing up and saving my data. The laptop finally gave away on 30th of December. Full 52 months after I bought it. 

I searched for a good laptop the entire next week. I was looking at Acer Aspire S3, Dell XPS ultra book and Lenovo's Ultrabook. After the experience, Dell was out of question. People did not really have a good opinion about Acer's after sales support. Lenovo looked promising and rugged enough. 

But the day that I went for purchase, one look at Macbook Air was enough. It had the latest OS 10.8 (Mountain Lion). And then the graphics, the weight, and the sheer simplicity of it. I have an i-pad, and my experience of it has been amazing. I was looking for a very light yet well performing ultra book. And hence bought the Macbook Air (13 inches). Aritra also was encountering problems with his 4 year old Sony Viao and bought a Macbook Air. His old Vaio is still functioning though, but almost in its last months. 

I have since been coping with the problems associated with getting used to a new OS. I have never used Mac OS before. Not on the computers (except for few minutes). I had problems with shortcuts etc. But I am learning slowly and I hope will know most shortcuts and other stuff soon. I am thinking of installing VMware and Windows 8 on it. 

I hope there are no major headache-giving hardware problems with this mac. And I get used to it soon. 

Here are the two macs that we bought.