My Favorite/Best Mac Model Ever

Inspired by Episode 496 of Upgrade, “40th Anniversary of the Mac Draft,” I got to thinking about my favorite Mac. I’ve had a solid run of Macs:

That’s a lot of Macs!

If I had to pick a favorite, it would probably be the MacBook Air. It was my first Mac with an SSD, and I absolutely loved it. I only stopped using it because my son needed something to play Minecraft on; I was not in the market for a replacement. The 13” Pro I replaced it with was superior, technically, but I didn’t really need the extra power and the Air was just the right size for everything I needed it for.

The PowerMac G4 was my first pro desktop and holds a special place in my heart; I was in grad school and while I did have the PowerBook Lombard at the time, I didn’t use it unless I was out and about because the G4 was a screamer. I installed Mac OS X, as it was called back then, on both, and only the G4 ran it usably. I gamed a lot on this machine, especially Oni. I have never actively disliked any of my Macs.

The 16” MacBook Pro is the last of my Intel Macs that still sees some usage, but I don’t care for Intel Macs compared to either of my Apple Silicon Macs for reasons of power efficiency; the 16”’s fans fire up a lot and the battery gets nuked fast. And it’s really big.

The MacBook Adorable was (still is, it runs just fine) amazingly portable and I used to carry it around pinched between my index finger and thumb. I would probably go for a 12” M2 or M3 Mac of that size if I work were springing for a new Mac and I needed to replace this 13” M1, which is a great machine but heavy for my needs. I currently covet a 13” M2 Air in Space Black the most, but I’m not due for one any time soon. I suspect an Air will be my next Mac. But who knows.

The Studio, named “Anthem” (I name my Macs after Rush songs) is a fantastic machine, overkill for my use case, but it’s an amazing machine.

But that first Air? Ahh. Fond memories.

Next post: the Color Class, my first Mac.