I got myself an 11″ macbook air in September 2012, its the model with 4gb ram and 128gb storage and cost me $1,250 including taxes and 2 adapters (thunderbolt to vga & lan) which you really do need for a macbook air to be practical in all situations.
The purchase at the store in Las Vegas was a positive experience, I was already fully set up with iCloud through my iPhone 4S and I own a number of Apple products anyway including an Apple TV and Mac Mini and some peripherals.
I got logged into my Apple ID on Lion OSx and things synced up nicely for me but it all really started coming together after I upgraded to Mountain Lion and unleashed some really great new iCloud functionality.
The Macbook Air itself is a beautiful piece of engineering to be fair and is good value for money for what it is.
+ Performance is excellent, no compromise evident here
+ Beautiful brushed aluminium chassis
+ Ultra lightweight at just 1kg
+ Display is typical of Apple’s high standards
+ All the good stuff you expect with any macbook – magic trackpad, backlit keyboard, hotkeys etc
+ 2x USB ports + 1x Thunderbolt is a sensible compromise for connectivity
– Battery life is not 5 hours in reality, 3.5 hours is the max for normal activity
– Audio from built-in speakers is quite weak and easily overpowered so headphones are essential
– The magnetic connector on the power cable comes off too easily for my liking
– You have to invest in a Thunderbolt to LAN connector, it should be thrown into the deal to be fair
– I had a little trouble connecting to 1 or 2 wifi routers, not sure if its a hardware or software issue tbh
My Rating