What should I buy to compliment my MacBook Air ?

I have the 1.8ghz, 128SSD version and I'm liking it a lot. So it's time to buy some more mac stuff

I use my MBA for portability on the road and around the house ... when I'm at my desk it would make sense to have at least a large monitor.

I'm thinking on getting the 24" ACD and attaching it to my MBA that would make it seem more like a desktop, I'd get the mac keyboard and mouse too.

Or, I'm thinking I might replace my HP Desktop and buy the new 24" iMac to use at my desk. I do design work, movie downloading, writing, email and web so I could benefit from the speed of the desktop at least for my design software ... plus it has lot's of room to install Windows via Bootcamp etc, .... it's tempting.

On top of that I thought maybe I'd get the new Time Capsule and switch everything to mac, it all fits together nicely.

My MacBook easily does 90% of my work, so I don't 'need' more power or speed, my HP Desktop does the job. Yet getting more mac hardware would be nice, I like OS X a lot so far, the Air is a dream to type on, going 'all mac' is tempting.

Anyone else switched all their hardware to mac?

 

Prehaps a regular MacBook to take care of everything that the Air can't do? Naw, I'm just poking fun at the Air's lack of an optical drive. Actually, you may want to get an external optical drive for the thing for when you actually want to do something that involves a disc. Also, if you are really considering switching everything over to Mac, maybe a Mac Pro may be in order. Those things are awesome.

 

well,lots of people did...but is it a good idea? getting ACD yes,i can support that,but getting an iMac to replace desktop...do you really need it?

 

I've thought about it and I wish I could, but Apple is always too far behind the power curve with their GPUs.

 

all GPU's in iMac are "now" gen. find me and All in One with more powerful GPU.

 

Perhaps get an external NAS unit on your network to store all your media on. That way, your desktop and MBA will have access to a central applicance to stream music, pictures and videos on.

Maybe get something like AppleTV (or from another brand) for your living room. Netflix is all the rage nowadays.

 

An external optical drive?

 

yep, this one

 

it's funny so many still put so much value on an optical drive ... especially when there's apple drive sharing for the odd time you install software ... rarely used my optical drive in my other notebooks...

 

I believe there was one that came out in the last two weeks with a 9700, and another today with an ATI 4750.

And BTW, I can understand if the 120 one was $1300, but $1700 for a 256MB GPU?

On the topic of moniters, you're better off buying a refurb of the last-gen one. The new one is so incredibly pricy, and while it looks good it's too glossy to do design work, and if you're not doing anything other than word and internet, why would you need to spend $900+ on a moniter.

of course, at this point you seem to be buying things just to buy things, which is not a healthy habit. Just stick with a refurb moniter, that's what I did.

 

Why does it seem like everyone always forgets that Remote Disc can only be used for READING discs. What, nobody ever burns CDs / DVDs anymore? I do. (Unless there's an update I'm unaware of that lets you burn through Remote Disc).

 

Perfect setup = Macbook Air + Time Machine + 24" Imac.
Then you can communicate between the machines and backup very easily.

If you are cashed up and have a big TV in the loungeroom, I might suggest the new mac mini for it. Then any movies you download, you can stream wirelessly onto your TV from any of your macs!!

 

sign your house over to AAPL.