» Ars Technica’s review of the 2012 MacBook Air

I took the opportunity to buy myself a Father’s Day present on Sunday — the yacht accessory stores were closed :( — and picked up the 128 GB 11-inch Air. I’ve been eying the 11-inch Air ever since they came out but I had installed a flash drive into my 2009 13-inch MacBook Pro so it was still treating me like the fairy princess I frequently imagine myself to be oh, god, did I type that out loud?

When I bought my MacBook Pro three years ago I was moving from a black MacBook, a machine I was never satisfied with, and truly felt that my new machine was possibly the best Mac I’d ever owned. Not from a speed or features perspective because it’s obvious each new machine would generally beat the machine before, but from a satisfaction standpoint. I feel the same way again, that this Air is now the best machine I’ve ever owned, or at least a tie with the MacBook Pro.

Since I had put a flash drive in the Pro, speed wasn’t a factor in this decision which is probably the first time I can say that about buying a new Mac. The deciding factor was simply size. I would argue that that 11-inch Air is the best machine ever made for a writer. The Wirecutter names the 13-inch Air as the best overall laptop (via Matt Alexander, who also just bought an 11-inch Air) and I’m not really going to argue with that, but the 11-inch is delightfully, almost whimsically, small and it even just fits in my can’t-believe-it-was-only $16 Rothco bag (the zipper doesn’t close, but the flap covers it and Velcros shut — yes, I just used Velcro as a verb).