The fact he rarely uses a notebook fits my own experience. How many developers actually develop out in cafes, or do so many presentations that you'd need a mobile computer? Probably better to customize a workstation like this then sweat about mobility. (For that, we have phones.)
My main development machine is a 13" Air. Before that, it was 15" MBP. Have developed from university. Done great work in a bus. Fixed production quirks from a conference.
When I'm at my desk, the laptop is closed and connected to a beast of a monitor, external keyboard and mouse. It becomes a workstation. But when I want the mobility, it's there. Even if only to scurry off to a unoccupied conference room for bit of silence, it's very valuable for me. It's easily worth the ~700$ above the cost of a immobile box every two years.
As for performance, I've yet to feel constrained by the Air. But then again, I code mainly web apps in ruby, so no fiddling of thumbs while things compile - the most of time is lost waiting on database server. And my brain to come up with a solution.
I simply can't work to the same productivity on a laptop as I can with my desktop. I would absolutely love to, and I am envious of those that are (or believe they are) just as productive on a macbook air as they would be on say a 27" iMac with another monitor.
I really hope to attain that level of productivity and mobility, and I understand that some output is better than no output--When I am working I want to be using the best tools I can reasonably afford, and that for me is a desktop with a few monitors and plenty of space to spread things out.
Now when they release a high-res macbook pro I might get one, but for now I am sticking to a desktop.
Thunderbolt pretty much gives you the best possible compromise these days. Granted, no laptop will give you the power of a desktop, but if you can get by with less power, Thunderbolt lets turn your MBP or Air into a high screen real-estate workstation with mouse/keyboard/speakers/fast storage by plugging a single cable.
To me the ability to pull up my laptop and go work somewhere else for a few hours, or have my main workstation with me at conferences, etc is well worth sacrificing some power. Sure I can make use of multiple large displays, but I can do a lot of work without them without losing much efficiency. For stuff like design where I really need it, I can wait til I get home.
Sounds too good to be true, and it is. I tried this exact same setup and the noise the new MBP (was a 15" model) make when not even under full load is nothing i wanted to experience all day. It also got really hot in the upper keyboard area.. I those issues werent there, it would indeed be perfect.
It's ironic that because Linux is still harder to install on laptops than on desktops, people often end up using an OS X laptop and a Linux desktop. The drastically smaller screen space of a laptop makes it so much more important to be able to choose the perfect window manager for your tastes and configure it for maximum productivity. Also, the inferiority of laptop pointing devices compared to using a mouse shifts the balance towards using the keyboard for many common tasks, which once again favors a highly configurable window manager. OS X is trying to make up for it with multitouch swipes and Mission Control, but it isn't configurable enough, and probably never will be. As a result, working inside a small screen is a bigger tax on my productivity under OS X than it was under Linux.
Granted, I only ever used my Linux laptop for programming and light web usage. I never tried to set it up for anything else, but it was perfect for that one purpose.
Same deal, but I left my iMac 2 years ago for a Linux laptop. In the same way that I had that warm glow of the post-Windoze-to-Mac conversion experience 5 years ago, I had the same feeling when I left OSX for Fedora, like coming home again ;-)
Sony Vaio F12: quad core, 8GB, SSD, 23" LG travel monitor (5.5 lbs, nice!), iRizer laptop stand. Cost: 1/2 MBP. Code warrior: I be
The only thing I miss from OSX is Finder; well, the window manager as well; let's not forget the spinning beach ball either ;-) People, Linux is a gift from above. OSX is great for consumers, and is de facto the best OS on the planet, but Linux is the best OS in the universe -- big difference...
I've had it both ways, hopping over the Atlantic a few times, working from both office, hotel, apartments and actual home plus the occasional conference or weekend at friends. Eternally grateful for my laptop back then, actually bought one a bit bigger than what the company had me use (and, well, a Mac instead of a Vaio).
Now, I'm a sessile work-at-home startup guy who's really happy with a Linux tower and several displays connected. I've gone so far as to miss the ubiquitous color beige of ages past.
I too miss the ubiquitous beige--frankly, I think today's glossy black plastic and brushed metal (real or simulated) looks like crap compared to the good old beige of an early 90's PC (or Mac!)
I do the opposite: I should be able to take my main computer everywhere and never have to copy stuff from pc->laptop. So i use a lenovo X220 in 2 workplaces, both with a docking station (it has a terrible screen). Ideally i d like to live in a world where desktops are replaced by universal docking stations ready to serve any employee and her laptop.
