Mac Air essential accessories?

[arvindelacruz]

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What are the most important Mac Air accessories we need to buy?

I can only think of the following:
- USB to LAN adapter (P1,300)
- miniDisplayPort to VGA adapter (P?)
- a large USB hard drive for seldom used docs, vids and pics
- a personal hotspot ie iPhone

Is the list complete? Could you recommend more?
This is my first Mac... been using Windows for the last 27 years!

I plan to use my new Mac Air for
- teaching
- consultancy work
- boot camped Windows machine
- Xcode development

Thanks in advance!

[Shinrai]

From our experience all we needed was a hotspot device (Android or iPhone, MiFi, etc) and a good lightweight bag for the Air. Granted there weren't a ton of files involved but those can either be solved by Dropbox or the easier to carry flash drive.

For you I guess the VGA adapter is a must. And just throwing out this question: do you really need bootcamp?

[arvindelacruz]

am not sure with bootcamp either. Was just thinking of the three 5Gb MS Outlook .PST mail archive files I might need to access and store my mail. We're standardized on MS Exchange, Windows 7 and MS Office in our company, so it's really just a fall back.

[sirbenski]

Like you, this is my first Mac and have been a Windows user for almost 20 years too. The first accessory I bought was the Apple Magic Mouse. Next on my list would be a Speck See Thru Satin case to protect it from scratches. i also am thinking of buying a adapter to be able to connect it to a projector since as a teacher, I do presentations from time to time. I also carry around a 320GB Western Digital drive for backups. Most of my documents are on Dropbox so I know I have a backup elsewhere.

[arvindelacruz]

sirbenski you might want to reconsider the cases... check the thread on "most useless accessories"... the top one is the keyboard protector followed by the case covers...

:-)

[sirbenski]

Hmmm, I wonder why... maybe its just because of personal preference. In reality, I don't want to cover my MBA up because it looks so darn good by itself. But being someone who's a bit OC when it comes to my computers, I think I'll use it whenever I'm at work... maybe..? Lol!

[LeoCastillo]

What are the most important Mac Air accessories we need to buy?

I can only think of the following:
- USB to LAN adapter (P1,300)
- miniDisplayPort to VGA adapter (P?)
- a large USB hard drive for seldom used docs, vids and pics
- a personal hotspot ie iPhone

Is the list complete? Could you recommend more?
This is my first Mac... been using Windows for the last 27 years!

I plan to use my new Mac Air for
- teaching
- consultancy work
- boot camped Windows machine
- Xcode development

Thanks in advance!

Unless your school is wired and has no wifi, there is little to almost zero need for a USB to LAN adapter. My wife and 3 other friends have been using the MBA for about a year and never saw the need to get one.

For the MDP to VGA and the Hard Drive that is a DEFINITE must. Get that quickly.

The hotspot is a nice to have, not an essential.

Finally, if you're serious to do bootcamp, the MBA's highly limited space does not give you much breathing space. I recommend you either drop Windows or get an MBP if you really want to continue using Windows.

Just some thoughts based on my observed usage of MBA users.

Leo

[arvindelacruz]

Unless your school is wired and has no wifi, there is little to almost zero need for a USB to LAN adapter. My wife and 3 other friends have been using the MBA for about a year and never saw the need to get one.

For the MDP to VGA and the Hard Drive that is a DEFINITE must. Get that quickly.

The hotspot is a nice to have, not an essential.

Finally, if you're serious to do bootcamp, the MBA's highly limited space does not give you much breathing space. I recommend you either drop Windows or get an MBP if you really want to continue using Windows.

Just some thoughts based on my observed usage of MBA users.

Leo

Thanks! I'll prioritize the MDP to VGA adapter.

Regarding Macbook Pro and Air I also agonized on buying the MBP and sticking with the 500Gb 5400RPM HDD but coming from a Sony Vaio (CW26) upgraded with a 160Gb Intel G2 SSD I that I did not want to go back to HDDs anymore, so I just got the Mac Air with the 256Gb.

Re bootcamp: I made and am sharing the research I made for partitioning the 256Gb SSD:

MS Windows 7 Pro - 20gb
MS Office 2010 - 3gb
Adobe CS5 - 25gb <-- either I put this here or install the native Mac versions (also 25Gb)
PST - 5Gb
work documents - 10Gb
= 63-65gb

Lion - 10gb
iWork - 1.25gb
iLife - 1.25gb
XCode and iOS SDK - 10.5gb
Android SDK - 5gb
= 28-30gb

250 - 95gb = 155gb for iTunes, pics and docs

I can still put the 40Gb iTunes library to an external drive if necessary.

[jaijin]

It's called a MacBook Air Sir! ;

You have it pretty much covered on your initial list.

[xthine]

From a teaching standpoint, if you have media for presentations I would recommend portable wireless speakers. Purchased one recently actually exactly for that need. I can use those speakers with any Bluetooth enabled device eg. iPad, android phone ��