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After many months, what is it like to live with a MacBook Air as your laptop of choice?

I'm someone who is often travelling for business, so the Air looked like it was very much designed with me in mind. One thing business travellers figure out early in their careers is that weight and size tend to accumulate on business trips (for their laptops and also for their waistlines!).

But I am also someone who just loves huge screens to do serious work with. I have two 30" Apple Cinema displays in my office, and one at home, attached to high end Macintosh desktop systems. I hate overlapping windows. I really want to spread things out and see the whole picture when I'm trying to figure something out, and I routinely use multiple applications to do so.

So was I going to hate myself for moving, on the road, from a much larger laptop down to a 13" one?

Actually, I love it. Just love it. It's easily the best laptop I have ever owned.

It has one USB port. And, guess what - I only ever use one USB device (at the most) when I'm on the road. I carry a USB-Ethernet adaptor, and an Internode USB 3G Wireless stick (both tools to ensure I can get back onto the Internet as needed), and that's it. And I only need one of those at a time.

Oh, and if you haven't used a laptop with a Solid State Drive (SSD) yet, do yourself a favour and try one - you won't go back.

There are two reasons why the screen isn't too small. First, it's incredibly clear and sharp, which helps a lot. Second, the need for more real estate on that screen is fixed by using a Leopard utility called 'Spaces'. Like the SSD - if you haven't tried Spaces on a laptop, turn it on now and then wonder how you lived without it.

I also find myself using the Air at home in preference to the big screen desktop system. It's just so easy to prop in a comfortable spot in the house with a device so light that it doesn't feel like a computer - it feels more like a floating screen and keyboard.

I ordered a new laptop last week. One of the nice things about being in the position I'm in is that I could have had anything - the most powerful laptop in the world, the one with the largest screen, the longest battery life, anything at all.

And what I ordered was the latest MacBook Air.

It has the one thing my first one didn't have, namely a larger (128Gb) SSD, because the 64G SSD in my first system was just a tad squeezy.

And I know I'll like it even more than the first one.