Two days with this thing and I’m in love!
The battery: Seems to be pretty dang decent — During my first 24 hours with it I was downloading a lot of stuff which made it drain quickly, but yesterday I left it unplugged all day and while using it heavily, was at about 30% by the time I plugged it in in the evening.
The cellular: This is the whole reason I did this, and honestly — I wish I had done it in the heart of quarantine. Having another “always on” device in the house would have made things so much easier (I live just outside of cable modem range — I can literally see where it ends from my front porch but can’t get it, so I’ve run through everything from hotspots, to satellite (never, ever do that to yourself!) to what I have now — ATT Fixed Wireless, which is fantastic but still comes with a data cap. ATT Fixed charges you when you go over the data cap (It’s generous). But when it comes to cellular data — ATT’s unlimited policy is the *MAY* slow you down if your tower is congested, but the perk of living in Northern Michigan is — your tower is never congested. This will be a game changer if I end up trapped and working my education job from home with my wife and kids again.
The screen: Honestly, right after it shipped I started to go “I should have gotten the 11 inch”. That regret is gone. I’m 6’4” so this thing just naturally seems to be a scaled iPad for a scaled human. BONUS: If I throw it in the backseat to my daughters on a road trip they’ll feel like they’re watching an IMAX movie since they currently use an iPad mini for that.
The Magic Keyboard: I like it. Really shows the fingerprints on the front though. 48 hours in and the case looks like I’ve had it for a year.
Usage: I have not done any video editing yet, and only begun to play around in Affinity Design and Photo (I’ve had their iPad apps since they went on sale in March but have really only used the desktop variety).
Laptop replaceability: I have decided to do what I did when I threw away my last PC 11 years ago and bought my first Mac — I’m going to commit to using it all week next week at work and see where I’m at on Friday. I have a majorly spec‘ed out MacBook Pro I bought last year and I’m never getting rid of that, but as I move from classroom to classroom, and school to school, this is probably going to be the portability I need on the regular.
The screen protector mishap: I’m beginning to wonder why this had a carved notch at all on it. Even with the glass over top of the camera and fingerprint smudges, FaceID hasn’t let me down once. Ohhhh, Zagg.
Those of you waiting for yours — it’s amazing!