<p>Hey guys, </p>
<p>So I want a mac when I go to college, however I feel like the best sized Mac is the 11in Macbook Air. Does anyone have experience with this? I'll be getting the i5 version with 256gb ssd. </p>
<p>I just want to know if it's too small for normal/heavy use because it'll be my primary machine. I'll use it for just browsing (heavy use), microsoft office (heavy use), email (moderate use), and photoshop (light use). The worst case if it's too small is i'll have to get a monitor to hook it up to, however I would like to know if anyone has it and is able to use it without a monitor. </p>
<p>Is a 11in mac or just mac's in general common in college? Thanks a lot!</p>
<p>Also* this is for a biology major.</p>
<p>The college aspect doesn’t matter so much as your personal preferences. Honestly, if you go to best buy and play around with an 11" laptop/hybrid, you should get a feel as to whether it is something that would work for you as a main computer.</p>
<p>Having a small computer is great for carrying around and using with tiny college desks. I used a 9" netbook for my first year of college. If you are worried about the small screen size for extensive work, though, you could consider getting an external monitor for your dorm room. $100 will get you a decent full-HD monitor on sale (my site of preference for this is newegg: <a href=“Are you a human?”>Are you a human?), and is also great for watching movies/Netflix/having friends over to your dorm room.</p>
<p>In addition to nano’ suggestion to HD monitors, remember that you need adapter cables (or pay the extra price to get a bluetooth monitor because MBA have bluetooth built in) </p>
<p>My daughter has a 11.4" laptop and it has worked well for her. She does a lot of word documents and excel spreadsheets.</p>
<p>MBAs have mini display port output, so you are correct that an adapter would be needed. However, unlike the mini-DP to VGA that are needed for old projectors, mini-DP to HDMI or DVI are much cheaper because they don’t require converting from digital to analog signal. You can get one for <$5 on monoprice.com. I did that for my thinkpad, which has VGA and mini-DP.</p>