It’s an obvious fact that laptops get quite slow after four years. Application launch time, battery life and start-up time are all affected by age. Broken mice, keyboards and frames all have to be put up with by members of the Blake community; it’s time for a change and it’s time for an upgrade.

Next year, Blake will be providing new 13 inch Macbook Airs for Upper School students and faculty, as well as Lower School faculty and students in 7th and 8th grade. The new computers will be a drastic improvement in comparison to the computers Upper School students currently have. Weight, speed, and display are just some of the benefits students will see in the Macbook Airs. Students and faculty can also expect a big change from the operating system. The current laptops have one of the oldest operating systems on a Mac, while the Airs will come with the new and most recent operating system, Mavericks, as well as any necessary application updates. In order to learn about all the new features we’ll expect next year, I spoke with Dan Trockman.

Spectrum: How will the faster speed affect the usage of the computers?
Dan Trockman: The Macbook Airs will probably be able to get up to forty times faster than the computers we have now, which will be a drastic change in speed. Applications and programs will load much faster as well and be similar to the launch time of the applications on an iPhone. We will also be able to download software on to the computers much faster.

S: Can we expect a big weight change?

DT: Yes we will. The Macbook Airs are much lighter and smaller than the Macbook Pros. However, I do worry about devices that are smaller and lighter, since they can be treated as toys. This could mean that they are left out in different and worse places than where we put our computers now.

S: What are some other change’s we’ll notice on the Macbooks?

DT: The Macbook Airs do not have an optical drive (disk drive), which means it’s no longer possible to burn or play dvds or CDs. However, there will be spares available in the library that people can check out. Finally, the battery life will be much better than our computers now, since they are quite worn out. However, it is important to know that usage does affect battery life, so it all depends on what you’re using your computer for.

Current freshmen, sophomores and juniors will expect big changes from their new computers and hopefully they’ll be able to last a long time. We’ll receive the laptops in August and with luck the Blake community will experience less problems on the Airs than with our current laptops.