After a few quick growing pains of learning Windows 8, I thoroughly loved my Lenovo Yoga for the last two years. I am a content marketer, so I put an abnormal amount of miles on my machine. So why did I buy a MacBook Air this time? Here I outline the factors that led me to buy the MacBook Air as well as the downsides I feel there are on my new machine.
Compatibilty Issues with MacBooks at Work
The first reason for switching to the MacBook is that a lot of the people I tend to work with are start ups and a lot of them are on the MacBook Air now, so it makes it hard when when we are collaborating for me to be on a different machine.
In example, I am so used to using my touch screen on my Lenovo Yoga, that I try touching their screens often. And I had to learn how to use their MacBook mouse, for example, swiping with two fingers upward to scroll down instead of with one finger on my mouse or on their screen once up.
The commands are similar, on windows it's control c to copy and control v to paste, with the MacBook it is command c to copy, command v to paste. However, with Windows 8 I would hit windows D to get to the desktop and swipe in from the side to search. With the MacBook I need to go to finder.
I’m not a person who succumbs easily to peer pressure. If you knew me at all you would say that was true; But when the people I work with are predominantly using different tools and it causes compatibility issues, I feel like I don’t want to cause issues with my work.
I am also seeing a trend of companies big and small using gmail and google apps when I used to see Outlook and Microsoft Office. Of course, the price discrepancy was a huge factor in a lot of people's decisions to migrate. I know Windows 365 is only $99 a seat for SOHO now, but I think it took Microsoft a little too long to drop the prices in response to google apps and they lost a lot of market share. Back to Lenovo:
Lenovo Went Too Cheap This Year
To be honest, I tried buying a Lenovo Yoga again this year and I was a little disappointed, so I returned it. For one thing the cord was waaaaaaaaay too short. What are they thinking? Save a few cents on a cord and make it impossible to use without an extension cord? I suppose they may have an extra accessory I could buy to have a longer cord, but when I'm spending $1,000 on a machine, I expect the cord to work out of the box.
Another problem with the Lenovo Yoga this year is the keyboard seems so cheap. Its some sort of composite rubber, and I am guessing they went with that choice to make the finger prints not show because it used to be an issue on the black desktop, but it looks cheap. And the back hinge looks really cheap now too. So the aesthetics weren’t there which they definitely are with the MacBook Air. The aesthetics were a minor issue compared with the length of the cord and the pressure to work with client machines for me.
What I Liked Better About the Lenovo Yoga Than the MacBook Air
I will say, I have long been a iPhone user and we have really enjoyed our iPad for about 5 years as well. I love the ease-of-use apple usually puts in their products, as many people do.
However, I do miss four things about my Lenovo Yoga because they are missing in the MacBook Air, here they are:
- I liked having a backspace key, I used it often on previous machines. I don’t want to have to do some combination of keys to get that functionality.
- I have trouble using screen share software on the MacBook Air. I use it when I need to do something complex and new with marketing automation and I am doing a screen share with Hubspot, for example. For some reason it doesn’t launch properly on the MacBook Air, I have to go to the actual website for logmein123.com to try to launch it and have only done that successfully once.
- The way you do a print screen is a little cumbersome with the MacBook Air, you have to hit control, shift, and F4 and then it copies to your desk top, then I have to move my apps over and drag it from the desktop to the doc where I want to paste it. With Windows, I just hit the print screen key, then go to the doc I want and hit paste.
- I really miss my touch screen on my Lenovo Yoga so I can zoom all the way in to see stuff when I want to, or when software is acting up, I can use the touch screen to get past the problem. I know on the MacBook you can use your fingers in a bunch on the mouse pad and then splay them outward to zoom in, but then when you come back the software is off center and I can't fix it and I have to log out and come back in to get it right. On both machines you can also do command or control plus sign to zoom in, but you have to do it multiple times to zoom way in.
These seem like little things, but when you are used to having the functionality, and then you don’t, you really miss it. It is so bad with the screen share that I sometimes fire up my Lenovo Yoga if I need to.
Admittedly, I’m not quite as good on the MacBook as I was on the Windows machine, but I’m getting there fast.
I wish Lenovo hadn’t gone quite so cheap this year, I would definitely have been a hold out for their product. I really preferred it hands down to the Microsoft Surface Pro two years ago because the Surface Pro needed a book or table to sit on and it got hot.
Hope this info helps you with your decision about which machine you want to buy. I wish I could get one machine that does everything I want it to easily, since my work requires that I spend so much time on it.
If you have any suggestions as fixes for my new machine, I'd love to hear from you on comments. I've looked up the backspace thing, but didn't find any great answers.
Laurie is a Marketing Consultant in the SF Bay Area called Bay Area Inbound. We drive traffic to tech client websites, capture warm leads, and nurture them into sales. Contact us at: Laurie@BayAreaInbound.com or 510-543-7593.
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