Power User Tries A Mac

December 2023 (511 Words, 3 Minutes)

It’s been about 4 months since I got my first real Mac, a 2014 MacBook Air with an i7, 8gb of ram and 128gb of storage! It’s relatively low spec for todays age but it’s totally usable for office work, watching videos or writing blogs like this one.

I got the idea of buying one when I recieved indemnity for a broken bone that I got a year ago and didn’t know what to do with the money. I usually can’t save up money because I would drink through it in a few weeks and so I got to thinking.

Originally I thought about getting a thinkpad and putting Linux on it but then I saw the prices of old MacBooks and found a good one.

I thought about it for a few days and eventually took the shot. Went to the ATM, deposited money and hit buy, but nothing. Then I remembered that I have a limit on my card for 5000 CZK (200€), now panicking I thought about my options and came to the conclusion that if I want my Mac then I have to pay for it through my dads card.

And so I got myself together, called him and asked if I can stop by his place and when I got there I explained the situation to him. He was willing to pay for it but I had to give him cash. So I went to the ATM again, took out what I can, gave him the money and told him that I’ll pay the rest when my limit resets.

Now that the transaction went through I played the waiting game. Waiting and Waiting until I saw the message.

Zásilkovna, the carrier I chose because I never had issues with them shut down a depot in Liberec and guess what, my MacBook was in there. So I waited another day to see if anything happens and after not seeing anything I contacted the seller. They were very understandable and offered to send another one with same specs but in better nick for 1500 CZK (60€) more.

I though about it and eventually took that deal as well, now thinking nothing bad can happen again I waited for it to arrive, but to my surprise it got worse.

Now delivery workers were protesting about low pay which got me really nervous but Zásilkovna took care of that and my packege was officially on the way. I waited and waited and got the notification that my parcel is ready for pick-up. I went home from school, threw my bag home and went to the pick-up point. Got the parcel and finally took it home.

At home I of course took it out and tried it, I was really hyped for the setup process but there was already an account created and so I just used that one.

Fast forward 4 months and here I am, in a train, writing a blog. And after all this time I can say that this MacBook didn’t let me down one bit. I’m running Dortania’s OpenCore patcher to get MacOS Sonoma and only ever got one kernel panic. And even though apple stopped updating this generation at Big Sur I didn’t feel like I was using a 9 year on notebook.

There are two things I don’t like though. The first one being the fan, I’m just chilling in my bed when suddenly a plane is taking off of my duvet (tried using a cooling pad but to no avail). And the second one would be the keyboard, now don’t get me wrong, I love writing on this keyboard but some of the shortcuts are so hard to remember or just unintuitive. Almost every special character can be written with either shift of command but not an apostrophe. That would be alt/option + §, or the € symbol is alt/option + R even though there is a € symbol on E.

But overall this MacBook is a really good deal and will serve me well until I make my own money.