When I was at Yankee Publishing a couple of weeks ago, working with my MacBook Air plugged into an external monitor, I realized that very rarely do I have call to use my laptop as a laptop: 99% of the time it’s plugged into a display here, and it’s only when I’m on the road that I use it as it was intended.

So this morning when Apple announced a new Mac mini–the first refresh for this model in forever–I jumped at the change to order one for delivery next week:

For about the same price as a new MacBook Air, I end up with a machine that’s more powerful, with more memory, a larger disk, and more ports. And yet it’s portable enough that I can stuff it into my bag and take it with me.

This new machine will replace my mid-2011 MacBook Air, a machine that has served me admirably for longer than any computer I’ve ever owned. I’ll keep it around and maintained for those rare times that I need a portable machine with a screen; for everything else, I’m looking forward to taking advantage of the last 7 years of advances in Apple’s technology.