Macbook air as family PC or other?

I have been using Macs since... well... since Performa computers, Mac VI, purple iMac with hokey puck mouse...
Currently we have:
iMac 24
MBA 13
iPad 2
2 x iPhone
one dead MBP 15 replaced by work's MBP15

For what it's worth as d@rk51d3 said I would not use the MBA as a family computer. It has power, true, it's energy efficient, true but the solid state HDD is small and I would argue that the MBA might be struggling with external monitor and a number of user profiles. It was designed to be ultra-portable with long lasting batteries and solid state HDD to extend battery life even more. It is not meant to be a light-weight substitute for MBP.
We use the iMac as everything, wife is using her MBA for whatever she needs including business travel, I work on MBP and use the iPad for travel and email and whatever I want. We travel with the iPad as opposed to MBA for two main reasons : built in GPS and WiFi/3G network (in NZ we just bought a sim card and we were off and running connected to the world in 5 minutes - you can connect the iPad to a camera as well to download your pix).
Previously we used the MBP for everything and it was great before it's death. We had it hooked up to an external monitor, mouse and keyboard and it was fine. So unless you really need a very portable computer I'd go for MBP as it does have more grunt and bigger HDD and (I think) more video RAM to run external monitors and the like. Bit heavier but more grunt.
As for kids not using it for games... well it will change and even the online stuff my 8yo plays (MoshiMonsters, Club Penguin...) they will soon get used to the performance and need more.
To be honest I'd suggest an iMac (we got ours refurbished) as a communal computer and MBA for YOU. I am of the opinion that MBA and MBP are truly 'personal' whilst desktops are, well, communal. On the other hand, iMac and iPad are a good combo as well. My iPad is MINE. It is personal and I do lots of emails and surf the net on it (and watch iView). Yes, it does have games for the kids, but it is mainly my personal assistant.
My sister (who was converted by me) has 2 x iMac, MBA, 2 x iPad, 3 x iPhone and my brother in law now has MBP for work and Apple TV. Totally Apple household. The iMacs are communal, the laptops are personal. works well for us and her.
Anyway, back to AngryBirds ;-)

I've had a Fujitsu, Compaq, Dell, Acer and I finally flipped to the dark side 18 monts ago and bought a Macbook pro 17" with i7 quad 2.2gHz processor, etc, etc. I give mine an absolute hiding using them for hours nearly every day of the year.
Dell was the most robust machine (dropped it numerous times) but they're hard to buy from and strangely really good on after sales service.
Everyone told me Macs were the ants pants for all graphical, photographic, movie work, etc, blah, blah, blah. Have a good look at what the Mac advertisements always promote - it's never wordprocessing, spreadsheets, databases, CAD programmes, work programmes, etc - it's always cool young things sending or posting pics of their latest enviro hiking, canoeing, travelling the world holiday or extreme sport, etc. Cool stuff but not what we do everyday.

And they do tend to be easier to use and the ease of use always seems really cool, once you're used to doing things totally differently. eg you learnt to drive an auto car here and then moved to Europe and had to drive a small manual bus on the other side of a dirt road at night with one headlight. You know you should be able to do it but it takes quite a while to get used to it and to find out how to do things differently.

The Macbook pro also has a very annoying front edge that is quite sharp and not ergonomically nice - should be filed off. Don't know if the Air has this same "feature".
Macs start up amazingly fast, have great battery life and look well built although I've had 3 screws fall out the back of mine and then they quibble over whether its a warranty issue.
Using programmes like Excel and Word etc is also different and there are lots of inefficient keystrokes that are required in osx that aren't required in Windows systems. eg to delete info in cells in Excel in a Windows environment, click on cell and hit delete key. On a Mac, click on cell, hold down function key and hit cell. Multiple cells can be frustrating to delete. Programmes native to Windows aren't exactly the same in Mac osx and take time to learn and are not always as intuitive. There is no backspace key on the Mac so you have to move the cursor and then delete - little frustrations all over the place.

It's also a bit like betting with the devil - you start to lock yourself into the whole Mac world - can only connect iphones to Macs, can't find much freeware, etc unless you run Windows as an alternative operating system (which is a pretty cool option to have up your sleeve). But then you have to buy Windows for around $100+.

Personally, considering the Macs are easily twice the price of the windows machines I'd be looking at two windows machines, one for the kids and one for you unless you're a graphic designer.
My 2 bobs worth - good luck

Thanks for the responses guys.
Think I'll probably dip my toe in the water with a mac mini for the family and reuse as much of my existing gear as I can. If I hate it, I'll sell it.
We can use the Mr's laptop while we are on holidays to backup photo's etc. I need to make a decision on what I want for my own browsing. Tablet, laptop or other....

Probably a good plan. You can save money by doing a ram upgrade later. A very easy job to do.

Made a quick decision on my personal browsing needs....
32GB + Cellular "Refurbished" Ipad 3 for $649. Looks like the apple stores are clearing all their existing stock because of the new model. I can live without the lightning connector.
Went the cellular so I can use GPS on it. Won't be a video or music machine so 32GB should be plenty.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Didge

Personally, considering the Macs are easily twice the price of the windows machines I'd be looking at two windows machines, one for the kids and one for you unless you're a graphic designer.
My 2 bobs worth - good luck

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That's what the bean-counters at one of my jobs thought until they saw that my Macs had no issues, repair bills, down-time and kept going for a long time.
I was once involved in the electronics industry (STBs) and what you paid for is what you got. The bottom-line products had a optimistic life-span of 2 years. Top of the line at least 2 or 3 times that.
I like Macs for a number of reasons (especially since I am one of those pesky designers) but the key issue is quality: the product hardware and software were designed to work together by the same company unlike WinTel machines where the software needs to accommodate who-knows what type of chip/quality/setup. Just a thought.

Ultrabook type windows laptops are mostly about the same price as a MBA.

Turtle61, I hope you're right mate, because that was exactly the reason I thought I'd try a Mac. All the windows based machines I listed above basically did exactly what you said; lasted around 2 years before the colours started bleeding across the screen, or the peripheral hardware (card readers, DVD drives, etc) stopped working properly or they took an eternity to start up, if in fact they did start.
In retrospect, my previous post looks a bit anti Mac, which is wrong because I do love it. As I said, there are plenty of positives. For example I looked at a trip report from Wallaroo recently by tangus73? who did the whole video editing on imovie and it was sensational. :)

Didge, there are lemons everywhere but rarer in the Apple world I think. My MBP lasted 5 years of not very easy life, the iMac I am using now is pushing the same although it needs RAM upgrade. Our iPhones are the 3G models, again ageing but still functional.
In that time now he has a nice collection of door stops... Now he's happy as he has both Windows (on Parallels) and Mac OS on a good hardware platform (so do I - I need Windows for e-tax and ArcGIS).

My 8yo daughter and I started playing with iMovie recently as well - mainly because I tend not to take vids but she likes them so I have to now - and started putting together the "trailers" with are a lot of fun... but being me I was't happy with the "trailer" template so found a way of using a trailer as a base and filling in with photos and video media (when you set up a trailer and have it more or less like you want it, use 'convert to project' function and it will allow you to add photos and other things like subtitles and transitions).

I suggest you get the system to check for updates regularly - worked for me for years now and seems to keep the system ticking along just fine... sometimes the DVDs (on older MBs) refuse to read discs but a CD/DVD cleaning disc normally sorts it out. iMac was always OK but the slot-loading MBP had ... things ... entering the slot and therefore needing a clean.

Lots of fun with Macs. Good luck and I hope it will last.

once you go mac you never go back lol, i love my imac i went from laptops to the imac as i have an ipad2 aswell so i have everything i need covered an imac is hands down the better desktop pc