My main development machine is a 13" Air. Before that, it was 15" MBP. Have developed from university. Done great work in a bus. Fixed production quirks from a conference.
When I'm at my desk, the laptop is closed and connected to a beast of a monitor, external keyboard and mouse. It becomes a workstation. But when I want the mobility, it's there. Even if only to scurry off to a unoccupied conference room for bit of silence, it's very valuable for me. It's easily worth the ~700$ above the cost of a immobile box every two years.
As for performance, I've yet to feel constrained by the Air. But then again, I code mainly web apps in ruby, so no fiddling of thumbs while things compile - the most of time is lost waiting on database server. And my brain to come up with a solution.
When I'm at my desk, the laptop is closed and connected to a beast of a monitor, external keyboard and mouse. It becomes a workstation. But when I want the mobility, it's there. Even if only to scurry off to a unoccupied conference room for bit of silence, it's very valuable for me. It's easily worth the ~700$ above the cost of a immobile box every two years.
As for performance, I've yet to feel constrained by the Air. But then again, I code mainly web apps in ruby, so no fiddling of thumbs while things compile - the most of time is lost waiting on database server. And my brain to come up with a solution.