Friend wants to sell me a new MBA...

DTphonehome · Sep 11, 2011

A friend of mine has a very lightly used 13" MBA (128GB HD)... he paid about $1325 after tax... he doesn't use it enough to justify the expense so he wants to sell it to me for $1150... I haven't really been in the market so I didn't know what these are selling for. Is this a good price? Anything I should look out for?

Thanks!

onthecouchagain · Sep 11, 2011

How long has he had it? You'll certainly have to inspect it in person. Just check for the usual cosmetic blemishes, if any, and make sure the keys are working, it boots up properly, the trackpad is responsive, if the screen is all right (no dead pixels, etc), it can charge properly, the ports are all okay. Once you get into the system, also check the battery cycles (under Apple icon > About this Mac > More Info > System Report > Power). The lower the better.

Otherwise, a nearly brand new Air for $1150 is quite a good deal. Save on price and tax.

If you really care about these things, you can investigate if it's a Samsung/LG/Toshiba display and/or SSD (some people really care about these things, but really, either manufacturer is good in terms of the display, and my understanding is that the Samsung SSD is slightly faster at transfer speeds than the Toshiba SSD). Please correct me if I'm wrong, those that know better.

Can anyone think of anything else to look out for?

IngerMan · Sep 11, 2011

onthecouchagain said:
How long has he had it? You'll certainly have to inspect it in person. Just check for the usual cosmetic blemishes, if any, and make sure the keys are working, it boots up properly, the trackpad is responsive, if the screen is all right (no dead pixels, etc), it can charge properly, the ports are all okay. Once you get into the system, also check the battery cycles (under Apple icon > About this Mac > More Info > System Report > Power). The lower the better.

Otherwise, a nearly brand new Air for $1150 is quite a good deal. Save on price and tax.

If you really care about these things, you can investigate if it's a Samsung/LG/Toshiba display and/or SSD (some people really care about these things, but really, either manufacturer is good in terms of the display, and my understanding is that the Samsung SSD is slightly faster at transfer speeds than the Toshiba SSD). Please correct me if I'm wrong, those that know better.

Can anyone think of anything else to look out for?

I would check to see if it is a C2D or SB model. Also the amount of ram. That price seems pretty good for a 2011 SB with 4GB of ram. But you can do better than that if it is a 2010 C2D. Both are great machines but the value has dropped more for the earlier machine.

All can be found in "About this Mac"

DTphonehome · Sep 11, 2011

onthecouchagain said:
How long has he had it? You'll certainly have to inspect it in person. Just check for the usual cosmetic blemishes, if any, and make sure the keys are working, it boots up properly, the trackpad is responsive, if the screen is all right (no dead pixels, etc), it can charge properly, the ports are all okay. Once you get into the system, also check the battery cycles (under Apple icon > About this Mac > More Info > System Report > Power). The lower the better.

Otherwise, a nearly brand new Air for $1150 is quite a good deal. Save on price and tax.

If you really care about these things, you can investigate if it's a Samsung/LG/Toshiba display and/or SSD (some people really care about these things, but really, either manufacturer is good in terms of the display, and my understanding is that the Samsung SSD is slightly faster at transfer speeds than the Toshiba SSD). Please correct me if I'm wrong, those that know better.

Can anyone think of anything else to look out for?

IngerMan said:
I would check to see if it is a C2D or SB model. Also the amount of ram. That price seems pretty good for a 2011 SB with 4GB of ram. But you can do better than that if it is a 2010 C2D. Both are great machines but the value has dropped more for the earlier machine.

All can be found in "About this Mac"

Thanks for the replies. He's has it for about a month, maybe 6 weeks. It's a new i5 model with Thunderbolt, not the older C2D. Thanks for the good advice about checking for pixels... it would have slipped my mind. I'll go check it out today and see how it looks. I figure it's time to upgrade my 15" early 2008 MBP... even though I just put a new SSD in it and it's rather quick.

stark4 · Sep 11, 2011

DTphonehome said:
Thanks for the replies. He's has it for about a month, maybe 6 weeks. It's a new i5 model with Thunderbolt, not the older C2D. Thanks for the good advice about checking for pixels... it would have slipped my mind. I'll go check it out today and see how it looks. I figure it's time to upgrade my 15" early 2008 MBP... even though I just put a new SSD in it and it's rather quick.

i also have 15" 2008 MBP and thinking about getting MBA so that i can take it to school and it won't be too heavy in my backpack. What's your reason of getting MBA? One thing that scared me is going from 15" to 13" screen.

DTphonehome · Sep 11, 2011

stark4 said:
i also have 15" 2008 MBP and thinking about getting MBA so that i can take it to school and it won't be too heavy in my backpack. What's your reason of getting MBA? One thing that scared me is going from 15" to 13" screen.

I think the screen resolution is the same for the 15" early 2008 MBP (pre-Unibody) and the 13" MBA. Also, the battery life is much better in the MBA. I mainly use the MBP around the house, and the weight and battery life are my main reasons for wanting to upgrade.

tom vilsack · Sep 11, 2011

DTphonehome said:
Thanks for the replies. He's has it for about a month, maybe 6 weeks.

someone selling something after only having it a month would send warning signals to me!

-pixcels?
-lightbleed?
-fan noise?
-sit flat no wobble?

look it over very carefully...and run it for a good 20 min or so...also i would want legit receipt from point of sale.

stark4 · Sep 11, 2011

i mean no matter what it is.. if the MBA still have to apple care warranty you don't really need to worry about it. Get the original receipt like tom vilsack said just to be safe but usually they don't check the receipt.

MattZani · Sep 11, 2011

stark4 said:
i also have 15" 2008 MBP and thinking about getting MBA so that i can take it to school and it won't be too heavy in my backpack. What's your reason of getting MBA? One thing that scared me is going from 15" to 13" screen.

I went from the MBP to MBA (Both in Sig) and I'm loving it, sometimes feel the screen is a tad small, but rarely, same resolution so same usable space.

DTphonehome · Sep 11, 2011

OK, I picked up the machine... checked it out, played with it for a while... it's really flawless. Has the Toshiba chipset. Would have rather had the Samsung, but from what I read it doesn't really matter day to day. Screen looks great, no dead pixels. Case is unscathed and perfectly aligned. He even threw in a slipcover case. All in all, I think it was a good deal, and I was happy to help him out by taking it off his hands.

Anyone know the best way to restore the machine to factory default?

macosx22 · Sep 11, 2011

DTphonehome said:
OK, I picked up the machine... checked it out, played with it for a while... it's really flawless. Has the Toshiba chipset. Would have rather had the Samsung, but from what I read it doesn't really matter day to day. Screen looks great, no dead pixels. Case is unscathed and perfectly aligned. He even threw in a slipcover case. All in all, I think it was a good deal, and I was happy to help him out by taking it off his hands.

Anyone know the best way to restore the machine to factory default?

i believe you have to go into disk utility and yoy should be able to restore it there. Welcome to the world of Air, I have the 11 and its awesome, enjoy it.

DTphonehome · Sep 11, 2011

macosx22 said:
i believe you have to go into disk utility and yoy should be able to restore it there. Welcome to the world of Air, I have the 11 and its awesome, enjoy it.

Thanks, I did an Internet Recovery, erased with Disk Utility, now it's installing. This machine is so light and sleek it's really amazing. Now the question is what to do with my old MBP!

SPEEDwithJJ · Sep 11, 2011

tom vilsack said:
someone selling something after only having it a month would send warning signals to me!

-pixcels?
-lightbleed?
-fan noise?
-sit flat no wobble?

look it over very carefully...and run it for a good 20 min or so...also i would want legit receipt from point of sale.

If he/she has 2nd thoughts on the purchase, he/she would have been out of the return policy as allowed by the retailer from whom the item was bought from. So wouldn't he/she have to sell that MBA in order to buy something else?

Furthermore, IMHO, just because someone sells something just after a month of purchase doesn't always mean that there is something wrong with that particular item.

onthecouchagain · Sep 11, 2011

Congrats. That is a good buy.

DTphonehome · Sep 11, 2011

onthecouchagain said:
Congrats. That is a good buy.

Thanks. The machine really is great... a huge upgrade. One annoyance: after I did the clean install, I attempted to download the iLife apps from the App Store, but since my friend had already downloaded them, they were authorized to him, and Apple wouldn't let me redownload them under my Apple ID. Anyway, he entered his Apple ID and password, then I downloaded them, and it works now. Glad I got it.

jsolares · Sep 11, 2011

DTphonehome said:
OK, I picked up the machine... checked it out, played with it for a while... it's really flawless. Has the Toshiba chipset. Would have rather had the Samsung, but from what I read it doesn't really matter day to day. Screen looks great, no dead pixels. Case is unscathed and perfectly aligned. He even threw in a slipcover case. All in all, I think it was a good deal, and I was happy to help him out by taking it off his hands.

Anyone know the best way to restore the machine to factory default?

Nice, i paid close to 1700$ for mine (i'm not in the US, and no relative or someone i could trust were traveling)

stark4 · Sep 11, 2011

DTphonehome said:
Thanks. The machine really is great... a huge upgrade. One annoyance: after I did the clean install, I attempted to download the iLife apps from the App Store, but since my friend had already downloaded them, they were authorized to him, and Apple wouldn't let me redownload them under my Apple ID. Anyway, he entered his Apple ID and password, then I downloaded them, and it works now. Glad I got it.

hey OP how is MBA 13" screen compare to your old 15" screen? do you feel like you need more screen space while using your new MBA? i'm thinking to upgrade from my 2008 MBP 15" to MBA 13"

aeboi · Sep 11, 2011

if you're referring to resolution, it shouldn't be a problem since the air is 1440x900

DTphonehome · Sep 13, 2011

stark4 said:
hey OP how is MBA 13" screen compare to your old 15" screen? do you feel like you need more screen space while using your new MBA? i'm thinking to upgrade from my 2008 MBP 15" to MBA 13"

Hey... I find the screen a TINY bit more cramped, as the text and all graphical elements are a little bit smaller. But the screen is the same resolution as the 2008 MBP, so I have the same workspace.

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