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Just Ordered the Mac Air and I think I made a big mistake.

G

green junkie

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 27, 2012
17
0
Yesterday I ordered an 13 ince, 128gig SSD, 8gigs of RAM MBA. I had my heart set on the 256gig one at first until I saw that it would be around $1,700 with the tax. And I already ruled out the 11' Mac because sometimes get to share my monitor with a girl to watch a movie, and sometimes size matters when it comes to that.

My thought process was that I could always upgrade the Flash drive later on and the price might even drop. There is already an company producing ones that will fit into this generation Macbook Airs. But now I am thinking that the quality might not be as good as the ones that come from Mac or it may be hard to replace.

So if I return this one and order one with a bigger flash drive will I have to pay a restocking fee?

Are the aftermarket flash drives as reliable as Apples?

Can the Apple store upgrade it?

Is life with 120 gigs not as hard as I think it is?
 
green junkie said:
Yesterday I ordered an 13 ince, 128gig SSD, 8gigs of RAM MBA. I had my heart set on the 256gig one at first until I saw that it would be around $1,700 with the tax. And I already ruled out the 11' Mac because sometimes get to share my monitor with a girl to watch a movie, and sometimes size matters when it comes to that.

My thought process was that I could always upgrade the Flash drive later on and the price might even drop. There is already an company producing ones that will fit into this generation Macbook Airs. But now I am thinking that the quality might not be as good as the ones that come from Mac or it may be hard to replace.

So if I return this one and order one with a bigger flash drive will I have to pay a restocking fee?

Are the aftermarket flash drives as reliable as Apples?

Can the Apple store upgrade it?

Is life with 120 gigs not as hard as I think it is?
Click to expand...

Just get a fast external hard drive and you will be okay, there is no reasong to panic ;)
 
green junkie said:
Yesterday I ordered an 13 ince, 128gig SSD, 8gigs of RAM MBA. I had my heart set on the 256gig one at first until I saw that it would be around $1,700 with the tax. And I already ruled out the 11' Mac because sometimes get to share my monitor with a girl to watch a movie, and sometimes size matters when it comes to that.

My thought process was that I could always upgrade the Flash drive later on and the price might even drop. There is already an company producing ones that will fit into this generation Macbook Airs. But now I am thinking that the quality might not be as good as the ones that come from Mac or it may be hard to replace.

So if I return this one and order one with a bigger flash drive will I have to pay a restocking fee?

Are the aftermarket flash drives as reliable as Apples?

Can the Apple store upgrade it?

Is life with 120 gigs not as hard as I think it is?
Click to expand...

Simple solution, cancel your order and enter a new one with the 256 SSD.
 
So if I return this one and order one with a bigger flash drive will I have to pay a restocking fee?

No, you will not be charged a restocking fee. You have 14 days.

Are the aftermarket flash drives as reliable as Apples?

I believe so. But again, they're also more expensive than if you had purchased the upgraded BTO MBA [link], so you might just want to get the 256GB directly from Apple instead of self-upgrade. (Not to mention you might be losing warranty coverage from Apple as a result of replacing the SSD)

Can the Apple store upgrade it?

I don't think they will do it.

Is life with 120 gigs not as hard as I think it is?

Nope. I've been perfectly fine with 128 GB MBP. Just get yourself a USB 3.0 External HDD if you need more space.

--------------

Now, if you have the money to buy the AppleCare now, it might not be a bad idea to buy it from B&H Photo Video. If you buy the 2.0GHz/8GB/256GB from them with Parallels 7 and AppleCare, the total comes out to ~$1790 [link]. They bundle AppleCare with your MBA purchase for just $90. Plus, if you don't live in NY or NJ, I believe you don't pay any tax.
 
Last edited:
korbearus10 said:
So if I return this one and order one with a bigger flash drive will I have to pay a restocking fee?

No, you will not be charged a restocking fee. You have 14 days.
Click to expand...

Why go through the trouble of accepting delivery then returning it? Cancel and re-order. He only ordered it yesterday. He will have 2 or 3 days to cancel.
 
green junkie said:
Is life with 120 gigs not as hard as I think it is?
Click to expand...
I boot off a 60GB drive, it's the only drive I use for storage and I manage to get by.

Running 10.8, the OS + applications are consuming 24GB. I don't have that many apps, but I imagine that Xcode is consuming a lot of that. I travel fairly light, all my crucial files fit in to my 3GB dropbox and I try to purge my download folder fairly regularly. Just depends on your needs, USB3 storage is fast and the enclosures are cheap. Also, if you have a large music/movie/photo library you could get a home server/NAS and stream it to the MBA when you're at home.

green junkie said:
... with a girl ... sometimes size matters when it comes to that.
Click to expand...
I couldn't possibly comment... I'll show myself out.
 
kodeman53 said:
Why go through the trouble of accepting delivery then returning it? Cancel and re-order. He only ordered it yesterday. He will have 2 or 3 days to cancel.
Click to expand...

I never ordered BTO so I didn't know that there was 2-3 days cancellation period. I was assuming cancellation period was already past, since what you said would be the most logical thing to do.
 
Thanks for the quick replies guys.

Raejin said:
Ditto, and personally I think it's better to store photos, movies, and music etc. on external drive.
Click to expand...

This was my thoughts when i pushed the order button. 80% of the things I do on my computer I can do with far less then 128gigs. It is that 20% that is giving me a problem. I like to play games from Steam, and I don't know if I can sync my Itouch via external hard drive. But since someone pointed out I got 14 days to change I will give it a chance.

Edit: The only reason why I didn't get the 256gig one was because laptops are not very important part of my life. It is mostly for entertainment and education, so I really couldn't justify paying that amount. But I know how long Macs last and I can get a lot of that money back when and if I sell it. I have a 2010 Mac now I am trying to convince my self to sell. That and I travel and live in hostels a lot. Losing a laptop that cost $1300 hurts a bit less then loosing a laptop that is $1700.
 
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I think people these days forget how big 128gb actually is but I guess it depends on what your using you mba for ?
 
Thanks for you guys help between Korbears and mrs1986 and the rest of y'all I think I got enough information to resolve the situation I put myself. And feeling better about MBA I brought.
 
korbearus10 said:
Are the aftermarket flash drives as reliable as Apples?

I believe so. But again, they're also more expensive than if you had purchased the upgraded BTO MBA [link],
Click to expand...

Not really. OWC's 240GB is $319. Apple effectively charges $300 to get to 248GB ( it isn't BTO. It is moving to the "better" category). So it looks like it is $19 more. But the truth is that you bought a 128GB and 240GB SSD drives at that point (i.e, there is no way to get a MBA without a SSD so have to buy one of Apple's ). If there was some enclosure (so could use both ) or some other way to sell the 128GB drive (so net cost would be lower) it can be more valuable or cheaper depending upon what you do.

The problem is OWC isn't going to give you a rebate (trade-in) price on the drive because it only fits in a MBA. There is no good market to sell the 128GB drive into.

Apple is doing the same thing. The effective price of the 248GB drive is much higher than OWC's. When you change configs you pay approximately the cost of a 128GB and you don't even get the drive!
 
I changed my order from an i5 to an i7, just call them up, they'll do everything for you. If you're asking whether you should get the bigger SSD then I think the answer is yes, you'll always regret it later if you were looking at something else, you'll always wonder, how much easier everything would be with the upgrade, that's the reason I got the i7. I decided to go for the 256 SSD because the whole point of the Air is portability, what's the point of having it if you have to take extra stuff like a Hard Drive? Another point is the whole point of having an SSD instead of an HDD, is the speed. Just get the 256 SSD, a 1TB hard drive with USB 3.0 is about $100, (you might as well go 1TB with a hard drive) so really it's just a $200 upgrade, I know it's quite a bit of money but it's worth it.
 
I got the 128 GB and I have no trouble with having too little space. I got network storage at home of about 6 TB so I can just keep everything long term there.

I also just backed Nifty MiniDrive up on kickstarter and will get one of those for me and one for my fiancé hopefully around November. By then 128 GB microSD cards will be out I hope, that means I can keep whatever music/movies I want to take with me on the go on the microSD drive if I were to take a long trip with no internet access.

Link för the Nifty MiniDrive: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1342319572/the-nifty-minidrive
 
green junkie said:
Yesterday I ordered an 13 ince, 128gig SSD, 8gigs of RAM MBA. I had my heart set on the 256gig one at first until I saw that it would be around $1,700 with the tax. And I already ruled out the 11' Mac because sometimes get to share my monitor with a girl to watch a movie, and sometimes size matters when it comes to that.
Click to expand...
I would think if you're sharing the monitor with a 'girl' that you might have to get a little closer to see the monitor. Not necessarily a bad thing. And note the 11" is very close to the same size as the 13" for watching movies. The 13" adds vertical space not used watching movies. Its a 16:10 aspect ratio. The 11" is a 16:9, making it not as tall but almost as wide. Thats how Apple manages to fit the same width keyboard.

256GB is expensive. Flash is very expensive. Prices will be coming down over the next few years.

My thought process was that I could always upgrade the Flash drive later on and the price might even drop. There is already an company producing ones that will fit into this generation Macbook Airs. But now I am thinking that the quality might not be as good as the ones that come from Mac or it may be hard to replace.
Click to expand...
The OWC already available is still expensive, but the price will drop over time. You can get external USB3.0 drives cheap. I bought a 1TB for $89 @ Amazon and a 64GB flash drive for $25. The OWC drive is supposed to be as fast as the built in drive. If you do get it, you can keep using the 128GB that came with your MBA in an external USB 3.0 case they include in the purchase.

So if I return this one and order one with a bigger flash drive will I have to pay a restocking fee?
Click to expand...
No restocking fee. Can return within 14 days.

Are the aftermarket flash drives as reliable as Apples?

Can the Apple store upgrade it?

Is life with 120 gigs not as hard as I think it is?
Click to expand...
No idea how reliable they are.
Not sure about Apple store upgrading. They could, but I don't know if they do.
Life w 128GB is ok, but you do have to watch the available space. Collections of movies, pictures etc. won't fit. Will need external storage.
 
green junkie said:
Yesterday I ordered an 13 ince, 128gig SSD, 8gigs of RAM MBA. I had my heart set on the 256gig one at first until I saw that it would be around $1,700 with the tax. And I already ruled out the 11' Mac because sometimes get to share my monitor with a girl to watch a movie, and sometimes size matters when it comes to that.

My thought process was that I could always upgrade the Flash drive later on and the price might even drop. There is already an company producing ones that will fit into this generation Macbook Airs. But now I am thinking that the quality might not be as good as the ones that come from Mac or it may be hard to replace.

So if I return this one and order one with a bigger flash drive will I have to pay a restocking fee?

Are the aftermarket flash drives as reliable as Apples?

Can the Apple store upgrade it?

Is life with 120 gigs not as hard as I think it is?
Click to expand...

The SSD can be upgraded in the MBA. Just wait a while and SSDs for the MBA will drop in price.
 
korbearus10 said:

Now, if you have the money to buy the AppleCare now, it might not be a bad idea to buy it from B&H Photo Video. If you buy the 2.0GHz/8GB/256GB from them with Parallels 7 and AppleCare, the total comes out to ~$1790 [link]. They bundle AppleCare with your MBA purchase for just $90. Plus, if you don't live in NY or NJ, I believe you don't pay any tax.
Click to expand...


Wow. Live and learn. For some reason, I thought that the only way to get a BTO was to go through Apple. I could have saved myself 100 on the tax that I paid. @#&!

Live and learn.
 
green junkie said:
Is life with 120 gigs not as hard as I think it is?
Click to expand...

That's the same question I asked myself before I bought the MacBook Air.

And yes, it's probably 4X harder with 120 GB. All I ever did was Install Bootcamp, transfer my music collection, some files (really small) and install some apps.

Just that.
Then it showed me a lovely message that every Mac user loves.*
"Your startup disk is full".

And Bootcamp was like, 20 GB.

*sarcasm
 
Retina Display said:
That's the same question I asked myself before I bought the MacBook Air.

And yes, it's probably 4X harder with 120 GB. All I ever did was Install Bootcamp, transfer my music collection, some files (really small) and install some apps.

Just that.
Then it showed me a lovely message that every Mac user loves.*
"Your startup disk is full".

And Bootcamp was like, 20 GB.

*sarcasm
Click to expand...

Who has a music collection stored on their computer in the year 2012? Stream!
 
Davidkoh said:
Who has a music collection stored on their computer in the year 2012? Stream!
Click to expand...

Stream doesn't support FLAC. Besides, stream is a huge pain in the neck for a person running with 50 KBPS. Darn ISP. It's supposed to be a ton faster. Technical difficulties.
 
Retina Display said:
Stream doesn't support FLAC. Besides, stream is a huge pain in the neck for a person running with 50 KBPS. Darn ISP. It's supposed to be a ton faster. Technical difficulties.
Click to expand...

If you are at home you can stream them from a NAS (yes even FLAC) and if you are not home you can also stream them from your NAS via 3G/LTE/open Wifi.
 
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