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Buying used 2010 11.6" air, input needed

S

solsearchin

macrumors member
Original poster
Hey all I'm looking at a 2010 11.6" MacBook air, it's the basic model, 1.4ghz core 2 do, 64gb ssd, 2gb ram, 150 cycle count on the mac - asking price is 550$

Are these machines reliable after being 2 years old? any issues or problem areas?
 
About a month ago I sold my 2010 MBA, 4Gb, 64GB, C2Duo to a coworker for $650 with Applecare until nov 2013, an Incase sleeve and a brand new Warpsol cover, so $550 looks pretty fair to me...

I never had any problems with the machine, the Adobe CS5 suite performed fine, Word, Excel and Powerpoint did fine too. I used to plug it to my Apple Cinema 30" when I was at home and the little thing tame that huge display, movies look great... sometimes Safari was slow but was the flash plugin fault, doing the usual memory hog. The machine never became too hot, and the fans were almost silent.

It was a pretty reliable machine, light and very snappy... I sold it because I change computers every 18 months, it was my 6th Apple laptop and was one of the best... not including of course my new i7 MBA 11.6 which is a lighting beast 🙂
 
These machines are fantastic, but you can probably do better. If I were you, I'd be going for an 11" Ultimate (128GB SSD, 4GB RAM, 1.6GHz). I've seen some 1.4/64/2 that you are looking at actually sell for more than these on eBay, so you're way better off. Especially since you are going to be using the older Core 2 Duo processor, I'd definitely go for the bigger RAM and more space, without question, 110%. But yes, the 2010 Airs are snappy machines, and you will not be disappointed. 😀
 
I ended up spending more for the 2010 ultimate model refurb, which included a full year of applecare plus my credit card's year warranty extension. (Also hefty taxes, which I try to think of as patriotic...)

From my reading, this is supposed to be a very good model. Being the end of the line for the old processor setup is a con in terms of being old (and some said even obsolete) but it can be seen as a pro in terms of being a sort of mastered system.

I think you have to consider the warranty issue though and how easy/hard it will be for you to fix or replace. For me the extra up front for the warranty was worth it with the goal of keeping this machine for at least two years but stil being able to justify replacing it after a year or year and a half or two+ years if something irresistible comes along
 
I have a this same exact machine...2GB Ram..1.4 Core 2 Duo..64GB SSD..that I bought refurb from Apple Store last September and it was the best choice I made when purchasing my first ever Apple. This machine runs great! I saved money buying it refurb, and my next one I will also buy refurb. I just installed Mac Lion last night and today my computer is still running great..handling it like a champ!
 
I have this machine and I wouldn't recommend it at this point. Web scrolling can be really laggy (Chrome and Safari) which drives me crazy as an iPad/iPhone user. Also 64 GB is pretty limiting. You won't get all the features of Mountain Lion either if you were thinking about upgrading. It's my only computer and I get by with it ok but I wouldn't buy one right now. I would rather put the money towards something newer... but that's me.
 
Ya ive heard it's a hit or miss on performance for some people it's great others it really lags, my old core 2 duo would lag until I wiped the OS and reinstalled.
 
Well I installed Lion on my machine for the first time a few days ago..and considering I am running the basic of MacBook Airs...my machine is running smooth with Lion installed. And Lion was supposed to give me problems...but it is not!
 
I ended up buying it for $500 CND I think I got a good deal. It came with snow leopard I'm reluctant to switch to lion since it runs so smooth on sl
 
kodeman53 said:
Who told you this?
Click to expand...

No one told me this...just a basic search on the net shows that everyone with Airs are saying negative things on the net, ranging from slowing down computer to MacBook getting to warm. So far...none of this seems to be the case with me. My computer is running great on Lion...not only that...but I think it is running better! Not getting warm at all, and the CPU usage is actually lower so far!

----------
solsearchin said:
I ended up buying it for $500 CND I think I got a good deal. It came with snow leopard I'm reluctant to switch to lion since it runs so smooth on sl
Click to expand...

It does run very smooth on SL. So I recommend to do what I did... use SL for a period of time and then switch to either Lion or ML. After almost a year of running SL, because of its smoothness, I decided to see how my machine would handle Lion...well it works great! I have no worries now about ML! Just an FYI though, I did do a clean install, and I don't plan on reinstalling any of my unused apps.
 
byziphone4 said:
No one told me this...just a basic search on the net shows that everyone with Airs are saying negative things on the net, ranging from slowing down computer to MacBook getting to warm. So far...none of this seems to be the case with me. My computer is running great on Lion...not only that...but I think it is running better! Not getting warm at all, and the CPU usage is actually lower so far!
Click to expand...
So, it's true for 'everyone with Airs' except you? Amazing. Words of the day; Hyperbole and Gullible.
 
kodeman53 said:
So, it's true for 'everyone with Airs' except you? Amazing. Words of the day; Hyperbole and Gullible.
Click to expand...

Ok...so "everyone" is a little extreme...wrong choice of words. How about, generally speaking, people with older Airs are complaining about how Lion is slowing their machine down in some way? Does that sound better to you? Nothing gullible here! Rather what I am saying is that Lion is working great on mine!...not as "some" are experiencing with older machines.
 
byziphone4 said:
Ok...so "everyone" is a little extreme...wrong choice of words. How about, generally speaking, people with older Airs are complaining about how Lion is slowing their machine down in some way? Does that sound better to you? Nothing gullible here! Rather what I am saying is that Lion is working great on mine!...not as "some" are experiencing with older machines.
Click to expand...

A 'little' extreme. Right, just a 'little'. I always draw conclusions from what people post on Internet discussion forums since such forums are a rich balance of people having problems and those who are not.
 
kodeman53 said:
A 'little' extreme. Right, just a 'little'. I always draw conclusions from what people post on Internet discussion forums since such forums are a rich balance of people having problems and those who are not.
Click to expand...

Yeah...and it is not hard to do a search on these forums and see how many MBA users are unhappy with Lion. Along with that said you can find how many did clean installs and are satisified just like I am!
 
No no.. you should go for a fresh one.. go for mid-2012 model.

You really need the warranty!

I just got my mid-2012 replaced because of a hinge issue..😀

solsearchin said:
Hey all I'm looking at a 2010 11.6" MacBook air, it's the basic model, 1.4ghz core 2 do, 64gb ssd, 2gb ram, 150 cycle count on the mac - asking price is 550$

Are these machines reliable after being 2 years old? any issues or problem areas?
Click to expand...
 
solsearchin said:
Hey all I'm looking at a 2010 11.6" MacBook air, it's the basic model, 1.4ghz core 2 do, 64gb ssd, 2gb ram, 150 cycle count on the mac - asking price is 550$

Are these machines reliable after being 2 years old? any issues or problem areas?
Click to expand...

Unless you are on a strict budget, a new MBA makes a lot more sense. For $963 you can get a 2012 11" MBA with i5/4GB/64GB or for $1063 get the i5/4GB/128GB.

Of course for $1139 you can get a 2012 13.3" MBA with i5/4GB/128GB.

These are of course under warranty whereas the one you are looking at has no warranty I assume.
 
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