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Jacoblee23

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Nov 10, 2011
1,474
717
I have a 2014 13" Air. I'll be keeping it for now. This is my first Mac. Realistically how long can this last me before I see major slowdown and etc? I'm holding out getting a new MacBook with retina until they get a bigger screen. 12" isn't big enough for me. Is anyone else keeping theirs for now as their primary machine?
 
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Mac-lover3

macrumors 6502a
Dec 2, 2014
559
412
Belgium
Indeed depends on what you are doing on your Mac but Word, Excel, Safari, iTunes, iMovie, Photos will be good for 4-5 years.
 

redheeler

macrumors G3
Oct 17, 2014
8,419
8,841
Colorado, USA
Depends on how much RAM it has and what you do with it. Web browsing, email, iTunes, and office on an 8 GB machine could easily last you 5 years without slowdown.
 

Jacoblee23

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Nov 10, 2011
1,474
717
Depends on how much RAM it has and what you do with it. Web browsing, email, iTunes, and office on an 8 GB machine could easily last you 5 years without slowdown.

I only have the 128gb 4gb model but it's very snappy. I need it to last me through graduate school the next two years mainly.
 

Mrbobb

macrumors 603
Aug 27, 2012
5,009
209
Personally I never buy version 1.0 of anything.

I only bought the Air after it had dropped below that magic $1,000. What money grow on trees? ;)
 

Boyd01

Moderator
Staff member
Feb 21, 2012
7,686
4,570
New Jersey Pine Barrens
I will be keeping my 2013 11" i7/8gb/512gb for several more years. It's my primary computer and does everything I need, including powerful software like Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro.

The new MacBook would be a fun toy, but just couldn't take the place of my MBA.
 

bingeciren

macrumors 65816
Sep 6, 2011
1,069
1,009
I'm keeping my 2012 11" i7 2.0Ghz/8gb/256gb Air and have no desire to downgrade to rMB just for the sake of the retina display.
 

ET iPhone Home

macrumors 68040
Oct 5, 2011
3,823
529
Orange County, California USA
I have a 2014 13" Air. I'll be keeping it for now. This is my first Mac. Realistically how long can this last me before I see major slowdown and etc? I'm holding out getting a new MacBook with retina until they get a bigger screen. 12" isn't big enough for me. Is anyone else keeping theirs for now as their primary machine?

I have a 2011 MBA and it's still running very well - no complaints. If Apple phases out MBA due to new MB, I may upgrade later this year. I'll wait for definitive news on it.
 

Yamrider

macrumors newbie
Dec 30, 2014
14
2
U.K
I purposely waited until after the rMB was announced and then bought a re-furbed base model Macbook Air 11" for just over half the price of the rMB. I've been using it for a couple of weeks now and couldn't be happier with it. I can see it being in use with me for a good fews years yet. Looking forward to seeing the development & customer feedback on the new rMB over the next few years. I'll end up with one, one day I'm sure.
 

jimmirehman

macrumors 6502a
Sep 14, 2012
504
352
i have the first rev of the unibody Macbook Air from Late 2010. Havent found a reason to upgrade yet.
 

Newtons Apple

Suspended
Mar 12, 2014
22,757
15,253
Jacksonville, Florida
I am for sure. It is only a few months old but I bought it MAXed out 13" and it has PORTS! Also a SD card reader is darn nice in the field. I am also not going below a 13", prefer a 14-15" but things get big again.

My neighbor brought his new Macbook over last night so I could help him install his software. I saw way too much "spinning ball" when the Macbook started throttling. The device got way hotter than I like and just got plain slow after it heated up.

Not giving up my MBAir anytime soon. I still think it is a little early with todays CPUs to go fanless!
 

Marhowl

macrumors member
Apr 12, 2013
57
24
Prague
Until recently, I have owned a 11" Macbook air from 2011. Just 2GB of ram but 256GB ssd. It was fine for travelling, and it did what I wanted it to do on those travels. I justified it to myself, that I don't need a "powerful" Macbook of any kind when I have quite powerful Mac Pro where I'm willing to invest even more in order to make it more powerful

However, I have owned a 2012 13" version with i5, 8GB ram and 256GB SSD and also a 2013 model with same specs. The 2013 model just flied compared to the 2012 it was amazing, and I bet anyone using it right shouldn't have any smart reason to upgrade to 2014 or even 2015 model unless they don't know what to do with their money.

It was also mentioned, that the 2012 model would see only 3 more years of support of something. I would actually bet on 4-5 years, since there are even older mac models out there which still support installing Yosemite on them, such as the 2007 iMac, Early 2008 Macbook Pros and even the late 2008 Macbook air
 

dborja

macrumors 6502a
Sep 13, 2007
995
101
Northern California
2011 MBA (and 2009 iMac) here and they run Yosemite and applications just fine. In fact, both also run Win7 (VMFusion) with no appreciable performance hit on my typical workflow. I don't see a need to upgrade at this time.
 

dmitrivich

macrumors member
Dec 9, 2014
35
3
I'm happy with my 2014 Air. I thought I might end up being disappointed, but I needed a computer when I needed it and was unsure what/when was coming. Glad now I got what I did.

I do care about the ports. I don't often use them, but my laptop is my only computer (and I intend to keep it that way), and my preferred method for buying music is getting the CDs, ripping them to FLAC files and then storing the CDs. It could be done with one port, but only intermittently.

I figure by the time my Air starts to get obsolete, they will have perhaps come up with a solution for the MB that doesn't involve a $79 dongle (and have a 13-14" version, I hope), or at any rate, the Pro will have had a redesign which puts it in the size/weight class of the current air. Then I would just get the Pro.
 
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