May be in the market for an Air

[Michael CM1]

I'm debating right now getting an Air for work use. I use an iPad right now to cover sporting events and such, and it's workable but not ideal. I can survive doing that, but I'm considering getting a notebook.

What really spurred my interest in a portable is a Gateway that Target has on sale this week. It's $250, which means it's about $238 for me with a 5 percent discount. I haven't consistently used a PC in about six years, but that seems like a good price for anything. Unfortunately, Target is having trouble keeping these in stock.

I have found some of the previous Air models for different prices: $759, $799, $839. The benefit of the $839 is I can get it financed for 18 months. The $759 is Apple's refurb price.

I'm worried about the unknown on all of this. I don't know how much storage 64GB really is on a computer. I plan on really just using this for basic tasks, meaning no Photoshop, no serious photo or video editing. Just mostly typing and maybe Web browsing. I already have an iMac, iPad and iPhone. So it's not like this is an "only computer" buy.

So I would appreciate some feedback on the mid-2011 models, especially the 64GB SSD and 2GB RAM base model. Is the battery pretty close to the 5 hours of the newest model? My iPad will last FOREVER doing the word processing I do, so I'm assuming battery won't be a problem.

Thanks for any advice!

 

[RedCroissant]

I'm debating right now getting an Air for work use. I use an iPad right now to cover sporting events and such, and it's workable but not ideal. I can survive doing that, but I'm considering getting a notebook.

What really spurred my interest in a portable is a Gateway that Target has on sale this week. It's $250, which means it's about $238 for me with a 5 percent discount. I haven't consistently used a PC in about six years, but that seems like a good price for anything. Unfortunately, Target is having trouble keeping these in stock.

I have found some of the previous Air models for different prices: $759, $799, $839. The benefit of the $839 is I can get it financed for 18 months. The $759 is Apple's refurb price.

I'm worried about the unknown on all of this. I don't know how much storage 64GB really is on a computer. I plan on really just using this for basic tasks, meaning no Photoshop, no serious photo or video editing. Just mostly typing and maybe Web browsing. I already have an iMac, iPad and iPhone. So it's not like this is an "only computer" buy.

So I would appreciate some feedback on the mid-2011 models, especially the 64GB SSD and 2GB RAM base model. Is the battery pretty close to the 5 hours of the newest model? My iPad will last FOREVER doing the word processing I do, so I'm assuming battery won't be a problem.

Thanks for any advice!

If you're going to be performing simple tasks that don't require a lot of power, then the introductory MBA should be...ok. And since you have an iPhone and iPad, you should have a pretty good idea of how much 64GB of storage is..not a lot(but that might not be necessary). You're going to have perhaps 62-ish GB available to begin with, then subtract another 10-15GB for the OS. So 47GB remaining for any apps and things you would want to download. And if you're importing photos from your iPhone(depending on which generation it is) will end up taking a lot of space and pretty quickly. With 2GB of RAM that's soldered on, I don't know if you would be able to upgrade the OS again either.

You could of course rely on iCloud, Photostream, dropbox, and other things of that nature to keep as much free space as possible, but I would recommend finding one with a 128GB SSD instead. Apple is selling an 11" version with 4GB of RAM and a 128GB Drive for only $30 more than the one you're interested in. And yes, it's only a C2D, but with what you have in mind to use it for, you would be getting a lot more for your money.

 

[seared.ahi]

If you're going to be performing simple tasks that don't require a lot of power, then the introductory MBA should be...ok. And since you have an iPhone and iPad, you should have a pretty good idea of how much 64GB of storage is..not a lot(but that might not be necessary). You're going to have perhaps 62-ish GB available to begin with, then subtract another 10-15GB for the OS. So 47GB remaining for any apps and things you would want to download. And if you're importing photos from your iPhone(depending on which generation it is) will end up taking a lot of space and pretty quickly. With 2GB of RAM that's soldered on, I don't know if you would be able to upgrade the OS again either.

You could of course rely on iCloud, Photostream, dropbox, and other things of that nature to keep as much free space as possible, but I would recommend finding one with a 128GB SSD instead. Apple is selling an 11" version with 4GB of RAM and a 128GB Drive for only $30 more than the one you're interested in. And yes, it's only a C2D, but with what you have in mind to use it for, you would be getting a lot more for your money.

Try like 28gb for the OS. I got my 128gb 13" today and before I installed anything I had 100.9gb available. ??????

 

[RedCroissant]

Try like 28gb for the OS. I got my 128gb 13" today and before I installed anything I had 100.9gb available. ??????

Thanks for the correction. I honestly did not know it was that much and that makes my recommendation of the 128GB more of a necessity. What do you think about my position on the C2D versus the i5?

 

[seared.ahi]

Thanks for the correction. I honestly did not know it was that much and that makes my recommendation of the 128GB more of a necessity. What do you think about my position on the C2D versus the i5?

A 64 gb HD could mean actual 47 gb like you say. It's hard to imagine 28 gb being taken on a 64 gb HD. That'd suck. So maybe it's like a proportions thing. I really have no clue.


The C2D is > than the iPad he's using but the i5 is definitely > than C2D. You know what I would do: Sell the ipad and get a MBA you could really feel good about for the next few years. The OP doesn't sound particularly attached or excited to the ipad, which is expected. (I never really understood the appeal)

 

[Wokis]

The 128GB SSD shows up as 121GB in OSX.

Don't think it has to do with 1024-1000 byte conversion. There's a hidden recovery partition and probably some reserved flash cells in case any of the used ones would start breaking down.

That said if you can live without hibernation and remove unused system/app languages, there's more space that can be saved.

 

[RedCroissant]

A 64 gb HD could mean actual 47 gb like you say. It's hard to imagine 28 gb being taken on a 64 gb HD. That'd suck. So maybe it's like a proportions thing. I really have no clue.


The C2D is > than the iPad he's using but the i5 is definitely > than C2D. You know what I would do: Sell the ipad and get a MBA you could really feel good about for the next few years. The OP doesn't sound particularly attached or excited to the ipad, which is expected. (I never really understood the appeal)

I didn't even consider suggesting selling the iPad, but then again I probably wouldn't do that unless there was more iOS integration into OS X or unless the MBA was new enough to take advantage of the airplay feature.

I understand the appeal completely. I just wish I wasn't broke and had to sell mine. It's the Apps. I was able to get rid of my cable TV plan and still watch all my shows via AppleTV(which I also had to sell)using the NBC,ABS,TBS,CW,CBS apps. It was awesome.

 

[plucky duck]

I didn't even consider suggesting selling the iPad, but then again I probably wouldn't do that unless there was more iOS integration into OS X or unless the MBA was new enough to take advantage of the airplay feature.

I understand the appeal completely. I just wish I wasn't broke and had to sell mine. It's the Apps. I was able to get rid of my cable TV plan and still watch all my shows via AppleTV(which I also had to sell)using the NBC,ABS,TBS,CW,CBS apps. It was awesome.

The Air compliment the iPad very nicely, between the two you have combined uptime to keep you busy/productive pretty much the whole day when you are out and about. I would not consider selling it.

 

[wolfpuppies3]

I went through the same choices a year ago and went with

Processor 065-8769 1.8GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7•
Memory 065-8777 4GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM•
Hard Drive 065-0581 256GB Flash Storage•

As I write this, $789 gets you a refurb at apple.com

Originally released October 2010
11.6-inch LED-backlit glossy widescreen display
4GB memory
128GB flash storage

+ $200 gets you

Originally released July 2011
11.6-inch (diagonal) high-resolution LED-backlit glossy widescreen display
4GB memory
256GB flash storage

If there is any way at all to find $200, go for that one. I love mine.

 

[Michael CM1]

Thanks for all the info, peeps. I decided to stand pat with what I have now. I would LOVE to get a MacBook Air, but I read enough "warning" stuff in those posts to know I should wait until I can afford one a little bit better. Maybe in about a year I'll have more income and can get the current generation MBA with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. I had a 64GB iPad, and I could easily fill it up with music, apps, photos and video. Obviously I wouldn't HAVE to fill up an MBA, but I have this feeling that I would, especially with an OS larger than iOS.

The upgradability was also a concern. I just upgraded from 4GB of RAM to 12 on my iMac. I was having trouble with 4GB because of all the stuff I had open. That wouldn't be the case on an MBA, but the prospect of the next Mac OS iteration not being able to run on it would be troublesome.

Thanks again for the advice. I really like the concept of such a portable computer, but I've gotta get myself out of a money hole right now. Thankfully the iPad is just about an actual computer when you add a keyboard!

 

[Beanoir]

Try like 28gb for the OS. I got my 128gb 13" today and before I installed anything I had 100.9gb available. ??????

Thats not right, you must still have the installer on there, Mountain Lion takes up 18GB net of the installer.

 

[seared.ahi]

Thats not right, you must still have the installer on there, Mountain Lion takes up 18GB net of the installer.

ML came native on my computer. That's all I know. What do I need to do to see if I still have the installer on there. I don't think I do.

What else do I need to delete?