A friend of mine is looking to sell me a Macbook Air 2,1 A1304 MB543LL/A for $400.
I currently have a Macbook White Unibody 2.26GhZ 2GB 250GB HDD that works great -- just looking for something smaller for my traveling.
Is $400 a good price for the Air he's selling? Should I go for it? Will I notice slower processing speeds between his Air and my current Macbook?
From all the reviews and everything I've read while searching for info about MBA's vs MBP's, 2010 vs 2011 vs 2012 specs, etc, the MBA you're referring to is a 2008 version, and the older MBA's were known as nice laptops for web browsing and general simple tasks, but they aren't too good for much more then that if you're a comp user with demanding needs.
This just comes from what I've recently read and my opinion based on all the info I've seen written about earlier MBA's. If you don't need a laptop for anything demanding, I'd say go for it, you'll probably be happy with it, esp as you said for traveling, I have a 2012 MBA coming from a mid 2009 MBP 2.53GHZ core 2 duo, and the difference in everyday tasks speed is great b/c of the SSD, which is one of my fav things about MBA's, but unfortunately the MBA you've mentioned has a SATA HDD, so you won't be able to see the benefit of the SSD vs HDD which kind of sucks.
I haven't personally used an older MBA, only the newer version that i have, but its a hell of a lot faster then my 2009 MBP that had a 2.53GHZ processor. From a search online of ebay, amazon, etc, you can see that 2008 MBA's go for somewhere around 400$, so the price of the one you're interested in is pretty standard, not a bad deal at all with price, but as far as the difference in processing speed, I wish i could help a little more with answering that question, maybe you can do a side by side comparison of the 2 before you buy it, and try using the apps/programs you use the most to compare the speeds of the 2. I'd do that before I sprung and spend 400$ on a machine if I was unsure if I'd be satisfied with it's capabilities. Just my opinion. Good luck with whatever you decide to do, I went from a MBP to a MBA and I am completely satisfied with the switch!
