buying a macbook air for the first time.

[newmac33]

hi guys,
im intending to buy a new macbook air 13. this will be the first mac that i have ever purchase, therefore i would like to clear some doubts.

1) is buying the apple care necessary? or is the mac products able to last for 3-5 years with proper handling.

2) i will be getting the 13inch i5 128gb model, and would like to have some advice as to what is the most optimal way to partition my hard disk size so that i can run both mac and windows. (p.s, never use a mac before, so therefore, no idea how much space would a typical mac storage require. however, in windows, i will be doing some developing work eg: visual studio, photoshop, ms office, etc etc.

your answer to my question would be much appreciated.
thanks !

 

[simsaladimbamba]

1) Macs can last that long, but as with every mass-produced product, they can fail. Having Apple Care ensures, that you are covered for three years instead of just one. You can also get AC within the first year of your purchase, thus you can save to buy it later.

2) Use Boot Camp Assistant to create the Windows partition.
If you have an external HDD, I would go 50:50 with the partition setup.


And look here to learn more about Mac OS X:

Helpful Information for Any Mac User by GGJstudios​

 

[newmac33]

thaanks ! any more user willing to share their expereince ?

 

[wrinkster22]

i got applecare. You will enjoy it.

 

[Kendo]

hi guys,
im intending to buy a new macbook air 13. this will be the first mac that i have ever purchase, therefore i would like to clear some doubts.

1) is buying the apple care necessary? or is the mac products able to last for 3-5 years with proper handling.

Are you from the US and will you be purchasing with a credit card? Most major credit cards add an additional year of warranty. So if your Mac breaks down in the 2nd year, you pay the bill that the Apple Store would charge to repair it, but then the credit card company reimburses you. Call your CC company to make sure. AMEX and Chase Freedom both offer this protection.

 

[MacDawg]

I buy AppleCare on my Macs but not my iDevices

I run Windows 7 through VMWare Fusion on my 13" MBA and it is fine for everything I do
I avoid the whole BootCamp thing now because I never boot natively into Windows

 

[convergent]

Welcome to the Mac world. I would recommend AppleCare for any laptop. If you need one repair done during the life of the machine, it will probably pay for itself.

I'm concerned about your disk space and intended usage. If you split your disk 50/50, you'll be down to 64G for each side. The stuff you said you are planning to do are not small applications. I would suggest you look into running Parallels (or VMWare Fusion) to do Windows 7 rather than bootcamp. With 4G of RAM, this will work a lot better for you and you'll be able to seamlessly have your windows and mac applications all running on your Mac desktop together. That's the way I just setup my new MBA, and it preforms very well.

 

[newmac33]

Are you from the US and will you be purchasing with a credit card? Most major credit cards add an additional year of warranty. So if your Mac breaks down in the 2nd year, you pay the bill that the Apple Store would charge to repair it, but then the credit card company reimburses you. Call your CC company to make sure. AMEX and Chase Freedom both offer this protection.

nope im from singapore.

----------

Welcome to the Mac world. I would recommend AppleCare for any laptop. If you need one repair done during the life of the machine, it will probably pay for itself.

I'm concerned about your disk space and intended usage. If you split your disk 50/50, you'll be down to 64G for each side. The stuff you said you are planning to do are not small applications. I would suggest you look into running Parallels (or VMWare Fusion) to do Windows 7 rather than bootcamp. With 4G of RAM, this will work a lot better for you and you'll be able to seamlessly have your windows and mac applications all running on your Mac desktop together. That's the way I just setup my new MBA, and it preforms very well.

can i choose to buy the apple care at a later time ? maybe half a month later?
if i install windows on vmware, i will still need to allocate some disk space on vmware for windows right ??

----------

oh ya, another questions that i am trying to figure out,
can i install windows on vmware using the bootcamp windows partition so that i will have exactly the same app/document on both the bootcamp windows partition and vmware windows partition?

 

[simsaladimbamba]

can i choose to buy the apple care at a later time ? maybe half a month later?

>>>

You can also get AC within the first year of your purchase, thus you can save to buy it later.

if i install windows on vmware, i will still need to allocate some disk space on vmware for windows right ??

VMWare will dynamically assign space for the Windows VM, but you can also select a preset amount of 20GB or more/less.

 

[sdsvtdriver]

nope im from singapore.

----------



can i choose to buy the apple care at a later time ? maybe half a month later?
if i install windows on vmware, i will still need to allocate some disk space on vmware for windows right ??

----------

oh ya, another questions that i am trying to figure out,
can i install windows on vmware using the bootcamp windows partition so that i will have exactly the same app/document on both the bootcamp windows partition and vmware windows partition?

Yes.