Oh for sure!
My 18 year old PowerBook G4 has 2GB ram!
Totally inadequate and had I been buying that model during that time period I would have been greatly annoyed if that was the only option.
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MacBook Air 4,1 (A1370) Mid-2011
- Thread starter eyoungren
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My 18 year old PowerBook G4 has 2GB ram!
Totally inadequate and had I been buying that model during that time period I would have been greatly annoyed if that was the only option.
Yeah, if I have to do an auction I snipe at the end as well. I don't like it, but eBay created this thing and they've never done anything about it. It's how I won my old 17" HD-DLSD.
I usually prep my bid, with my ultimate buy price set in the box. At 3 seconds to go I hit the Bid button. It's just enough time for the system to register that I bid before the clock ran out yet absolutely zero time for anyone to respond. In the meantime, if any bid has gone past my ultimate price I just abandon the auction and move on.
I hate sniping, but it's either snipe or watch your item get bought by someone else. A lesson I learned the hard way in my first auction.
For the 2008/2009 MBAs, 2 GB was the only ‘trim’. For the 2010 MBAs, 4 GB became an option but 2 GB was still standard — and continued to be for the 2011 11" (the 2011 13" had 4 GB as standard IIRC).
Yep, that's what I'm doing as well because my experience has been that if I go past my ultimate price I'll surely end up being annoyed, so I just say ‘forget about it’. The things I'm bidding on are not unique, so another will come up eventually.
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2GB RAM and without the option to at least upgrade your machine to the equivalent of the 4GB model at a later point - which meant that if you purchased the 2GB version, that was the end of the road for you. Imagine Apple or any of the other computer companies attempting to pull a stunt like that in the 80s: there would've been uproar.
It's a business model that they would subsequently expand to what they regard as the high-end and professional range with soldered RAM and even glued batteries as the norm to respectively force you to purchase the most expensive offering up front or risk being saddled with a permanently limited computer and lock you into sending it to Apple for repair at a predictably extortionate fee.
3 seconds? I'm impressed! I thought that I had nerves of steel by bidding at the 5/6 seconds stage but you're on another level.
Yeah, this is one of the reasons when we (my wife and I) get new phones we always get the biggest storage offered. This year it was the 11 Pro Max, so we got the 512GB. But we only upgrade every 2.5 to 3.5 years so it's not such a big deal. I do it because it's what I want (for both her and I) and the upshot is that we have the space if we ever need it. I don't like being in spots where I need something but don't have it.2GB RAM and without the option to at least upgrade your machine to the equivalent of the 4GB model at a later point - which meant that if you purchased the 2GB version, that was the end of the road for you. Imagine Apple or any of the other computer companies attempting to pull a stunt like that in the 80s: there would've been uproar.
It's a business model that they would subsequently expand to what they regard as the high-end and professional range with soldered RAM and even glued batteries as the norm to respectively force you to purchase the most expensive offering up front or risk being saddled with a permanently limited computer and lock you into sending it to Apple for repair at a predictably extortionate fee.
3 seconds? I'm impressed! I thought that I had nerves of steel by bidding at the 5/6 seconds stage but you're on another level.
Yeah, 3 seconds. Even if the webpage takes longer to show you the results after having clicked the button, the internal systems registered your click. I'm allowing for any slow connection glitches, otherwise I'd press the button at 1 second left, LOL!
When my Android phones ran out of internal storage, I simply... popped in a 64GB microSD card.
With that being said, the first-gen iPhone SE I'm using right now has 64GB internal storage and that's ample for my needs. I don't keep my entire music library on it though.
My music library is on my NAS and also on YouTube Music. I stream using the app whenever I use my phone for that. My wife is going to be different. She started using SIRI and was upset when she told it to play a song and SIRI reported she had no music on her phone. So, I'm going to have to put some on there for her.When my Android phones ran out of internal storage, I simply... popped in a 64GB microSD card.
Not explaining how to handle streaming apps when she wants to use SIRI to control that.
Eeww, streaming.
I want to have everything local so it still works when ‘teh internut’ goes kaput.
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It's a shame, really. Granted, I've found a niche for mine, but that niche involves running El Cap with 1-2 Safari tabs and a few Screen Sharing sessions to control other computers from and that's it. If I were trying to be normally productive on this machine, I'd throw it against the wall in a heartbeat. I nearly got to that point a few years back, which is why I retired it from full-time laptop usage. The little bugger does well in its role currently, but it's still a shame that such a wonderful, small, portable little machine can't be used for what it's meant for.
I have a Late 2013 13” retina MBP with 4 GB RAM. That’s the glorified version of the 2 GB MBA (LOL). Still, four gigs is fine for ‘doodling around’ in Mavericks and Mojave.
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Oh, I'm late to the party!
@eyoungren Congrats! That MBP will certainly fit into any of her purses (oh, or might be the cause to get another ... ?)
Let her talk to @Amethyst1 about TB-video-connectors and she will take over your desk and monitors!
I'd stay with the original RAM/SSD-setting and install any miraculous local or cloud-backup-settings to avoid any hassle.
Less is more ... (gessing that from the experience coming from the number pages, my wife uses to keep open in Safari.)
And I'd stay with Mojave to keep 32bit compatibility.
An external USB-drive with encrypted 250GB SSD would be a great 30$ compensation for limited space of the internal drive (and will fit into the purse as well).
Cheers!
@eyoungren Congrats! That MBP will certainly fit into any of her purses (oh, or might be the cause to get another ... ?)
Let her talk to @Amethyst1 about TB-video-connectors and she will take over your desk and monitors!
I'd stay with the original RAM/SSD-setting and install any miraculous local or cloud-backup-settings to avoid any hassle.
Less is more ... (gessing that from the experience coming from the number pages, my wife uses to keep open in Safari.)
And I'd stay with Mojave to keep 32bit compatibility.
An external USB-drive with encrypted 250GB SSD would be a great 30$ compensation for limited space of the internal drive (and will fit into the purse as well).
Cheers!
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OK, some quick hits before I have to go and pick people up…
Mac arrived in a Priority US Mail Box. Seller I guess thought that wrapping everything in plastic bags was 'good enough'. Fortunately, the Mac was undamaged. Started right up.
Dirty though. Why don't people clean their computers up before shipping them out?! SMH!
So, cleaned that up. Mac boots into an option screen for two users I don't have passwords to.
So, bumbling around, I managed to erase the Mac - which meant no Recovery. Catalina patcher reports that the install is 'damaged'. Wiped drive.
Internet Recovery got me Lion, which wouldn't install. Think it's the same issue as the guy with the Lion installer thread.
So, used my MacPro and Install Disk Creator to make an install USB of High Sierra and got that installed.
High Sierra reports that the battery has 852 cycles. No idea if that's good (or bad), but the charging icon in the menu bar reports 'Normal'.
More to come.
Mac arrived in a Priority US Mail Box. Seller I guess thought that wrapping everything in plastic bags was 'good enough'. Fortunately, the Mac was undamaged. Started right up.
Dirty though. Why don't people clean their computers up before shipping them out?! SMH!
So, cleaned that up. Mac boots into an option screen for two users I don't have passwords to.
So, bumbling around, I managed to erase the Mac - which meant no Recovery. Catalina patcher reports that the install is 'damaged'. Wiped drive.
Internet Recovery got me Lion, which wouldn't install. Think it's the same issue as the guy with the Lion installer thread.
So, used my MacPro and Install Disk Creator to make an install USB of High Sierra and got that installed.
High Sierra reports that the battery has 852 cycles. No idea if that's good (or bad), but the charging icon in the menu bar reports 'Normal'.
More to come.
They really did forget to clean it (up).
That could be the classic expired certificate problem: try setting the date to, say, 1st of November 2019 before running the installer.
Did you go for the latest Patcher from @dosdude1 and download the latest macOS-installer from Apple?
I wouldn't bother to go back to Lion Recovery.
Puuh, happily there was no damage on transport! Seller probably was under influence of Macbook Air Envelope Ad
BTW, found this mocking video about MBA and liked it!
?They really did forget to clean it (up).
I don't think so. I think it was more a matter of the Air being fundamentally different than my MBP and my Mac Mini. Created the installer and it's started installing with no date change.
I used Safari to download Chrome, then Chrome to download the patcher. Moved over my Install OS X Catalina image (from my G4 NAS) and made the installer on the Air itself.
Probably the difference.
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She is mainly going to be using this Mac at home, so the size of the 128GB SSD is fine. She'll just have to start putting things on the server. Plus, most of her stuff is on her iPhone or her Pixel anyway.
Using the patcher to install Catalina right now. She doesn't need 32-bit support (and I don't either). Lion was just mentioned because I needed an OS and that's what the Recovery operation defaulted to. That was aborted and I made a High Sierra install (before starting the Catalina install).
I have a MBA 11" inch, the last and most upgraded there is (early 2015, 8GB, i7). Until Apple makes a MBA or notebook that is as small and light as the 11", I'm not giving it up!
It runs Catalina pretty smoothly, perhaps if I didn't have all this software setup on it now I would downgrade to High Sierra for performance gains, but it's alright.
Only thing it struggles with is video editing... makes me kinda want an M1. But I refuse to give up my in-built USB ports...
It runs Catalina pretty smoothly, perhaps if I didn't have all this software setup on it now I would downgrade to High Sierra for performance gains, but it's alright.
Only thing it struggles with is video editing... makes me kinda want an M1. But I refuse to give up my in-built USB ports...
about the battery, the “Normal” is good
mine sez, needs service
even for over 2 hours of usage.
enjoy!
mine sez, needs service
even for over 2 hours of usage.
enjoy!
My other 11" Air is a 2015 i5/4GB/128GB, and it's running Monterey well enough. 4GB + SSD is decent for basic usage these days, although it's not great for anything terribly intensive.
My wife is very happy. She really likes the size and the fact that it's so light.
It's interesting, because there are certain models of Macs that I gravitate to and thus own and there are certain models I would never own for myself. The Air is one of those. I don't hate them, I just never gravitated to them. But because I knew my wife would like that model, there is now one in the house.
It's the same reason I own a 12" PowerBook. I got that one for her as well way back when. But the Air is a really nice, throw it in your backpack and go type Mac - I'll give it that.
852 cycle count isn’t horrible but you should download Coconut Battery and see what the remaining percentage of its original life is. Anything 80% or over is a pretty good battery, especially for a 2011 with that many charge cycles. I have seen the battery go from normal to service recommended after a few cycles on a new macOS install but usually on batteries below 70%.
Catalina is a great choice for the 2011 with 4gb. Once indexing finishes it should be pretty responsive.
I had it down here on battery only while setting up Time Machine. Handled it fairly well I think. I'll look into Coconut Battery tomorrow. Essentially, I'm done with it, gave it to my wife last night. I had thought about migrating stuff from her PC, but decided to just leave it. She can grab stuff off there whenever she needs to. She uses her phones more anyway.
It's a nice little Mac and I'm happy that she's happy with it.