Macbook Air to Upgrade or Not

[caraxcara]

I'm planning to buy a macbook air for:
- presentations (word, excel, powerpoint)
- lots of songs and photos (2k or more)
- research & social networking sites + youtube (10-15 tabs open)
- apps (not much)
- files and documents
- light video editing (3-5 mins of video only)

Will the 4GB RAM and 128 SSD enough for those? Or should I upgrade? What should I upgrade then? Please help I don't want any regrets.

Or should I buy the Macbook Pro instead?

 

[maflynn]

The 4gb will be enough for now, but apps do get more bloated over time. I suspect you may run short on the storage. If the cost isn't terribly high to upgrade both these storage and ram, I'd do it, if it were up to me

 

[caraxcara]

The 4gb will be enough for now, but apps do get more bloated over time. I suspect you may run short on the storage. If the cost isn't terribly high to upgrade both these storage and ram, I'd do it, if it were up to me

If I afford to upgrade one thing only, what would you suggest, the RAM or SSD?

 

[majkom]

Ssd

 

[Dweez]

Ssd

Quoted for truth.

 

[Meister]

- apps (not much)

What does 'apps (not much)' mean?
If 128 ssd is enough for you, then the mba i5/4/128 will do just fine. No need to upgrade.

 

[caraxcara]

What does 'apps (not much)' mean?
If 128 ssd is enough for you, then the mba i5/4/128 will do just fine. No need to upgrade.

I mean i'm not into so much apps like for entertainment. I'm more into 2k songs and 5k+ photos, files and documents

 

[LAS.mac]

If I afford to upgrade one thing only, what would you suggest, the RAM or SSD?

RAM. Because it's soldered. You can eventually upgrade your SSD later, for instance using a Jet Drive. But RAM will be what you buy...

 

[caraxcara]

RAM. Because it's soldered. You can eventually upgrade your SSD later, for instance using a Jet Drive. But RAM will be what you buy...

RAM is for fast multi-tasking right? I'm a newbie in technology so... I really don't know.

 

[Orr]

The base model (4/128) will be more than enough for your stated purposes. Just get a cheap external HD if you have an excess of songs/photos to store. I've long been a big proponent that the best value of the Haswell Airs (especially in light of the recent refresh price drop) is seen in the base models. Add on a few upgrades, and you might as well get the rMBP which is a superior machine.

 

[LAS.mac]

RAM is for fast multi-tasking right? I'm a newbie in technology so... I really don't know.

More RAM allows you to have more applications in use at once. If you don't have enough RAM, the mac will emulate it using a partition on the HD. Now, because in the MBA case the HD is a faster SSD, you want notice the difference, generally.
It's a different situation in you will have to run virtual machines (e.g., Windows under Parallels). In this case you will have to reserve an amount of RAM only for the virtual machine. So you will reduce your overall RAM budget.