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MBA 2010 or 2011/2012

S

skatya

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 11, 2013
10
0
Hey guys, i'm planning to buy used MBA, but I'm not sure which one. I'll be doing light programming, mainly Java. Main things for me are screen, smoothness, battery life and i want a snappy machine overall. I have 3 deals base MBA 2010 for 600-650$, base MBA 2011 for 800$ and base MBA 2012 for 900$. What is the best deal, is it worth paying extra money, and what is the difference between them except processor and gpu?

Thanks.
 
skatya said:
Hey guys, i'm planning to buy used MBA, but I'm not sure which one. I'll be doing light programming, mainly Java. Main things for me are screen, smoothness, battery life and i want a snappy machine overall. I have 3 deals base MBA 2010 for 600-650$, base MBA 2011 for 800$ and base MBA 2012 for 900$. What is the best deal, is it worth paying extra money, and what is the difference between them except processor and gpu?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Hey

I would definitely give the 2010 a miss, the processor really wasn't that fast and I do like the backlighting that the later models have. Now the question is, do you have another computer/Mac that you use? If you were looking for a primary machine, I would go for the most up to date one that you can get. I'm running a 2012 MBA 128GB SSD and 4GB of RAM which was just a sorta study model until I get my Pro in about a year's time. I bought it because I knew that I would still be able to use it even when I got my Pro because it would be small and compact enough to take everywhere and I would be able to take more graphics intensive stuff and stick it on the Pro.

I think the MBA will be perfectly fine for coding etc but just check the RAM on each of the models. I would not dip below 4GB and in terms of the SSD don't go below 128GB. I run Mac OSX and Windows for gaming and I can just fit about 3 or 4 games on. In hindsight, I would have saved up a bit more and got 8GB of RAM and a 256 or 512GB SSD for more space.

I don't think there are many real differences between the 2011 and 2012 apart from a bit of a speed boost, the base being 4GB of RAM and USB 3. USB 3 for me was important because its so much faster than 2 and is future proofing.

Hope this helps

James


Check here also
 
Thanks for the reply. Im mainly planning to use laptop in university and watching films in bed since i have a mac mini and a windows pc as my primary machines. And thanks again:)
 
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