OK-got a Rev.A-Do I buy the new whatever MBA or install a Runcore 128GB?

[mangrove]

Use my Rev. A for travel only. It is a 1.80 with 64GB SSD.

It has never bothered me on the road it is sooo slow because I'm on the road and not at home.

I mostly use my MBA for small Numbers files (1 or 2 of which I update nightly), some Pages (but very few) and a lot of email and web surfing in hotels which usually have high speed DSL. I hate Wifi in hotels since the speed varies for my liking way too much by room location.

Problem is many hotels are going the wifi route and disconnecting their hard wired ethernet connections.

Got off my own subject. Sorry. I do not want a keyboard smaller than what I have now.

I keep very little iTunes data on it, no iMovies or videos.

At times I can travel up to 2 months without going back home. Yes, it's lonely, but I've got my MBA!

Any creative ideas?

 

[diminiko]

Sounds like your pretty happy with your MBA!

Do you need the extra storage space? Although the runcore is a faster SSD I don't think it will be a huge leap from your stock SSD.

It doesn't sound like you need much in the way of performance boost for surfin in hotel rooms. A storage upgrade with a runcore would be much cheaper than any new MBA that may or may not come out.

 

[mangrove]

I guess you're right. For sure, it would be cheaper to do the Runcore if I needed extra storage which would allow me to load more of my 115GB iTunes library for travel. But other than that you're probably right, why bother at this point.

 

[Scottsdale]

I guess you're right. For sure, it would be cheaper to do the Runcore if I needed extra storage which would allow me to load more of my 115GB iTunes library for travel. But other than that you're probably right, why bother at this point.

Here is the problem with updating the drive in your original MBA... it uses a PATA drive controller. The PATA drive controller is severely limited in terms of bandwidth which will NOT allow the entire performance benefits of SSD drives to be experienced.

You are MUCH MUCH better off moving to a rev 2,1 MBA and sticking with a stock SSD. Fortunately for everyone who has a stock SSD, and the newest MBAs have upgraded Toshiba SSDs, Apple has dramatically improved the drivers improving the speeds to near Runcore SSD speeds. I would say sell your original for $900, and buy the refurbished v 2,1 MBA with 1.86 GHz CPU and 128 GB SSD. Want to go all the way, go ahead and buy a brand new MBA with 2.13 GHz CPU and 128 GB Toshiba SSD (but you would probably need to buy from Apple directly and order online to get newest version, as some in stores could be older stock).

Apple has really improved the v 2,1 MBAs with nearly every OS X update recently. Between the SSD driver improvements and OpenCL, OpenGL, h.264 third-party access, and etc, the MBA is substantially faster than when it was released in October 2008! I don't think there's any reason not to buy an MBA right now if you need one. Of course, waiting a few months would probably give us a 128 GB Toshiba SSD in the low-end and 256 GB Toshiba SSD in the high-end varieties.

 

[crx7]

For the value of a Rev A MBA, I just don't feel it's worth the money to spend $400+ on a 128GB SSD. You would have a lot more room to upgrade in the future if you sell your current MBA and buy the new generation. Nevermind SATA and speed improvements, the battery life is much much better. So, clean it up and post it on ebay, someone who doesn't know that much about the generations will probably buy it.

 

[wkw]

if you need something faster wait for the newer mba (if it ever gets upgraded) spending money on an old mba is kind of a waste of money

 

[mangrove]

Thanks everybody.

Just might do as Scottsdale suggested, but may be even wait for a new model to come out even though I would take even more of a hit on the Rev. A by waiting to sell it. My Applecare runs out in early 2011. Let's see what the next few months brings with a "new whatever MBA".