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Recommend me an 11 MBA for work

HiLife808

HiLife808

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 23, 2015
2
0
Hawaiian Islands
As title states, I am looking to buy a MBA 11" for work use. All I would be using the MBA for is Microsoft Office, quickbooks and various other online programs that my employer uses. I already have a late 2011 MBP that is for personal use. Currently on my mind is the early 2015 11' 1.6/8/128. I am wondering if an early 2014 would useful as well. Also, do I need the 8gb of memory or will the 4gb suit me for what I need to do.

Thanks in advance
 
I think the 2013 model would be completely fine for you. There is very little difference between that and the newer ones. IMO, there were only two recent models with significant changes. In 2012 they added USB 3.0 which is a huge difference for external disks. They also introduced the 8gb model in 2012, in 2011 you could only get 2gb or 4gb. But the biggest change was 2013 where they added 802.11ac wifi that is much faster. More significant, battery life nearly doubled in 2013 due to a more efficient chipset. The SSD is also faster in 2013 but most people probably wouldn't notice.

So I suppose you need to weigh the price and condition when choosing between 2014 and 2015, I can't think of any other important factors. All things being equal, with a used computer I would want a newer one with less use.

I would get 8gb RAM although you could probably get by with 4gb for your needs. I wouldn't be happy with a 128gb SSD but there's nothing wrong with that if you're sure you don't need more.
 
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HiLife808 said:
As title states, I am looking to buy a MBA 11" for work use. All I would be using the MBA for is Microsoft Office, quickbooks and various other online programs that my employer uses. I already have a late 2011 MBP that is for personal use. Currently on my mind is the early 2015 11' 1.6/8/128. I am wondering if an early 2014 would useful as well. Also, do I need the 8gb of memory or will the 4gb suit me for what I need to do.

Thanks in advance
Click to expand...

Enough memory? 11" 128 cannot be expanded.
 
canuckRus said:
Enough memory? 11" 128 cannot be expanded.
Click to expand...

Not sure what you mean by "memory". The RAM cannot be expanded, it is soldered on the board. The OP states he is interested in the 2015 model with 8gb which is the maximum, so obviously that cannot be "expanded".

But if you are talking about the 128gb SSD, I agree you should get the largest you need at the time of purchase. But it is expandable if you want to upgrade by yourself later. For many years nobody made a third party SSD the the 2013 MBA - the 2014 and 2015 use the same type. But they are now available. Here's one example, I believe there is at least one other company selling a compatible SSD. https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd...MI-63rkOqG1gIVC5NpCh3POwVQEAAYASAAEgJiYvD_BwE

They are rather expensive, and people have reported various issues, so do your research before you consider this option.
 
I have an 11" MBA a love it. It has - quite literally - travelled the world with me,

My personal recommendations are much the same as some who have already posted:

Get a machine that is post 2013 - not least because that is when the big improvement in battery life occurred.

And - yes - get 8 GB RAM.

Personally, I wouldn't be happy with 128GB - and - others may know more about this than I do, but my understanding is that the quality of the SSD drives are better at 256GB and 512 GB.

My own 11" was a CTO, with a Core i7, 8 GB RAM and 512 GB SSD and I will say that it is easily the best computer I have ever owned.
 
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Scepticalscribe said:
others may know more about this than I do, but my understanding is that the quality of the SSD drives are better at 256GB and 512 GB.
Click to expand...

There was a bad batch of 128gb MBA's at one point, might have been 2012? Apple eventually acknowledged this and provided a program that checked to see if your computer was one of them. I believe they replaced them for awhile even if the computer was out of warranty. But that't the only "quality" issue I've ever heard of. You might be thinking of the SSD speed though. The 128gb SSD is slower than the larger ones. This is not unique to the MBA from what I know, larger SSD's are faster (or at least they have been in the past). I seriously doubt that most people would notice any difference, especially with the OP's light usage. Perhaps it would take a few seconds longer to boot than a 512?

FWIW, not all i7/8gb/512gb MBA's are "CTO". Some retailers stock them. I walked into B&H Photo on July 1, 2013 and walked out with my 11" i7/8gb/512gb MBA a half hour later. That was a good day. :)
 
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Boyd01 said:
There was a bad batch of 128gb MBA's at one point, might have been 2012? Apple eventually acknowledged this and provided a program that checked to see if your computer was one of them. I believe they replaced them for awhile even if the computer was out of warranty. But that't the only "quality" issue I've ever heard of. You might be thinking of the SSD speed though. The 128gb SSD is slower than the larger ones. This is not unique to the MBA from what I know, larger SSD's are faster (or at least they have been in the past). I seriously doubt that most people would notice any difference, especially with the OP's light usage. Perhaps it would take a few seconds longer to boot than a 512?

FWIW, not all i7/8gb/512gb MBA's are "CTO". Some retailers stock them. I walked into B&H Photo on July 1, 2013 and walked out with my 11" i7/8gb/512gb MBA a half hour later. That was a good day. :)
Click to expand...

Oh, agreed not all 11" MBAs with those specs are CTOs; but, mine, as it happened was.

In fact, only this very week, I have been eyeing one as a refurb and am sorely tempted to buy it as I love the computer.

To the OP, I'd recommend 8 GB RAM and - probably - 256GB SSD; you really will use up 128 GB very rapidly, and the others are somewhat faster, too, as @Boyd01 has pointed out.
 
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Boyd01 said:
Not sure what you mean by "memory". The RAM cannot be expanded, it is soldered on the board. The OP states he is interested in the 2015 model with 8gb which is the maximum, so obviously that cannot be "expanded".

But if you are talking about the 128gb SSD, I agree you should get the largest you need at the time of purchase. But it is expandable if you want to upgrade by yourself later. For many years nobody made a third party SSD the the 2013 MBA - the 2014 and 2015 use the same type. But they are now available. Here's one example, I believe there is at least one other company selling a compatible SSD. https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd...MI-63rkOqG1gIVC5NpCh3POwVQEAAYASAAEgJiYvD_BwE

They are rather expensive, and people have reported various issues, so do your research before you consider this option.
Click to expand...

Oops! News to me. My bad. Thought only 13" was expandable. Wanted to add Windows OS to my 2013 11" Air but expert declined. Expanded option neither offered, nor mentioned as being possible.
 
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If the SSD size is the only concern, just get a decent SD card in the flat case so that you can leave it in permanently. Everything on my MBA is either in the cloud of on the SD card. I have almost nothing on the Mac itself.
 
I recently got a MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2015) with 8GB memory and 256GB storage. This is my first Mac for work and I love it! I can use it for hours and hours at the office or home and not have to drag a power cord with me as I attend meetings, etc. I like that is is so lightweight and starts up very quickly.

I thought the storage would be an issue but I find that I am doing just fine with more than 175GB left after installing several non-Apple programs that I need for work and transferring over all of my files. Most of my work product is copied to the cloud (Box, SharePoint) so I usually only save final versions on my Mac and delete drafts.
 
AlliFlowers said:
If the SSD size is the only concern, just get a decent SD card in the flat case
Click to expand...

Not sure what you mean by "the flat case", but remember, the OP wants an 11" MBA which does not have an SD card slot. There are some USB flash drives that are somewhat flat but still stick out noticeably and of course you lose the use of the USB port for other things. Also, it depends on what you are storing on a flash drive. The SSD is around 700MB/sec write speed and the regular flash drives that I have are maybe 15MB/sec. This makes a big difference if you work with large files!
 
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What about a rMB? I don't know what the budget is, but would suggest that it's an improvement over the 11" MBA in most ways
 
if it is for work and time is money buy a machine with warranty and go for 8gb ram and 256 gb ssd.

128 gb is very tight in 2017 and the cost difference to go to 8 gb ram is well worth it for improved performance and longevity of the usefulness of your device.

on the 13, sd flash is an option for more space, just be aware sd flash is super slow so it's going to suck for working with video, etc. if you try doing it from sd card.
 
throAU said:
if it is for work and time is money buy a machine with warranty and go for 8gb ram and 256 gb ssd.
Click to expand...

The 11" MBA is discontinued and I don't see any at the Apple refurb store at the moment. So unless that changes, you are not going to get a full original warranty but should be able to transfer AppleCare if the original owner had it.
 
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KUKitch said:
What about a rMB? I don't know what the budget is, but would suggest that it's an improvement over the 11" MBA in most ways
Click to expand...

IMHO the keyboard is totally unusable. YMMV but for me it's an absolute deal-killer. I can figure out work-arounds for the deplorable TN panels but a separate keyboard totally defeats the idea of an ultra-portable laptop.
 
AlliFlowers said:
If the SSD size is the only concern, just get a decent SD card in the flat case so that you can leave it in permanently. Everything on my MBA is either in the cloud of on the SD card. I have almost nothing on the Mac itself.
Click to expand...
The 11" doesnt have an SD card reader as the 13" has.
 
Newer doesn't necessarily mean better. I have a 2013 i7/8GB 11" MBA which still out-performs many new Macs including the latest Macbook. You want a Geekbench score of at least 3000 to have a computer that will be useful for a few more years:

https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks

You can upgrade the SSD yourself, I put a 512GB one in mine which cost a couple of hundred on eBay.
 
I get a geekbench result of 3627 single-core and 6723 multi-core on my 2013 11" Air, quicker than a 2017 MacBook.
 
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