Should I get the new Air or keep my old MBP?

[Painter2002]

All good. I missed it too, read about it here somewhere, took a look for myself.

You are so right! I just watched it again and it’s very fleeting but sure enough there is a fan. That’s really interesting considering how thin that machine is.
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On that note, can you point out how I can get a new genuine battery replaced at as low a cost as possible? I am still surprised that the Apple people told me that I'll have to send in my computer for up to 5 days and they'll also replace the KB and trackpad.

Apple is going to be your best bet by far on the battery replacement. They will do it right and give you the full top case replacement for only $200, provided there is no other repairs that are needed.

 

[AMSOS]

I’d wait for some more thorough reviews to be available beyond what’s out right now, and then decide.

Did you by any chance see this -
https://www.pcworld.com/article/331...ir-vs-dell-xps-13-and-hp-spectre-x360-13.html
I have to say the more I read analyses of what is going on with the launch of the new Air, the more I am inclined to just take a risk with my old 2015 MBP or just get the MacBook Air.
For a student's uses the old Air is still not a bad deal. And if I get it new it will surely last me for the next 3 years at least.

 

[Painter2002]

Did you by any chance see this -
https://www.pcworld.com/article/331...ir-vs-dell-xps-13-and-hp-spectre-x360-13.html
I have to say the more I read analyses of what is going on with the launch of the new Air, the more I am inclined to just take a risk with my old 2015 MBP or just get the MacBook Air.
For a student's uses the old Air is still not a bad deal. And if I get it new it will surely last me for the next 3 years at least.

I still really suggest against the old MacBook Airs. Sure they are still hardy little machines, but they really are outdated spec wise, and it will cost you more in the long run because you’ll have to replace that old MacBook Air computer much sooner than you would if you keep your MacBook Pro or get the new MacBook Air.

 

[AMSOS]

I still really suggest against the old MacBook Airs. Sure they are still hardy little machines, but they really are outdated spec wise, and it will cost you more in the long run because you’ll have to replace that old MacBook Air computer much sooner than you would if you keep your MacBook Pro or get the new MacBook Air.

I see your point. But wouldn't a new MacBook Air last 3.5 years if used carefully? My uses are lots of writing on Word, browsing, movies, and some photo editing.
The major issue could possibly be slowdown due to updating to the yearly Mac OS updates.
As my experience with my current MBP has shown, I can't expect to use a new Mac beyond 3.5 years. By which time there will be problems with a whole host of things, and putting in more money in repair/upgrade will increase the risk even more.
If I get a fresh old Air now with the extended warranty, I'll be pretty much covered for the next 3.5 years.
Just a thought...

 

[Painter2002]

I see your point. But wouldn't a new MacBook Air last 3.5 years if used carefully? My uses are lots of writing on Word, browsing, movies, and some photo editing.
The major issue could possibly be slowdown due to updating to the yearly Mac OS updates.
As my experience with my current MBP has shown, I can't expect to use a new Mac beyond 3.5 years. By which time there will be problems with a whole host of things, and putting in more money in repair/upgrade will increase the risk even more.
If I get a fresh old Air now with the extended warranty, I'll be pretty much covered for the next 3.5 years.
Just a thought...

I suppose, but your MacBook Pro you have now should be able to last that same amount of time for a lot less money and be faster. But that’s just my opinion, I am a bit of a cheapskate, so I’d rather get a longer return on my investment when it comes to that much money.

Ultimately the choice of course is yours. If you’d rather get the older MacBook Air, there is nothing wrong with that. Any option is fine so long as it meets your needs and finances

 

[Acronyc]

I am way beyond being a student, so take my observations with a grain of salt.

A year or two ago I bought an iPad Pro with the idea it would be a great machine for travel. My thought was I taking my iPad anyway, so why not get one that supported a keyboard, pen, etc. and leave the laptop at home. I turned out to be a huge mistake.

As expected the iPad is great for content consumption. But, when I had free time I wanted to do some content creation (writing, coding on cloud resources, photography, video) and it was a mess. Here is why.

• Either the applications I needed did not exist on the iPad, or existing in stripped down versions with missing functionality.
  
• The keyboard, Apple's that connected physically, missed key presses too often. (Bluetooth KBs had delay between typing and letter appearance)
  
• The pen, was OK, but there is only so much you can do with it.
• For my work I really need a file system I can easily access.
  
• Finally, by the time you add a keyboard and pen, your price is approaching a Mac Air if not exceeding it. Second, the size and weight is just about as much. So in the end I had not gained anything, except a comprised package.

As a result of this failed experiment, my iPad Pro still goes with me on trips (minus keyboard), but so does a mac.


On the battery. The $199 battery replacement is really a top case replacement. That include Aluminum part of case where you hands rest and keyboard resides plus keyboard, trackpad, and battery. They are all glued together and come as one replaceable unit. It is one heck of a value IMHO.

They might even replace the speakers if you mention it nicely.

I had the same experience with an iPad, but back with the iPad 3. I tried to get it to work but in the end it was too complicated, didn’t meet my needs, and the iPad plus keyboard and case package meant it was just as heavy as my MacBook Air. I decided then that the iPad was a good consumption device for me, but not a good content creation device.

That hasn’t really changed much for me despite the advances in the iPad. Now I just get the cheapest iPad available with reasonable storage and it works great for me. I bought a 2017 iPad when they came out and it has been a fantastic device for me and what I need it to do, all while being pretty cheap overall.

 

[bigpoppamac31]

The new MacBook Air is absolutely crazy expensive for the specs. They should be embarrassed selling that for that price. Keep your MBP and save yourself some money.

Especially the price for upgrading ram and SSD. Outrageous!

 

[Leo90]

Especially the price for upgrading ram and SSD. Outrageous!

I have a 2014 MacBook Air which I needed to upgrade this month as it was getting really slow for certain tasks. I bought a MBP 15 inch and returned after 9 days after noticing that the keyboard was already giving strong signs of mis function, I.e. I did not feel the machine was reliable enough for a device which costs more than 2500€. So I decided to look elsewhere, and I ended up getting a MSI GS65 with fantastic configuration (8.gen i7, GTX 1070 MaxQ), slim and lightweight and for less than what I paid for the MacBook Pro 2018 with a crappy dedicated graphics card. Although I love macOS and I am deep into Apple ecosystem (happy owner of iPad, iPhone and Watch), I just don’t think I can trust MacBooks for heavy working and reliability anymore. Apple absolutely destroyed their Mac lines with exorbitant prices and subpar hardware. The GS65 has been working like a champ for me and it is as light as a MBP 15”. In summary, I highly recommend anyone to look elsewhere for high performance laptops at the moment.

 

[bigpoppamac31]

I have a 2014 MacBook Air which I needed to upgrade this month as it was getting really slow for certain tasks. I bought a MBP 15 inch and returned after 9 days after noticing that the keyboard was already giving strong signs of mis function, I.e. I did not feel the machine was reliable enough for a device which costs more than 2500€. So I decided to look elsewhere, and I ended up getting a MSI GS65 with fantastic configuration (8.gen i7, GTX 1070 MaxQ), slim and lightweight and for less than what I paid for the MacBook Pro 2018 with a crappy dedicated graphics card. Although I love macOS and I am deep into Apple ecosystem (happy owner of iPad, iPhone and Watch), I just don’t think I can trust MacBooks for heavy working and reliability anymore. Apple absolutely destroyed their Mac lines with exorbitant prices and subpar hardware. The GS65 has been working like a champ for me and it is as light as a MBP 15”. In summary, I highly recommend anyone to look elsewhere for high performance laptops at the moment.

I've actually thought of buying a Windows PC due to Apple's high prices for their Macs. There is some very good hardware on the Windows side but it's still running Windows which is crap. As much as I've considered the option I just can't see myself buying a Windows PC simply cause it's Windows. Apple's MacOS is still far superior but sadly their hardware is way overpriced.

 

[Leo90]

I've actually thought of buying a Windows PC due to Apple's high prices for their Macs. There is some very good hardware on the Windows side but it's still running Windows which is crap. As much as I've considered the option I just can't see myself buying a Windows PC simply cause it's Windows. Apple's MacOS is still far superior but sadly their hardware is way overpriced.

I’ve used OS X exclusively since 2004 and I’ve always hated Windows with all my soul, but after using my GS65 for a few days I gotta say Windows 10 is way less intrusive than XP used to be. It is a much more streamlined OS than it used to be. I still think macOS is superior but not by much like years ago. I also have Linux installed in dual boot and I use it a lot for light work, browsing and whenever I need my UNIX OS fix I use Windows for gaming and other graphic intensive tasks in AutoCAD and some video editing. I used to think exactly like you, but I realised that nowadays I am too focused on each program to care about the OS running behind as they all run fast and seamlessly. Besides, Apple is taking the piss with their Mac lines with obnoxious prices, reliability issues and horrendous “repair” business model. For instance, if I have an issue with battery, SSD or ram in the future I can just swap them myself and fix the problem. With macs, I have to rely exclusively on Apple repair programs and their crazy prices, no way! I love Apple and I am big fan of them since I got my very first iPod in 2002, but I feel they are screwing up their loyal customers big time with their new Mac pricing scheme.
Regarding iOS devices, I don’t have issues with repairability as they are extremely reliable! I only had one hardware issue with my iPhone in 10 years. iPad always worked great and Watch as well!

 

[AMSOS]

Especially the price for upgrading ram and SSD. Outrageous!

Speaking of which are you sure you can even do that? As far as I know you could do that with the Pro but not the Air. So, the new Air will let you put in a fresh SSD and upgrade the RAM if you want?
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I have a 2014 MacBook Air which I needed to upgrade this month as it was getting really slow for certain tasks. I bought a MBP 15 inch and returned after 9 days after noticing that the keyboard was already giving strong signs of mis function, I.e. I did not feel the machine was reliable enough for a device which costs more than 2500€. So I decided to look elsewhere, and I ended up getting a MSI GS65 with fantastic configuration (8.gen i7, GTX 1070 MaxQ), slim and lightweight and for less than what I paid for the MacBook Pro 2018 with a crappy dedicated graphics card. Although I love macOS and I am deep into Apple ecosystem (happy owner of iPad, iPhone and Watch), I just don’t think I can trust MacBooks for heavy working and reliability anymore. Apple absolutely destroyed their Mac lines with exorbitant prices and subpar hardware. The GS65 has been working like a champ for me and it is as light as a MBP 15”. In summary, I highly recommend anyone to look elsewhere for high performance laptops at the moment.

Thanks for sharing what must have been a difficult experience for you. I don't have those requirements (or the budget ;-) ) but I have in this zone of extreme ambivalence vis-a-vis Apple. The OS is great and the machines work well - so far. But I don't want to even have to think of any hardware failures (excluding the battery of course) and that's what has changed now.
To cut to the chase - long ago I had used Ubuntu on my Windows laptop for everything other than writing on MS Word. Do you think I should look at that option again?
And which laptop will you recommend now? The XPS?
Thanks!

 

[Queen6]

I have a 2014 MacBook Air which I needed to upgrade this month as it was getting really slow for certain tasks. I bought a MBP 15 inch and returned after 9 days after noticing that the keyboard was already giving strong signs of mis function, I.e. I did not feel the machine was reliable enough for a device which costs more than 2500€. So I decided to look elsewhere, and I ended up getting a MSI GS65 with fantastic configuration (8.gen i7, GTX 1070 MaxQ), slim and lightweight and for less than what I paid for the MacBook Pro 2018 with a crappy dedicated graphics card. Although I love macOS and I am deep into Apple ecosystem (happy owner of iPad, iPhone and Watch), I just don’t think I can trust MacBooks for heavy working and reliability anymore. Apple absolutely destroyed their Mac lines with exorbitant prices and subpar hardware. The GS65 has been working like a champ for me and it is as light as a MBP 15”. In summary, I highly recommend anyone to look elsewhere for high performance laptops at the moment.

Another: I switched back to Windows 2016 for my professional needs, just not enough performance and value with Apple these days. ROG GL703GS, i7 8750H, 32GB @ 2666, full GTX 1070, NVME & SSHD, holds 3.9GHz across all cores and never comes close to any throttle.

Was considering the new MacBook Air until the reveal - Microsoft's Surface Pro 6, i5 (8250U Quad Core) 8Gb RAM, 256 SSD, with keyboard is $1360 having both Pen & Touch input, Apple's new MacBook Air with a matched 256 SSD $1400, it's 2018 and the Air is just a basic notebook.

I appreciate the Air's design language, equally it's only a clamshell notebook. The Surface Pro 6 simply offers a great deal more utility & practicality. Air should be in the region of $1K in 2018, not $1400 for a reasonable spec...

Q-6

 

[Leo90]

Speaking of which are you sure you can even do that? As far as I know you could do that with the Pro but not the Air. So, the new Air will let you put in a fresh SSD and upgrade the RAM if you want?
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Thanks for sharing what must have been a difficult experience for you. I don't have those requirements (or the budget ;-) ) but I have in this zone of extreme ambivalence vis-a-vis Apple. The OS is great and the machines work well - so far. But I don't want to even have to think of any hardware failures (excluding the battery of course) and that's what has changed now.
To cut to the chase - long ago I had used Ubuntu on my Windows laptop for everything other than writing on MS Word. Do you think I should look at that option again?
And which laptop will you recommend now? The XPS?
Thanks!

I am not so sure whether I am the right person to indicate a particular windows laptop for you as I´ve used only Macs for the past 15 years, but I can try to help you as I just decided to try out a Windows laptop and for that I had to do a lot of research. What is your budget exactly? If you do not require a powerful discrete graphics card, I think any ThinkPad, XPS or Yoga would do wonders for you for a very good bang for the buck. If you need a lot of horsepower in a thin and lightweigh laptop, I would highly recommend the MSI GS65 (seriously I am loving this machine ), Razer Blade 15 and Gigabite Aero15X. Those devices can be very snappy and they have excellent build quality. Besides, they are totally upgradable and serviceable if you are tech savvy. By the way, I am using Ubuntu in dual boot on my MSI GS65 and the experience has been great so far! I use Windows exclusively for graphic intensive tasks like gaming, 3d modelling and video editing, whereas I use Ubuntu for writing documents (libre office and LaTex), regular browsing and mail.

 

[Nilhum]

So if the MacBook is no longer that reliable, why get another one? The air is a lot weaker than your current MacBook Pro and all you are getting is battery. Is there anything you need on Mac that you can't get on Windows? The Air will have keyboard problems because even the third gen 2018 macbooks have it.

You can get the base Surface Book 2 for 1300 in most places and it will give you signifiantly better perfomance, better keyboard, higher resolution screen, a touch screen with pen option, and great battery life as well. Plus you will have both USB C and USB A so no need for dongles.

 

[AMSOS]

I am not so sure whether I am the right person to indicate a particular windows laptop for you as I´ve used only Macs for the past 15 years, but I can try to help you as I just decided to try out a Windows laptop and for that I had to do a lot of research. What is your budget exactly? If you do not require a powerful discrete graphics card, I think any ThinkPad, XPS or Yoga would do wonders for you for a very good bang for the buck. If you need a lot of horsepower in a thin and lightweigh laptop, I would highly recommend the MSI GS65 (seriously I am loving this machine ), Razer Blade 15 and Gigabite Aero15X. Those devices can be very snappy and they have excellent build quality. Besides, they are totally upgradable and serviceable if you are tech savvy. By the way, I am using Ubuntu in dual boot on my MSI GS65 and the experience has been great so far! I use Windows exclusively for graphic intensive tasks like gaming, 3d modelling and video editing, whereas I use Ubuntu for writing documents (libre office and LaTex), regular browsing and mail.

Thanks for the detailed reply Leo90! I am a graduate student and busy writing. That is the main reason I had (sadly) left behind Ubuntu (with Windows) years ago. I wanted a reliable, hassle free, light laptop that would last me at least 4 years. My first MBP was that, and much more. But those are really my only requirements - writing on MS Word, youtube, lots of internet browsing, all day battery backup is crucial, and occasional photo editing (since I am an amateur photographer). I am willing to go up to $1000-1100, though I've spent more on Macs.

But here's where things get tricky -

-Earlier Windows would start to slow down within 6-8 months of heavy use, and need a fresh install soon after.

-The threat of viruses was always around.

-The batteries were no match for Apple, though XPS and the like are now, and worst of all the backup would start to go down significantly within 1-2 years of heavy use.

-The weight was heavy, though again this is not an issue now.

-There is also the issue of resale. My 3.5 year old base MBP is currently going for $450-550. I am guessing a similar specced XPS will not get more than $150.

So, at this point I am thinking that I could just get the old Air with the extended warranty and use it to tide over these changes at Apple for the next 3.5 years. At that point I can take a call and actually shift to a Windows/Ubuntu combination.
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So if the MacBook is no longer that reliable, why get another one? The air is a lot weaker than your current MacBook Pro and all you are getting is battery. Is there anything you need on Mac that you can't get on Windows? The Air will have keyboard problems because even the third gen 2018 macbooks have it.

You can get the base Surface Book 2 for 1300 in most places and it will give you signifiantly better perfomance, better keyboard, higher resolution screen, a touch screen with pen option, and great battery life as well. Plus you will have both USB C and USB A so no need for dongles.

Because things have still not deteriorated to a point where the decision becomes self-evident. The OS is still robust (for my purposes at least), the battery is among the best, and the weight/display are great too. The problem is with the pricing and the realisation that Apple is only interested in students who can pay $1150. I can even pay that, or more.

My MBP was $1450 with the 3 year warranty. But then the machine should last me not less than 5 years, with only the battery needing replacing.

What has come as a complete surprise to me and my friends is the realisation that practically speaking (reliability issues, cost of regular replacements) you will want to get a new Mac every 3.5 years or so. I can put in $400 in my machine now, but what happens if there is a component failure 6 months down the line? That reliability that let you confidently use the machine for years on end is all but gone now.

They want you to get a new machine every few years, and pay more and more for that. The competition meanwhile has caught up, and how!

 

[bigpoppamac31]

I’ve used OS X exclusively since 2004 and I’ve always hated Windows with all my soul, but after using my GS65 for a few days I gotta say Windows 10 is way less intrusive than XP used to be. It is a much more streamlined OS than it used to be. I still think macOS is superior but not by much like years ago. I also have Linux installed in dual boot and I use it a lot for light work, browsing and whenever I need my UNIX OS fix I use Windows for gaming and other graphic intensive tasks in AutoCAD and some video editing. I used to think exactly like you, but I realised that nowadays I am too focused on each program to care about the OS running behind as they all run fast and seamlessly. Besides, Apple is taking the piss with their Mac lines with obnoxious prices, reliability issues and horrendous “repair” business model. For instance, if I have an issue with battery, SSD or ram in the future I can just swap them myself and fix the problem. With macs, I have to rely exclusively on Apple repair programs and their crazy prices, no way! I love Apple and I am big fan of them since I got my very first iPod in 2002, but I feel they are screwing up their loyal customers big time with their new Mac pricing scheme.
Regarding iOS devices, I don’t have issues with repairability as they are extremely reliable! I only had one hardware issue with my iPhone in 10 years. iPad always worked great and Watch as well!

Agreed. Apple is screening over their loyal customers who stuck by them when Microsoft was kicking their ass in the 90’s. It’s kind of how I feel about WWE. Their product sucks now compared to the “attitude era” and even before that. By 2007 the product really went downhill. So sad.