WWYD New MacBook Pro or New air or Discounted Old Air

[Dillon15s]

Title says it all , was going to buy a new laptop a couple months ago so I posted asking for some opinions but I decided to wait. I teach a couple night classes at a community college so basic internet use with Excel ( sheets) and PowerPoint. Along with lots of web surfing and videos. I come from a 2009 MacBook Pro that worked great until couple months ago. Now the time has come to decide, my options are all entry level sizes for SSD. Thanks for your input

New style MacBook Air 1199$
Old style Air on sale a local shop 786$
New MacBook Pro 1099$

 

[Westside guy]

To some degree it depends just how old the "old Air" is... but I'd lean that way just because of the keyboard. I really hate the new keyboards, even after giving myself a couple weeks to adjust.

The older Airs do have the non-Retina screens, which to some people is a deal breaker. I do like my Retina MacBook Pro, but I can't say that it bothers me all that much when I have to switch to something else (like my at-work 1920x1080 27" monitor).

In any case, I would be remiss not to mention Apple's own refurbished store, since purchases from there are eligible for AppleCare:

https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished/mac/macbook-air
[doublepost=1555448006][/doublepost]Oh wow, just saw the thread's post date... but for some reason it showed up for me as if it were a new thread. Oh well...

 

[pshufd]

You should be able to find an entry-level 2014 MacBook Pro for about $800.

 

[LogicalApex]

I don't like buying old tech unless it is heavily discounted and even then I limit that to no more than 1 generation behind. We are in as nice zone where mobile has become the industries priority so we're seeing traditional computing be performant for longer periods of time, but you still miss out on advancements that will age the device sooner. 30% is not a steep enough discount IMHO especially if the machine is severely older (like anything older than a 2016).

The differences aren't just "bad keyboard" or not. Older machines will generally have slower storage, slower processors, lack new processor instruction sets, etc.

But at the end of the day... No one here can make the choice for you. We all rate every attribute differently.