Is 800 euros a good price for a new air?

[cili0]

Hi all,

first of all sorry for my poor english!

I found in a store near home a macbook air mid 2009 for 880 euros. I think the price is so low because it is the last one they have (they also have a MBP 15'' with 9400 and C2D for 995).

Do you think it's a good idea to buy it ? i want to use itunes, check e-mail, write in word/pages, use power point / keynotes, chat with adium, use matlab/xcode/eclipse (last one in particular) use google docs. maybe XP via VMWare, without any sensible lag. And it must last at least for 2 years.

Up to know i used a netbook (Samsung NC10 with 10.6.2 and Windows 7) and although i appreciate the portability and the 5 hours of autonomy i'm tired of all its lag times here and there.

I was planning to buy the next revision of the MBP but this air is tempting me.

What's your opinion?

Thanks in advance,
cili0.

 

[kernkraft]

If it is a brand new model and it's not an open-box/showroom one, that is a very good deal!

Buy it, love it, enjoy it!

 

[cili0]

If it is a brand new model and it's not an open-box/showroom one, that is a very good deal!

Buy it, love it, enjoy it!

thanks for the reply.

The model is outside the box, but it has never been touched (it's in a showcase). The important point is:

will i waste money buying something that can't do what i need for the next few years (also preventing me from buying the next revision of the MBP 15'') or not ?

If i can do "pleasantly" what i listed before with this machine, i'm going to buy it now

thanks!
ciao!
cili0.

 

[matelot]

SSD or HDD ?

 

[jim4spam]

check also whether it will have the full apple warranty. you don't want to have an issue in say six months, and then find that apple say it's too old therefore can't have been purchased in sept 2010.

 

[pukifloyd]

Hi all,
first of all sorry for my poor english!

no problem

I found in a store near home a macbook air mid 2009 for 880 euros. I think the price is so low because it is the last one they have (they also have a MBP 15'' with 9400 and C2D for 995).

Do you think it's a good idea to buy it ? i want to use itunes, check e-mail, write in word/pages, use power point / keynotes, chat with adium, use matlab/xcode/eclipse (last one in particular) use google docs. maybe XP via VMWare, without any sensible lag. And it must last at least for 2 years.

Up to know i used a netbook (Samsung NC10 with 10.6.2 and Windows 7) and although i appreciate the portability and the 5 hours of autonomy i'm tired of all its lag times here and there.

I was planning to buy the next revision of the MBP but this air is tempting me.

What's your opinion?

Thanks in advance,
cili0.

I agree with other posters...check the warranty first.
If I were you, I'd get the macbook pro since its a lot better machine and very powerful. And its just 100 euro more. The unibody mbp is a great computer and is very lightweight too (as compared to other 15inch laptops out there). If portability is not an issue, than get the macbook pro (though the macbook pro is not unportable at all...people carry it all the time in their bags)

Take care.

 

[cili0]

no problem



I agree with other posters...check the warranty first.
If I were you, I'd get the macbook pro since its a lot better machine and very powerful. And its just 100 euro more. The unibody mbp is a great computer and is very lightweight too (as compared to other 15inch laptops out there). If portability is not an issue, than get the macbook pro (though the macbook pro is not unportable at all...people carry it all the time in their bags)

Take care.

thanks to all for the replies and the advice about the warranty.
The MBA is with the HDD 4200 rpm.

If i had to buy the MBP i would wait few months and take the new one. The problem is that i've an "elective affinity" with the MBA.

The main problem with my netbook is the screen dimension and the raw power of the processor, that is not enough to code in eclipse or xcode.

The thing that makes me more skeptic is the impossibility to upgrade the RAM, 2GB are the minimum amount of RAM to use OSX/W7 at a decent speed, but 10.7 / Windows 8 ? will 2GB be enough in the next couple of years ?

Thanks!
ciao!
cili0

 

[CuteBaby]

thanks to all for the replies and the advice about the warranty.
The MBA is with the HDD 4200 rpm.

If i had to buy the MBP i would wait few months and take the new one. The problem is that i've an "elective affinity" with the MBA.

The main problem with my netbook is the screen dimension and the raw power of the processor, that is not enough to code in eclipse or xcode.

The thing that makes me more skeptic is the impossibility to upgrade the RAM, 2GB are the minimum amount of RAM to use OSX/W7 at a decent speed, but 10.7 / Windows 8 ? will 2GB be enough in the next couple of years ?

Thanks!
ciao!
cili0

If you would like it to last a couple of years, then it would be better to consider the SSD model, and not the one with the 4200 rpm HDD, which is already quite slow today, let alone 2 years from now.

 

[cili0]

If you would like it to last a couple of years, then it would be better to consider the SSD model, and not the one with the 4200 rpm HDD, which is already quite slow today, let alone 2 years from now.

unfortunately the store only has this last model with the mechanical hard disk.

cheers!
cili0.

 

[Jayomat]

2gb is Not enough if you work with Eclipse with projects that have more than 10 classes and +1000 Lines of Code...anything below cannot Be called an Application anyway if you are serious abot Programming,avoid the air... gl

 

[cili0]

2gb is Not enough if you work with Eclipse with projects that have more than 10 classes and +1000 Lines of Code...anything below cannot Be called an Application anyway if you are serious abot Programming,avoid the air... gl

I mentioned eclipse because sometimes i've to code with Java Servlet / EJB with tomcat/struts/jboss/mysql for university (master of computer engineer).

Are the performances of th 4200 so bad with respect to 5200 ?

ciao!
cili0.

 

[flynz4]

I couldn't bring myself to own a laptop with a mechanical HDD anymore. Once you have switched, there is no going back. For most laptops, it is easy to replace the drive with an SSD. You have far fewer options with the MBA so I would only buy one with an SSD pre-installed.

/Jim

 

[CuteBaby]

Yup, because the MacBook Air's processors have not been updated for so long (compared to the other laptops), the only thing that keeps it decently fast today is the SSD. It is because of the SSD that the MacBook Air's speed is still not too shabby compared to today's MacBook Pros without SSDs.

 

[flynz4]

Yup, because the MacBook Air's processors have not been updated for so long (compared to the other laptops), the only thing that keeps it decently fast today is the SSD. It is because of the SSD that the MacBook Air's speed is still not too shabby compared to today's MacBook Pros without SSDs.

For most day to day things... the MBA w/SSD seems to be MUCH faster than MBPs with HDDs.

/Jim

 

[cili0]

so, even with this very discounted price, it seems that most of you are suggesting me not to buy it because of the 2GB of RAM and the presence of the HDD instead of the SDD.

thanks!
ciao!
cili0

 

[flynz4]

so, even with this very discounted price, it seems that most of you are suggesting me not to buy it because of the 2GB of RAM and the presence of the HDD instead of the SDD.

thanks!
ciao!
cili0

Assuming that you are not going to running Windows virtualization (Parallels or VMware)... then 2GB is sufficient for now, but not great. OTOH, I personally would not own any laptop without an SSD.

/Jim

 

[cili0]

today i've been to a media market store and stressed a bit a macbook air they have (2.13Ghz, SSD) by launching VLC, eclipse and opening some heavy presentation in keynote.

The system reacted well, but in the end i realized that the difference in resolution between my netbook and the air is not so noticeable, for instance in eclipse there's not enough room to split into two vertical panes the source view and work with two classes at the same time; or in google docs the chat window overlaps with the comments of the document. I would have the same disadvantages i experience daily with my current netbook.

Despite my love for the 13'' form factor and the air in particular, i finally decided i need a 15'', so i'm waiting for the next MBP revision (late 2010, hopefully ). Who knows, maybe they will also update the MBA with a better resolution and 4GB of RAM, in that case i will be back again

thanks to all for the advices and the replies!
cheers!
cili0.