Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

bowlerman625

macrumors 68020
Jun 17, 2009
2,135
11
Chicago, IL area
The price is a good price. Many people will tell you here that 2GB of RAM will suit you fine depending on your needs. I bought one with 4GB but that was my preference. I don't regret that decision.
 

foiden

macrumors 6502a
Dec 13, 2008
809
13
$150 off the original price? Yep. That's pretty nice. When it comes to power vs. size and price, that pretty much competes directly with non-Apple stuff from Best Buy. And that's without anything as useful as a full version of iLife put on them.

Sure, still more than a netbook, but it feels better to use and is way more capable than one. Even with the internal 64GB limit. Fortunatelty, with a limited number of additional apps, you'll still have a decent number of GB left for everyday use. It just wont give you a lot to work with if you plan to run 2 operating systems on there. The growing size and shrinking prices of USB memory of course (including those really small mini-sticks), continually raises the value of the product. A good place to put installations.
 

KPOM

macrumors P6
Oct 23, 2010
18,311
8,325
I would not hesitate at all if it's intended as a second computer. My guess is that the reason the refurb store has so many (it hasn't sold out yet) is that they were purchased as gifts and returned by people who stepped up to models with more storage. 64GB is very tight for someone using it as a primary computer.
 

foiden

macrumors 6502a
Dec 13, 2008
809
13
True. I think a lot of people impulse bought it but had higher demands and returned them for larger models. I could even see a near future where the 128GB size will become the cheapest model. The smallest size, I'd suggest if you plan to have a versatile twin operating system machine that can run everything and have a low dependence on external USB memory. (Especially if you plan to do Steam-client stuff) However, if you are truly light in use, on both sides of the spectrum, you could get away with a dual operating system 64GB without resorting to externals.

It's what is under the hood that makes it hard for you to stick with just the 64GB. Due to its unusual abilities as a full-blown laptop that exceeds the usual general-use laptop, the temptation to do more with it is astounding. If the capabilities of how it runs things in OSX is impressive, it's just as impressive in Windows and Direct X.

Let me get this straight, this is not a gaming machine (or more so protection so people don't obviously jam such an obvious thing down my throat, even though I know it already) but for a unit as small, it's nearly a somewhat distant 2nd, in small-sized portables to the alienware machine (when activated in gaming mode). Even though it is definitely not *geared* for that, it's hard to ignore how it runs Dead Space, on high details, in native resolution, and manage to look great even if put side-by-side against an Xbox 360 or PS3.

The issue being that 320M, inside there, is a screamer which doesn't look too impressive on paper, but ends up shocking the heck out of you in actual practice. It wont place any records at all, but if you want the smallest and lightest netbook-sized machine likely capable of playing Blizzard's next famed dungeon crawler, when it comes out, (all without choking) you're looking at it. Sure, other machines, geared for gaming, will do better, but they wont disappear between two sheets of paper and still feel like you're just carrying a few sheets of paper, either.

-------
My take on it is.. The 11" Air is beautiful and brutal. Beautiful because it is designed to be the most elegant and easiest general purpose laptop to carry around and pack away. Brutal because it's also the ultra-portable that taunts capabilities far beyond the general-purpose moniker it's supposed to have. Other laptops with those intended purposes, show their limitations right away and help curb your intentions with their product. This one just makes you want to throw more at it because it seems to beg for it. You'll see.

Right out the box, it's not a heavy-lifting machine...but a (strangely balanced) medium-lifting machine. Almost makes me wonder if Apple accidentally hit on something. The trick is, people can't grasp what medium-lifting is in computer terms, so one will likely experiment to find that happy medium between the two loads. Perhaps the 64GB limitation of it is the main thing helping to root your expectations, unless the temptations take a hold of you and you start connecting USB devices outside the intentions of data transfer and backup. Because the moment you go 128GB or higher, you're probably gonna try to use it in a closer to primary machine status.
 
Last edited:

hcho3

macrumors 68030
May 13, 2010
2,783
0
Apple laptops have high resale values even after 2-3 years. I would highly recommend buying it as long as it fits your needs.
 

Jman14

macrumors 6502
Apr 17, 2008
342
9
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

hcho3 said:
Apple laptops have high resale values even after 2-3 years. I would highly recommend buying it as long as it fits your needs.

That's the good thing about Macs... buy a Windows laptop and you lose $300 instantly!
 

Abyssgh0st

macrumors 68000
Jan 12, 2009
1,888
9
Colorado
That's a great deal. Seeing as though how I could sell my current 11" MBA (totally stock, base model) that I bought new from Apple for $1027 the week they came out for approximately $900-950 now on eBay, a $77 investment is nothing for nearly four months of usage out of a laptop.
 

tom vilsack

macrumors 68000
Nov 20, 2010
1,880
63
ladner cdn
That's the good thing about Macs... buy a Windows laptop and you lose $300 instantly!

you mean the Acer Aspire One AO522 (amd,ati 6250) netbook i bought last week at bb for $267 is now worth -33 dollars ;-)

topic at hand...i wouldn't buy it...you just know your gonna wanna run lion on it one day...and if anything like all past osx...ram ram ram!!!
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.