Macbook Air Rev A - Good fit for my friend?

[thesmoth]

My buddy is looking into getting the macbook air Rev A on the refurb store for $1100 Canadian. It seems like a great deal and my feeling is that it will work well for him, but I wanted to see what everyone else things. I've read lots of threads about the Rev A and it seems like they had a lot of problems and needed a lot of repairs, and they were not very fast. The repairs thing doesn't seem like a huge problem if he has applecare because they will fix it, and who knows maybe even give him a Rev B if it has to get fixed multiple times.

He will be using it to browse the internet, ebay, email, etc... He may be watching some youtube videos and that sort of thing as well as some light office work, but nothing too processor intensive or graphics intensive. Will the Rev A be sufficient in speed for him or will he notice it being slow? What exactly is the Rev A NOT capable of (aside from games and heavy encoding work and video editing stuff).

The refurbished Rev B is $650 Canadian more (not even including tax) and for such a light user I can't seem to justify that extra cost.

What do you guys and gals think?

Ball out.

 

[DeuceDeuce]

My buddy is looking into getting the macbook air Rev A on the refurb store for $1100 Canadian. It seems like a great deal and my feeling is that it will work well for him, but I wanted to see what everyone else things. I've read lots of threads about the Rev A and it seems like they had a lot of problems and needed a lot of repairs, and they were not very fast. The repairs thing doesn't seem like a huge problem if he has applecare because they will fix it, and who knows maybe even give him a Rev B if it has to get fixed multiple times.

He will be using it to browse the internet, ebay, email, etc... He may be watching some youtube videos and that sort of thing as well as some light office work, but nothing too processor intensive or graphics intensive. Will the Rev A be sufficient in speed for him or will he notice it being slow? What exactly is the Rev A NOT capable of (aside from games and heavy encoding work and video editing stuff).

The refurbished Rev B is $650 Canadian more (not even including tax) and for such a light user I can't seem to justify that extra cost.

What do you guys and gals think?

Ball out.

Thats exactly what I use mine for and I LOVE it. The extra money isn't worth it unless he needs it. The Rev B seems like a much better machine from the many post on here of people who have owned both but if one is going to use it more like a netbook then why spend the extra money?

 

[andreab35]

Hello!

If you are looking to save some money, Rev. A won't be a bad choice in my opinion, except YouTube and other videos may cause the laptop to get pretty hot.

I have a Rev. B. It's an awesome laptop, best I've ever owned. For being a low spec laptop in Apple's product line, it's a speedy little thing!

If your friend is planning on using it basically for light work, some internet surfing, emailing, word processing, etc, I think he will be quite alright with a Rev. A. However, if he needs more HD space, he can move to a Rev. B which will offer him more HD space.

I wish you luck for your friend!

 

[zedsdead]

Listen, I love the air for its design and weight, but I would not buy one in its current condition. I currently am stuck with mine unless I decide to make yet another fuss over the Gray Line issue and try to get a Macbook Pro, but I highly advise waiting. The Air line is plagued with far too many problems, and I have encountered all of the major known issues (and then some): here is a list of my problems:

(1) Rev A, bought day one, dead pixels in the screen. = Apple replaced it
(2) Rev A, late Feb, 08, Hard Drive deleted itself and had no free space (this model also had some core shutdown and playback issues with Flash) = Apple replaced it.
(3) Rev A, march-april 09:
- Trackpad button scratched the bezel = Apple replaced the bezel
- Trackpad button got stuck in the down position = Apple replaced the button
- Macbook Air came back with a broken and lose hinge = Apple agreed to repair it, but I decided to wait because I needed the machine
- Last week, the Air got a bunch of flickering black lines on the left side of the display
- After 4+ hours both in store and on the phone, Apple agreed to replace the machine with a Rev B
(4) Rev B, last Thursday, had the gray line issue (I thought I was crazy until I looked it up) = Apple replaced it today, although the Genius' did not believe me.
(5) Rev B, present, has the Gray line issue, but it is less than the other one.

 

[mshaf]

I have a Rev A refurb with 80HDD and love it. No problems. My uses are very similar to your friends. I say save the money and get it. The Rev B is a superior computer and Scottsdale will come on here eventually and sing its praises above the Rev A but not everyone has an extra 650 to burn. It is a solid computer that is much much better than any netbook out there.

 

[jimboutilier]

I have a Rev A refurb with 80HDD and love it. No problems. My uses are very similar to your friends. I say save the money and get it. The Rev B is a superior computer and Scottsdale will come on here eventually and sing its praises above the Rev A but not everyone has an extra 650 to burn. It is a solid computer that is much much better than any netbook out there.

The MBA should be fine for the purposes stated.

I've used a MBA almost exclusively for most of a year for business and travel and have found it to be quite a capable machine. The best ultra-portable or thin and light notebook I've ever owned. Its not a desktop replacement for sure but its quite useable and its portability can more than compensate for its capacity limits.

There are reported issues but I'm not sure of how widespread they are other than they definitely don't impact all units. I know more folks that are happy than unhappy.

If you can live within the clearly stated specs (cause its unlikely you'll ever be able to improve upon them with replacement parts), this can be a fine machine.