Old Macbook air worth it?

[gotsmartz]

Hi guys, I wanted a 13 inch really portable laptop for just taking notes and going on basic internet sites, nothing else. Someone is selling the 80gb harddrive original air for $650 in mint condition with an Applecare warranty until may 2011 and it comes with some extras. I'm not a power user and as a student I would rather go for that then pay $1300 for the new model. I could get the newer model if I save up but it doesn't seem worth it for what I need to do with it. Is $650 a good deal and is it worth it for my needs? Is it still a good laptop, what would you guys do?
THANKS SO MUCH IN ADVANCE!

 

[silverblack]

$650 is not bad, but I wouldn't say is a great deal. The problem with the Rev. A MBA is the very slow HDD, which makes everything sluggish. If you want to stick with MBA, you'd be better off spend a bit more ($100-200) looking for a Rev. B or C. Alternatively, go the other way to find a used Macbook for ~$500 or less.

 

[margib]

I just bought a 1.8 Rev A with 60GB SSD for $600 though which is much faster that the HD one you are looking at (no warranty though). Still, you would be paying at least 50% more at this price to get the 11" base so a good savings if it performs for you.

 

[Zackmd1]

Hi guys, I wanted a 13 inch really portable laptop for just taking notes and going on basic internet sites, nothing else. Someone is selling the 80gb harddrive original air for $650 in mint condition with an Applecare warranty until may 2011 and it comes with some extras. I'm not a power user and as a student I would rather go for that then pay $1300 for the new model. I could get the newer model if I save up but it doesn't seem worth it for what I need to do with it. Is $650 a good deal and is it worth it for my needs? Is it still a good laptop, what would you guys do?
THANKS SO MUCH IN ADVANCE!

Like silverback said the Rev A macbook air uses the same HDD in an ipod classic, very slow for day to day use. If you were to go for the $650 I would recommend buying a SSD. In my opinion though go for the new Air, GREAT USER EXPERIENCE vs any other laptop.

 

[gotsmartz]

I bought it, it is in mint condition and I'm loving it. I was considering the 32gb ssd upgrade because after selling the 80gb hdd I would just about break even, but this really doesn't seem slow. Firefox only takes a second to come up and it loads facebook seemingly just as fast as my core i7 desktop. Although I am loving it, is $650 a bad price for this? Was I ripped off? It also came with 2 cases, ilife 09, the osx 10.5 disks, and adapters.
thanks!

 

[Zackmd1]

I bought it, it is in mint condition and I'm loving it. I was considering the 32gb ssd upgrade because after selling the 80gb hdd I would just about break even, but this really doesn't seem slow. Firefox only takes a second to come up and it loads facebook seemingly just as fast as my core i7 desktop. Although I am loving it, is $650 a bad price for this? Was I ripped off? It also came with 2 cases, ilife 09, the max 10.5 disks, and adapters.
thanks!

$650 for a 2yr old macbook plus extras is very good. Glad it works for you.

 

[neteng101]

Doesn't seem that unreasonable given the extras, AppleCare and condition of it... enjoy it, and you can buy a better one in another year or two when something even better comes out.

 

[alan111]

I'm typing on my newly acquired MacBook Air Rev B 1.86ghz 128gb SSD that I bought locally for $775. I couldn't be happier.

By the way, any one know how to get this MacBook to boot from USB? Trying to get Windows 7 downloaded....

 

[Zackmd1]

I'm typing on my newly acquired MacBook Air Rev B 1.86ghz 128gb SSD that I bought locally for $775. I couldn't be happier.

By the way, any one know how to get this MacBook to boot from USB? Trying to get Windows 7 downloaded....

rEFIt will help. Thats what I used to install windows on my 2010 macbook air.

 

[Ace134blue]

Hi guys, I wanted a 13 inch really portable laptop for just taking notes and going on basic internet sites, nothing else. Someone is selling the 80gb harddrive original air for $650 in mint condition with an Applecare warranty until may 2011 and it comes with some extras. I'm not a power user and as a student I would rather go for that then pay $1300 for the new model. I could get the newer model if I save up but it doesn't seem worth it for what I need to do with it. Is $650 a good deal and is it worth it for my needs? Is it still a good laptop, what would you guys do?
THANKS SO MUCH IN ADVANCE!

Rev A. MBA sucks.

 

[hcho3]

Normally, I would say no. The thing is apple care is just another fancy word of calling it warranty. All the laptops do come with warranty anyway for 1 year.

650 is very vague price point. Glad you like it though.

 

[bowlerman625]

I'm glad to hear these numbers. I'm going to be selling my mint condition rev. C with SSD at some point. I was afraid there would be a lack of interest or low prices.

Plus I have almost 2 years left on the AppleCare policy on my rev. C unit.

 

[alan111]

rEFIt will help. Thats what I used to install windows on my 2010 macbook air.

Tried that ... Tried pretty much everything. The MacBook will not recognize the USB flash drive as a boot drive ... Under refit either.

 

[Zackmd1]

Tried that ... Tried pretty much everything. The MacBook will not recognize the USB flash drive as a boot drive ... Under refit either.

You sure the usb is bootable? I had that problem with it not being recognized and had to redo the usb stick and it worked like a charm! Fastest windows install ever, 5min start to finish. The only other thing I can say is try a firmware update.

 

[dgdosen]

Rev A. MBA sucks.

Agreed - Video performance is awful. A handicap. I could see paying that for a used rev c, but not rev a.

 

[gotsmartz]

is this because I got a bad deal or do you personally not like the laptop? i didn't see too many rev c ones for even close to this price range

 

[alan111]

You sure the usb is bootable? I had that problem with it not being recognized and had to redo the usb stick and it worked like a charm! Fastest windows install ever, 5min start to finish. The only other thing I can say is try a firmware update.

The USB stick is bootable in all my other PC's. Is there something specific that I need to do for the Mac?

 

[jimboutilier]

is this because I got a bad deal or do you personally not like the laptop? i didn't see too many rev c ones for even close to this price range

Don't worry, you got a pretty good deal price wise. There are many RevA haters out there (many of which never owned one). It was never a cpu or graphics speed demon and its memory and hd space limited some. Some had overheating or hinge issues. It was a machine people tended to love or hate.

When I got my MBA RevA it was my favorite Mac ever. Never had a lick of trouble with it. I had a hard time living with the storage space and speed limitations though. Each new MBA seems to get better and better for the most part so the most recent one you can afford is likely the best, but whatever you are happy with is the main thing.

 

[TheAllStar]

Don't worry, you got a pretty good deal price wise. There are many RevA haters out there (many of which never owned one). It was never a cpu or graphics speed demon and its memory and hd space limited some. Some had overheating or hinge issues. It was a machine people tended to love or hate.

When I got my MBA RevA it was my favorite Mac ever. Never had a lick of trouble with it. I had a hard time living with the storage space and speed limitations though. Each new MBA seems to get better and better for the most part so the most recent one you can afford is likely the best, but whatever you are happy with is the main thing.

Agreed. I bought a refurbished revision C and LOVE it. I don't do video editing or anything very RAM or CPU intensive, and actually like the styling more than the new ones.

 

[cleric]

Regardless of what you do the new macbook air is so much better and I base that on a few simple things.

• Airflow (having the vent in a place that setting down the laptop doesn't block it)
• Battery
• Instant On/Deep Sleep Mode

It would be very hard to get me to go back to my old Rev B. even though the performance for most things is negligible the new ssd is quite a bit faster though. I absolutely love the battery life and the new deep sleep mode.

 

[Zackmd1]

The USB stick is bootable in all my other PC's. Is there something specific that I need to do for the Mac?

As far as I know there isn't anything that hast to be done differently.http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-31012_7-20020513-10355804.html
This is the guide I followed to install windows on my air so it might help for you.

 

[Scottsdale]

I wouldn't want to be stuck with a 4200rpm HDD in an original MBA.

The way to make it work for you is to upgrade the drive to a Renice SSD. For less than $200 you can make it feel like a v 2,1 MBA. Actually I think the least expensive Renice is $120 or something. I think it's like $199 for a 64GB Renice SSD, or $369 for a 128GB SSD which is more storage than it shipped with originally. It's a better SSD than the Photofast or Runcore also.

I got a free original MBA, and I wanted to make it usable, so I put a Renice SSD in it. The controller used in it makes it so much better than even the stock SSD... but it's 10x faster than a 4200rpm HDD. I actually wrote a review about the Renice SSD that you can find here in the MBA forum.

I wouldn't want to spend $650 on an MBA with a 4200rpm HDD, as there are so many better MBAs for just a little more money. If you could get an original for under $400, you could put a Renice SSD in it and be out $600 total and have a much nicer MBA. In addition, the original MBA has the best displays of all of the first three MBA versions. With CoolBook it also is pretty capable and a lot better than it was when it came out.

 

[gotsmartz]

So did I get ripped? How on earth are you guys getting these for like $400? I searched forever just to find one under $800 lol. And what do you mean by usable? This seems pretty usable to me. Like did yours not work at all?

 

[silverblack]

I saw a authorized Apple seller (not Apple store) selling a based model Rev A MBA a couple weeks ago for $700+tax. However if you were to trade it in, the store will only give you $400-500. So what you paid was an OK price, not great, but didn't get ripped off either.

But I agreed with Scottsdale (which I also stated in my previous message) that you could probably get a Rev b MBA for $100-200 more, which is a much faster machine than the Rev a.

 

[jimboutilier]

So did I get ripped? How on earth are you guys getting these for like $400? I searched forever just to find one under $800 lol. And what do you mean by usable? This seems pretty usable to me. Like did yours not work at all?

Take note of the "if you could get". In the condition and with the extra you did fine. Also "useable" is relative and refers to performance doing certain tasks.

The RevA was a little slow to load programs. Get XSlimmer and it will save space and improve load time. It was a pretty poor flash player but the latest revision runs better and a flash blocker like click to flash will keep your temps down and fans quiet when possible. VLC plays video more efficiently than most players so use it where possible. Try and avoid multiple heavy disk tasks at once as one heavy task like a backup or DVD rip will impact the performance of other apps.

You have a really portable machine that is usable all day long. It will work great within it's bounds but when you push those you will have to find ways to mitigate it's limits or will find it less "useable". Some folks were not a good fit with these limits and did not find it useable in terms of performance or capacity. Not everyone was like that but most of us learned a few tricks and tips to deal with these issues. If you are happy, never mind what anyone else says. If some things are bothering you, folks likely have some helpful hints like I shared.