Refurbished Air vs Pro help

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Hi,
My partner wants to make her first mac purchase but is unsure if she should get an Air or a Pro.
There are 2 on the Apple site that are refurbished models and they are -

Refurbished 13.3-inch MacBook Pro 2.5GHz Dual-core Intel i5 £849.00
or
Refurbished 13.3-inch MacBook Air 1.3GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 £799.00

She will be mainly using it for occasional browsing and light photo editing.
Can anyone offer pros and cons for which one?

She may also consider buying the latest Air if it will be better that the 2 models above.
Thanks,
Al
 

Raz0rEdge

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For the price difference between these two, I'd recommend the Pro. The Air is a capable machine but the Pro gets you better performance for a small price bump. The Air also is not upgradable at all, it comes with what it comes with. The Pro can be upgraded a little..

Please post the other specs (RAM, HDD) as well for better comparisons..
 

bobtomay

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Think the main key for those uses between the MBA and the low end MBP is going to be:

Where will she use it? Will it be sitting on a desk or her lap the majority of the time?
If on her lap, imho, the MBA is a killer machine for that.
The wife has a 13" MBP - I much prefer using the MBA sitting in the recliner in front of the TV.

Def do not buy the MBA with 2 GB RAM (it is not upgradable).

With Mavericks, it appears that 4 GB RAM is doable.
At least I have not had to use my 'Free Memory' app once since the 10.9 upgrade on my MBA.

Need to consider the drive size in the Air and make sure it's going to be adequate for what she'll want to store locally on the machine.
 
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Think the main key for those uses between the MBA and the low end MBP is going to be:

Where will she use it? Will it be sitting on a desk or her lap the majority of the time?
If on her lap, imho, the MBA is a killer machine for that.
The wife has a 13" MBP - I much prefer using the MBA sitting in the recliner in front of the TV.

Def do not buy the MBA with 2 GB RAM (it is not upgradable).

With Mavericks, it appears that 4 GB RAM is doable.
At least I have not had to use my 'Free Memory' app once since the 10.9 upgrade on my MBA.

Need to consider the drive size in the Air and make sure it's going to be adequate for what she'll want to store locally on the machine.


Hi,
Thanks for the post.
The one we are interested in is this for £799

Refurbished 13.3-inch MacBook Air 1.3GHz dual-core Intel Core i5
£799.00
Add to Basket
more options
Originally released June 2013
13.3-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen display, 1440x900 resolution
4GB memory
128GB flash storage1
720p FaceTime HD camera
Intel HD Graphics 5000

Is this one upgradeable as far as ram is concerned?
Cheers,
Al
 

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bobtomay

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I'd say that's a nice MBA for the price.
As I noted above - 4 GB RAM is not nearly the issue with 10.9 as it was with 10.8 and should be ok with the primary uses. Only have 4 GB in mine and it's been fairly rare I've seen it under 1 GB free with 10.9 vs the <100 MB free almost every day under 10.7 & 10.8.

I'd take a look at whatever computer she's using now and check to see how much space she's using currently to get an idea if 128 GB drive will be large enough or if she'll need an external to keep some data on.

In any case, budget the money for an external drive if you don't already have one available at the same time you buy the computer - and get in the habit of backing it up.
 
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I'd say that's a nice MBA for the price.
As I noted above - 4 GB RAM is not nearly the issue with 10.9 as it was with 10.8 and should be ok with the primary uses. Only have 4 GB in mine and it's been fairly rare I've seen it under 1 GB free with 10.9 vs the <100 MB free almost every day under 10.7 & 10.8.

I'd take a look at whatever computer she's using now and check to see how much space she's using currently to get an idea if 128 GB drive will be large enough or if she'll need an external to keep some data on.

In any case, budget the money for an external drive if you don't already have one available at the same time you buy the computer - and get in the habit of backing it up.

Thanks mate.
She will only be browsing (shopping!!) etc, and at present she has a Dell laptop which is old and has 1gb of ram and and is only 90gb which she doesn't use!
I have externals we can use too.
But all that said, if she was to pay the extra £150 and get a new Haswell one she will probably be better off in the long run?
 

bobtomay

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Newer hardware will probably have a longer life, but sounds like she is similar to my wife in her computer uses. Since switching to a Mac 7 years ago she's using less than 50 GB space and her first Mac was still doing what she wanted - just got her a new one only because she would have been 2 versions of OS X behind and I didn't want to have to continue supporting an OS different than what I am using.
 
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Newer hardware will probably have a longer life, but sounds like she is similar to my wife in her computer uses. Since switching to a Mac 7 years ago she's using less than 50 GB space and her first Mac was still doing what she wanted - just got her a new one only because she would have been 2 versions of OS X behind and I didn't want to have to continue supporting an OS different than what I am using.

seconded..

personally i have found the i5 chip (and i3) to be super-wimpy.

i'd roll with an older (a la used) system before a new Air with an i5...

Get an 09/10 macbook Pro 13 - - far less $ and you'll have way more machine....
 

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