Hi guys,

Im looking at getting a second hand MacBook Air and i currently have two options;

a mid 2013 MacBook Air 13-inch. 1.7GHz Core i7, 4GB RAM, 128GB HD (2nd hand)

or

the latest MacBook Air 13 inch 1.6GHz Core i5, 8GB RAM, 128GB HD for about RM1300 more (brand new in box).


Im mostly going to be using it for typing and researching but i would like to possibly run Civ 6 if the option is available to me. What will the difference in performance be between the two? Is it worth spending more money for the newer machine.??

PLEASE HELP.!!

Go for the latest MacBook Air with 8GB of RAM, else you may regret in future if you only go for 4GB RAM now..

The i5 processor should be enough for your needs, and its architecture is two-generations more advanced than the 2013 i7. Also, the i7 processor is only dual-core anyway so you would not be losing much by going with the i5.

For your 2nd option, is the warranty still applicable for 1 year since you mentioned that it is brand new in box? You can check this with the seller first by keying in the serial number to check on Apple's website.

As for your 1st option, the warranty has already finished, I presume?

This post has been edited by shockk: Mar 13 2017, 03:40 AM

The seller says the warranty is still applicable but yeah, ill probably ask to check first before committing.

For the 2nd option, the warranty is finished but the seller (a Mac repair business) is offering a 30 day warranty for the purchase.

But thanks for the advice. I am leaning towards the newer option but the i5 8GB RAM vs i7 4GB RAM was throwing me off.

Do let us know which model you went for in the end, and why.

Cheers and Happy Shopping!

This is sad and heart wrenching. If only the 2013 model was 8GB ram.

Well, i'm a highest spec 2013 MBA user since day-1 launched, and i strongly suggest u go for the last generation of MBA even with i5.

Thanks for the replies; im starting to lean towards the newer MBA but we'll see how it goes.

The seller of the newer MBA hasn't been replying any messages so chances are it's either no longer available or he may not have been seriously trying to sell it (new forum member and all that).

So we'll see. Thanks again for all the help.

air? better go for pro

hi- sorry to tumpang this thread. - on the Reliability perspective.

understand your choice and later preference of getting the 2017MBAir. Though may i ask,

since 2013MBA also was in consideration- does it mean that Mac is generally reliable?

i have a few laptop and desktop, most of them last only 2-3 years.
Even an HP Workstation desktop Z400 or something which was suppose to be more reliable, also die off despite I used it like less than 5 time permonth on average.
I am currently using Lenovo i5 ( not Thinkpad)- for about Rm 2000. Gosh... it is aweful. It is freaking slow to boot, open program like Chorme also take like 30 secs, and need to wait another 10sec before i could enter to the address bar. It is like 1 year old and i felt like wanna ditch it already. The hardware is probably good, perhaps window 10 and all the preloaded program is overloading the processor and RAM. It was 4GB ram, i just added another 4GB and only minimal improvement.

I am not a heavy user. Just some casual using office, do some simple video editing, web browsing and casual gaming.

It is just a hassle to transfer all the recovered/backed file to new laptop, as well as transfering the software licenses.

Am seriously considering to get the MBA- and regret i spent the 2k on the lenovo. Poor man pay twice, as they say.

any advice here- particularly on MBA reliability.

This post has been edited by Clueless07: Mar 20 2017, 08:33 AM

for me it's a big difference. i had a company-issued 2013 Dell laptop with core i5, and my 2008 macbook pro with core 2 duo still feels faster haha. and this was before i upgraded the MBP to SSD. after SSD upgrade, night and day

but yeah it's a huge difference comparing macs and baseline windows laptops. only recently do we get premium windows laptops that can rival the macbooks like Dell XPS and HP spectre series. so do consider those as well.

throw in a ssd and u see ur thinkpad blazing fast

btw im typing this on a 27" 2009 iMac Core 2 Duo

I think as the other two guys have mentioned, the difference is quite drastic. Although I will say i havent used a Windows machine since i swapped over 10 years ago and i really cant bring myself to go back. Just watching my office colleagues wait for their machines to boot up or load programs just feels like a nightmare compared to my Apple machine. Obviously, the big downside is price but at the end of the day, unless there is a massive hardware failure (literally; the logic board in my old MacBook failed after about 6 years and the only reason i didn't fix it was because it was so outdated that it was expensive to fix) the MacBooks just keep going.

I am using my 11inch MacBook Air 2013, still solid. Just bought another MBA 13inch last year

thanks and it is good to hear.
A rm 5k a mid range note book, vs a MBA...

i would thought MBA seems to have better reliability- not to mentioned, windows always seems to slow down after some time (personal experience)

Wel... anyway... as heard it Apple is phasing out Macbook air right? the latest launch is only MacBook and MBPro.

yeah, but i wouldnt wanna keep spending money on it.

good to hear ur iMAC still running.

Looking at what you are doing I think MacBook Air would be good enough. Try to buy it when they drop the price. I got my 13in last year when they dropped the price from RM4199 to 3799

Well, for me the reason i've jumped over to Mac is because i'm so tired of Windows crushes from time to time. Its costly for me to lose all my datas.

Reliability wise, my MBA haven't fail me, not even once since 2013.
Durability wise, i haven't shut down my MBA for once since unboxed back in 2013. All i do is close the lid of screen down to put it in Sleep(a.k.a Hibernating Mode in Windows) so i can get an instant boot up to Mac every single time i lifted the screen lid

I do light photoshops, once in a blue moon do a video editing for personal use and mostly doing office works. I preloaded Windows with Parallel Desktop as some of my office softwares only run in Windows. Still it is smooth.

Now you ask yourself if this is what you're looking for.