Hi, I am studying an education degree on a full-time basis. My Lenovo laptop is on the verge of dying. Before this one, I had an Acer and an HP and both had short life spans. I don't know why this is considering I look after my stuff!. I noticed that most students at my university have MacBooks for reliability. I have checked the education price for this laptop from Apple and it comes out at $1,279.00. The RRP price is $1,399.00! Is this laptop worth the money? I will be studying for another 2 years and would hope it would last longer than this! Has anyone seen this for a better price anywhere? Thanks for reading.
MacBook Air 13" for University Studies
AussieDolphin on 15/08/2015 - 08:40
Comments
The 13" 128GB model was $1074 a few weeks ago, defintely worth it
Was this from the Apple store Zelda707? I haven't been able to find it cheaper than $1,279.00 :(.
I noticed that most students at my university have MacBooks for reliability.
You noticed most students have macbooks, but it's not for reliability ;)
Yes, it could also be for the toughness, performance, battery life and resale value.
more likely just because other have them and the looks, like how most people buy most electronic equipment.
Not me, I had an Edge E320 with Core i5 / 4GB RAM that lasted me through uni for 2.5 years.
Bought it for $520 ish (came with a free portable drive) and then sold it for $400. It's like a hundred dollar depreciation.
That's pretty damn good resale value for a non-Apple machine.
It certainly is. But I think it's more down to your ability to source that model for $520. Was that the typical street price at the time???
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/49889
was a Sandy Bridge era laptop. Prices of laptops then is very different from now. 400 back then got would get you a Core i3! Now you most you would get Pentium N3000 series, due to inflation and high US$
You can look at the certified refurbished ones (http://www.apple.com/au/shop/browse/home/specialdeals/mac) if you want a good deal (no 13" MBA's at the moment though)
That being said, I'm using the same MacBook Pro for the past 6 years (have changed the battery twice and upgraded the RAM) and it's a practically been used every single day since then.
It has exceeded all previously laptops I've owned (a Toshiba and an Acer) both which lasted 3 years. Other friends around the same time period (~9 years ago) also had about 3 year life spans from other brands (Fujitsu, Dell, Lenovo). I know of at least 3 other Apple laptops which are older than my MBP (2 MacBooks and a G3 powerbook) that are still working.
But that also said, my first generation Acer Netbook is still running fine and dandy after 7+ years, though it hasn't really been used as much ever since I got the MBP. Very anecdotal evidence,as I've heard of Apple motherboards dying as well with the cost of replacement being ~$700.
But one thing I can tell you, with Mac products running OSX, you'll really enjoy the battery life.
Also you may want to check out Laptop Mag's "Best & Worst Laptop Brands" (http://blog.laptopmag.com/laptop-brand-ratings) which they have been doing yearly for the past several years
Dell, HP, Lenovo, Acer and Toshiba all have their cheap plastic models and their better quality models that are as good as Apple. But their good ones are usually just as expensive as the equivalent Mac.
If you want something tough with good service behind it, I recommend Dell Latitude 5000 series. You can get a great refurb for less than $1000 from the Dell Outlet. Get a three year onsite warranty for convenience unless you happen to live near Dell service centre.
If you also want great performance battery life, keyboard, trackpad, weight and resale value, wait for a macbook Air refurb to appear.
The Air is a bargain even at full price, it is a great computer. It is fast, super portable, has amazing battery life, and will do everything you want and more. The single drawback is the screen which isn't up to current standards.
lol how can u call something full price a bargain?
it's not a bargain, you can call it good value though
Dell XPS 13 from Dell outlet is $1200 for a refurbished 12 mnth warranty
Sadly Windows 10 is no better that 7 or 8 in terms of handling these ultra hi res displays. Check that your favourite apps render well before getting this Dell.
at that price, it's only for the 1080 display anyway. not UHD
i'm studying compsci at uni and brought a 13" macbook air 3 weeks ago.
macbooks generally (depending on how you treat them) are usable for longer than a windows machine (apple supports legacy machines for ages) and hold value better. software on kmac is getting comparable to windows (the new version of office for an example is a massive improvement) and if you desperately need windows for something you can dual boot (but space may be an issue on the 128Gb versions