Received MBA refurb today

Sold my personal MBP 13" so I could buy the MBA. Due to the large price difference (MBA top end is $1700+tax), I bought a refurb of the same spec (latest gen, 1.8ghz, 256gb SSD).

Never been a fan of refurbished items before, but I figured with the 1 year warranty and option to extend it if I wanted to just like a new one, it couldn't hurt. So I ordered it last weekend for $1428+tax from the Apple Store online.

Picked it up today from a local Apple Store and I have to say, it's pristine. Looks like a new laptop, everything is spotless - well if you looked close enough you could see a SMALL bit of wear on the keyboard but the rest was immaculate. Even the rubber feet were new. Battery had 4 cycles on it, not bad. Overall, for almost $300 off, it was definitely a steal.

Just wish I knew the cycle count on the SSD.

Assuming it performs well over time, I think I'll always buy refurb from Apple now.

 

So you have two MBAs for work and personal or did you just separate work from personal with same product?

 

why did you retire the lenovos?

 

Maybe the Lenovos were old work computers. Then again, some of those models are not that old!

 

@shriek11: One for work, one personal. Identical models. Company policy restricts company equipment for company work only. As the I.T. Manager, while I might not have created this policy, I have to abide by it myself before pushing it on others.

@phomanny: The older ones are all work ones before I owned a personal computer. The first W520 I bought for myself as a personal laptop. Within the first month I realized I couldn't stand carrying it around - it was way to big. So I returned it to Lenovo and got the T420s.

I liked the T420s enough that I switched my work laptop to a T420s as well. But after a while, I got really sick of the poor display and I switched my personal one to an X220. Sold the personal T420s for the exact amount I bought it for. Bought the X220 with IPS.

Eventually I started doing a lot of VM work at work and I needed a more powerful computer. I moved the T420s off to another employee and picked up a fully loaded W520 for my work laptop. Eventually I bought an I.T. only server for my department and moved all VM work onto that. So while I had the W520 still, I no longer required its power.

So at this point, I have an X220 personal and W520 work. These were my last Thinkpad laptops. On the side I do some programming work, at night and on the weekends using my personal laptop (another reason to separate work and personal). Well, I wanted to start working on a couple app ideas for my iPhone/iPad. First I bought Snow Leopard and tried running it under VMWare. It ran like crap and I had to fight it the entire way.

Eventually I said f-it and went down to the Apple Store to look at some laptops. I didn't want to spend a lot so the 15/17 inch models were out. However I still had some higher end requirements as my Windows development environment included 4 VMs. So I picked the MBP 13" - but didn't buy it yet.

Sold my X220 a week later and picked up the MBP on Amazon. Loaded it up with 16GB of RAM (new) and swapped in my Crucial C300 256GB drive that I've had for the last year (moved through all my personal laptops). Worked great.

In fact I loved OS X so much that I decided to swap my work laptop for an Apple one - the first Apple laptop in the company (we're 100% Lenovo laptops, 80% desktops). So I passed my work W520 down to an engineer who needed a new laptop and picked up the MBA 13" fully loaded. I have trips to other countries this year so I wanted portable over power - plus all the VM work is moved to a server now.

The problem with the MBA is that it did everything I needed without any slowdown. The 4GB of RAM somehow was plenty for it to run a VM always in the background and all my software that I use on a daily basis. It was really impressive. Then the lightness and size of it... I never wanted to pull out my MBP at home.

So I looked at how I was doing Windows development, using the 4VMs and scaled it down to 1 at a time. Now I could fit my work on a MBA. Sold my MBP (without the RAM or SSD, just stock). Then picked up the MBA refurb (didn't want to spend $1700 on a personal laptop).

So now both are MBA laptops. Identical models but one is a refurb. If the licensing didn't cost so much, I'd probably offer more MacBooks at work. Unfortunately most users require Windows apps with no OS X alternative so you have to buy Office for OS X, VMWare Fusion, Windows 7 Pro on top of the laptop instead of just Office.

OS X does integrate completely with our Active Directory environment, and Safari logs me into our websites without prompting for an account just like IE on Windows. It's definitely very nice and I don't know if I'll ever return to Windows only laptops.

 

As an ex-Thinkpad user, I don't understand how you can get used to those flat, chiclet-style keys with no travel. I personally tried the MBA at BestBuy and although it was a great machine, I just can't imagine myself living with that kind of keyboard.

 

I've never minded the chiclet-style keyboards. Also the MBA keys do have travel. I'm not exactly fond of the flatness of the keys though but it doesn't really affect my typing.

 

I've been a very fast touch typist for the past 25 years. I've had my MBA 13 since August last year and I still can't type as fast as I could on it. There's something about the short travel keys that prevents me from typing at top speed on it. Nevertheless it is my favorite laptop I've ever owned.

 

After I got use to the keyboards, I can actually type faster on them... if your fingers don't learn new tricks well, it can be tougher...

 

Also coming from thinkpad laptops, I can say that I type quite a bit faster on my Macbook Air. Due to less travel it allows me to move my fingers from one key to the other much faster.

At first it was weird, but now I actually prefer the mac chiclet style keys.

 

I use apple and lenovo keyboards and I like the apple better. I find the apple keys require less force to press down, while my lenovo t500 feels like a workout when I type..

 

I suppose..

You would think so - less travel = quicker reaction time. Strangely it works the other way around for me

Again, opposite for me. I guess how a keyboard feels is totally personal. That may be what's causing me to type slower, the very light keystrokes. Makes it feel like I have to slow it down to prevent errors. My favorite keyboard is still the super loud and super heavy and indestructible IBM clicky keyboard from the 80's. Used them at my job to do data entry while in school. I was doing the same amount of work of 3 other gals COMBINED. Couldn't slack off, if my boss didn't hear me pounding on the keyboard she'd know I was napping LOL.

 

I definitely have to agree with the above post. With light chiclet-keys, I feel that I have to slow down a lot to avoid errors, and if I don't slow down, I make many mistakes. Somehow, I can's properly sync my typing speed with the keyboard, making me constantly speed up and slow down as I type thus slower reaction time. I grew up with desktops all my life, so I'm used to the clunky keyboards as well.

 

I don't find the flat keys or the travel that much of a problem... just the layout.

I miss the dedicated Hm/End/Pg keys that PCs have (and are now also turning into Fn+ keys).

 

I am also thinking of purchasing a refubrished laptop because of the price difference, but probably I can't, coz it won't be delivered soon in my country.