Refurbished MB air question

Hello,

Apple canada site has the refurbished Macbook air rev. A base model for CAD$1099, I am very interested in ordering the MB air for my wife, had bought the dell mini 9 from bestbuy, but I know that she'd perfer the MB air much more. However, I never had a Mac before so I really have a few questions before pulling the trigger,

1.I read some overheating issue about Rev. A Macbook air, how common is this problem, does it applies for these apple refurbish MB air product and does apple solved this problem? This is really my major concern about this product.

2. I am abit flexible in buying time, will there likely be any better options/price for MB air if I wait till back-to-school time? I know that I can get a new macbook w/ educational discount and got an ipod touch for free (after MIR), but is that usually a better deal than refurbished product? does apple offer any discount on refurbished product at back to school time?

2. I most likely have to run window besides OS-X because I have softwares for windows but not Macs, I know I can run windows through bootcamp, but any known bugs of XP and vista I need to aware of?

4. Is that worth to pay $250 extra for the 64GB SSD version, I am a bit of worried about the speed of the 4200rpm (more than the CPU or graphics), how much difference does it make in real life?


Thanks very much,

 

Don't cheap out when it comes to your wife. Get the REv B Air.

 

If she's gonna use Windows most of the time, she's gonna be happier with a Windows machine.

 

Thanks for the advice. That is a good one.

I would love to get Rev. B but it is almost twice the price (the Rev. A is already 4 times of the price of dell mini 9) , my wife is not so picky about performance (she will mainly doing office work, writing papers on it) but she likes the form factor of MB air, if there is no problem with Rev. A air, I think she would be happy no matter it is the Rev. A or Rev. B air

 

Good call. Yes, the rev. B MBA will be a whole lot better, and comparable to the MB in terms of components such as GPU, SATA HDD, DDR3 RAM, etc. It will be more powerful, and worth the extra money for the machine, and your wife. That is, if your not on an extremely tight budget.

 

Thanks all for the Rev. B recommendations. Man, I almost want to buy the Rev. B one, but back to reality, the cheapest of Rev. B option is buy a new base model with eduation discount, which is CAD$1900 while Rev. A refurbished can be had for $1099, that is $800 difference. I understand the performance difference, but $1099 + tax is already streching my bugget (considering we almost set down on a $300 dell mini 9 first)

 

Yeah, well there's nothing wrong with compromising for a budget. Sorry for making the Rev. A seem lousy, or a bad purchase. It really isn't, it's a great computer, and can handle many things you throw at it. I'm sure you'll be just happy with the rev. A MBA.

 

I'm in the same position as you. I'd much prefer the rev B, but I can't even come close to affording it. So, rev A is it.

 

Personally I would wait if possible and save for the Rev B, with all of the problems with the rev a it's not really worth it. Core shutdowns and downclocking of the CPU it can be a hastle. Then again I am a fan of youtube so that's where my issue lies with it. My wife only uses word processing and browsing so has no issues with it. So if your wife has similar interests you should be fine.

 

And they don't offer the student discount or the free iPod promo with the refurbished products.

 

Why buy the air? compared to the mini 9 its a super high end computer, so of course it costs more... but if you really want the power of the Air you should just forget the Air and get the standard 13" Macbook... basically its almost exactly the same size, just thicker.... the Macbook is about a half a centimeter thicker than the air, with the same width and depth, and many more features... its 2.04kg instead of 1.36kg ... with all the extra features of the Macbook over the Macbook Air, and that its much cheaper.. I don't get why anyone really buys the Air... that much extra money for a less powerful machine that is just 0.5cm thinner?

 

Thanks all for answering my questions. I returned my mini 9 yesterday. Called apple today trying to ask whether the printer promotion works with refurbished macbook air, ended up placing my order over the phone. I bought the HDD model with the MX-300 printer (the printer is free after $100 rebate, but the printer only sells $43 at local stores) and hope I won't regret did not spend $250 more for the SDD.

The price difference is too much to stretch for Rev. B. Anyway, I am crossing-finger and waiting for the Macbook air, this will be our (me and my wife)'s first Mac, let's see how it works out.

PS: I have considered the regular unibody macbook, it is actually $100 more expensive than the Rev. A air, but for my wife's use, I know she will prefer the form factor and maybe the better screen, keyboard more than the performance difference, optical drive and more ports. Plus, I don't think the performance difference is like night and day. My only concern is just the overheating issue, I read many of the problem but many people bought the refurbished also claims no problems with theirs, so I hope I got one of the no problem one.

 

^apple has great costumer service,so they ll repair/replace your notebook if it appear to be problematic.