Mac Air on sale this Friday, $100 off

[memike]

First I am not an Apple fan but need some advise.

My daughter is looking to get one when it goes on sale this Friday, but looking at the price, its way too expensive for what you get.

The 13 inch is priced at Bestbuy for for $1199

http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product/apple-apple-macbook-air-11-6-intel-core-i5-128-gb-laptop-english-mc969ll-a/10173232.aspx?path=d709bcf95284f3ca5fbed194ad8171b8en02

Is this good enough for university students?

MY MAIN CONCERN IS:
Is 128GB of storage enough for a university student? plus no CD/DVD drive.
Is flash storage or Mac Air reliable?

Any advise would be much appreciated.

 

[Cobster]

lol @ $100 off.

If it's not enough space for her, she can always pay for iCloud storage.

Why does she want the MacAir? Looks purrrdy and it's portable?
128G is decent storage as long as she's not downloading.

 

[splooge]

that's the school one for sure! these days you don't need a CD/DVD drive, any Apple component is very well engineered- hence the price premium (pc laptops estimated lifespan is 4 years, apple laptops 7 years) the flash storage is very reliable, much more shock proof than the best HDDrives. 128GB of storage isn't alot today if you keep movies on your HD, but there are many different cloud storage options that are much more portable than buying an external HDD.

I'm not of this demographic, but if I were- this would be the laptop I'd go for! everything on it is done right. not that it matters, but I use an iPad for portability and my (non-Apple) desktop pc is a $6000 workstation with an i7 980x. I use icloud, dropbox for everything between devices.

 

[Powershot]

The copycat windows based ultrabooks are the same price basically.. So if you want this form factor, you're just going to have to pay for it.

I wouldn't worry about lack of storage, and she should back up stuff to the cloud and usb drives.

 

[Berlin]

Mac Air on sale this Friday, $100 off ....

...yup, $100 off Macs, $50 off iPads, 10% off iPods this Friday.

At Staples ,and other retailers.

 

[larry]

i'm not checking but surely this is a joke. or an ad from 1995? 13" for $1199? seriously? how much is status worth? how about when she finds out that she can't run the programs that all her university friends are using? no optical drive? usb2? still? for that price? i wish i had your money.

 

[blackrock13]

i'm not checking but surely this is a joke. or an ad from 1995? 13" for $1199? seriously? how much is status worth? how about when she finds out that she can't run the programs that all her university friends are using? no optical drive? usb2? still? for that price? i wish i had your money.

That may have been a problem in the past, but not so much now. I've not heard anyone make that claim lately and I've asked. What program in particular are you thinking of?

 

[Radio_Shack]

i'm not checking but surely this is a joke. or an ad from 1995? 13" for $1199? seriously? how much is status worth? how about when she finds out that she can't run the programs that all her university friends are using? no optical drive? usb2? still? for that price? i wish i had your money.

First off, why make comments if you don't understand the powers of OSX. You can run any O/S under OSX, like Windowz if you have to. That way you can get to those programs too. I run VMWARE under OSX with My Macbook Air and with 4GB of memory it is overkill for most things. I have not ran into anything I couldn't do it so far. There is a learning curve to Mac technology but once you jump in you will be a Mchappy!

 

[Cobster]

First off, why make comments if you don't understand the powers of OSX. You can run any O/S under OSX, like Windowz if you have to. That way you can get to those programs too. I run VMWARE under OSX with My Macbook Air and with 4GB of memory it is overkill for most things. I have not ran into anything I couldn't do it so far. There is a learning curve to Mac technology but once you jump in you will be a Mchappy!

McHappy? McDonalds? lol

 

[larry]

First off, why make comments if you don't understand the powers of OSX. You can run any O/S under OSX, like Windowz if you have to. That way you can get to those programs too. I run VMWARE under OSX with My Macbook Air and with 4GB of memory it is overkill for most things. I have not ran into anything I couldn't do it so far. There is a learning curve to Mac technology but once you jump in you will be a Mchappy!

i presume to run windows, you'd have to buy a copy. ok. another 100 or more.

as another asked, what programs do you want to run that aren't on the mac? here's one: http://www.startrails.de/html/software.html , there's lots of others. now, a better question is what programs are on the mac that are not on windows? surely there must be a reason to spend more than you need to. functionality-wise, old story, windows machines are more capable and a lot cheaper. status-wise, macs are much higher.

i get it. sometimes i buy nice clothes too. but i don't say they're warmer. i say i buy them cause they look good. mac users seem to want to hide behind "you wouldn't understand. it's like...ummmm....magical".

 

[NiceShoes]

I am not sure if this matters to you but Apple is building a new ultra thin notebook and it will most likely be released in Q1 of next year. The new ultra thin notebook will be more powerful than current Macbook Airs. Anyway, I think $1199 for 13 inch Macbook Air is a good price for many reasons.

Unless your daughter has a lot of movie files then I think 128 GB should be enough. I have not used CD/DVD for ages, unless I need to rip some CDs or DVDs. Optical devices have little usage and take up too much space and they should be removed from notebook computers IMHO. SDD and mechanical HDD have its own pros and cons, and I have been using SSD for about 5 months and I love it because it's so fast.

 

[NiceShoes]

i presume to run windows, you'd have to buy a copy. ok. another 100 or more.

as another asked, what programs do you want to run that aren't on the mac? here's one: http://www.startrails.de/html/software.html , there's lots of others. now, a better question is what programs are on the mac that are not on windows? surely there must be a reason to spend more than you need to. functionality-wise, old story, windows machines are more capable and a lot cheaper. status-wise, macs are much higher.

i get it. sometimes i buy nice clothes too. but i don't say they're warmer. i say i buy them cause they look good. mac users seem to want to hide behind "you wouldn't understand. it's like...ummmm....magical".

In terms of functionality, Windows and OS X play catch up game. I have seen some scrubby people using Mac, and I didn't think that they were all that high status folks. IMO where OS X excels Windows is OS X offers extremely pleasant human interface interaction between input devices and a user. When I was young I did not really appreciate it, but now it has a HUGE affect on my daily computing. I am a Windows programmer and I know many Windows programmers who feel the same way and they all use Mac for that reason.

 

[larry]

actually, we've put the cart way in front of the horse. the primary question is "what does she want to do with it?" carry it around? take notes in lectures? do assignments in word or excel or ppt? play movies/mp3s? what's the budgetary constraints?

here, just the first notebook on canada computers site. it'll run rings around that mac-air in performance and capability. plus it's cheaper. there's lots more that are hundreds of dollars less with sufficient performance for university students 9depending what they're doing of course).
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=369&item_id=043051

now, for a girl in the arts program....mac air will buy some cred. if it were my daughter and i could afford it, in that situation, i would get her the mac air plus a huge monitor. for a guy in engineering, it would be a bad joke.

 

[b1icaj27]

For what it's worth , the company I work for gives employees a choice and our R&D engineers choose exclusively MAC portable's over Windows laptops. In addition all of the engineering coops that we hire come in with MAC's.

I don't actually know why, but there must be something engineers like about the MAC platform.

 

[onthebottom]

First I am not an Apple fan but need some advise.

My daughter is looking to get one when it goes on sale this Friday, but looking at the price, its way too expensive for what you get.

The 13 inch is priced at Bestbuy for for $1199

http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product/apple-apple-macbook-air-11-6-intel-core-i5-128-gb-laptop-english-mc969ll-a/10173232.aspx?path=d709bcf95284f3ca5fbed194ad8171b8en02

Is this good enough for university students?

MY MAIN CONCERN IS:
Is 128GB of storage enough for a university student? plus no CD/DVD drive.
Is flash storage or Mac Air reliable?

Any advise would be much appreciated.

You might want to consider a MacBook pro, depends on the program, if she's an art student (photoshop) you'll want an i7 otherwise the air will work great - no need for a DVD and the flash drive is very fast (mine cold boots in 9 seconds)

 

[onthebottom]

It's good enough for the chairman of HP:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/18/us-hp-lane-idUSTRE7AH2DK20111118

LOL

OTB

 

[blackrock13]

For what it's worth , the company I work for gives employees a choice and our R&D engineers choose exclusively MAC portable's over Windows laptops. In addition all of the engineering coops that we hire come in with MAC's.

I don't actually know why, but there must be something engineers like about the MAC platform.

Yet according to Pekkerhead and company these guys know nothing and are just brainwashed.

 

[larry]

Yet according to Pekkerhead and company these guys know nothing and are just brainwashed.

not me. if my company offered me a mac air, i would take one too. i could always do the heavy lifting with a desktop at home and for portability, it can't be beat except by a tablet. and it would be a conversation piece at meetings. doesn't make it the right choice for everyone. always depends on the purpose. without beating the dead horse too much, it's performance/cost ratio is askew.

 

[onthebottom]

Yet according to Pekkerhead and company these guys know nothing and are just brainwashed.

LOL

Add the chairman of HP to the brainwashed.....

OTB

 

[WoodPeckr]

Yet according to Pekkerhead and company these guys know nothing and are just brainwashed.

Not all.
Some are tech challenged or looking for the snob appeal.
And then some just like to follow the flock and jump into the iHole...