Going from 13" MacBook Pro to 11" MacBook Air

pumaz

pumaz

pumaz

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I'm seriously considering selling my Mid 2010 13" MacBook Pro C2D 2.4GHz, 8GB memory, 500GB SSD with just under a years cover left and it's absolutely mint :)

I'm guessing I might get around £800 for it by maybe swapping out the 512GB Crucial M4 SSD for a 250GB HD and selling them both separate. Some advice on this would be welcome.

I'm eyeing up an 11" 2012 MacBook Air with i7, 8GB Memory, 256GB SSD, Applecare Uplift and £70 iTunes Credit on the HE Store (Son is at College) for £1233. I really want the smaller more portable size, not too bothered about battery life as long as i get 4 hours :)

Big question is do you think this is an upgrade in terms of power, will it play games better or worse than my current 2010 MacBook Pro (use Bootcamp/Windows 7 for games) I would ate to buy this only to find my games and emulators don't run as well!

Interested to hear opinions :)
 
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I wouldn't bother with the i7 upgrade. I had an Early 2011 i7 13" MBP and it was complete overkill. Any game also span the fans up to 7-8000RPM and it sounded like a jet engine.

I switched to a 2012 13" MBA i5 and I can barely notice the fans even when they do spin up. It's no gaming rig but it can handle quite a few games without much complaint.
 
This is exactly what I'm thinking of.

Any i5 MBA will be a step up in power from yours (from what I've read)

I also think you should reassess how much you expect for your pro. I have a 13in unibody macbook, boxed in good nick. 2.4 c2d, 8gb ram, nvidia 9400m graphics, so not million miles away from yours in reality and I'd expect 350 for it.

You can get i5 mbp from apple refurbished for less than 800.
 
Yeah, i sold a 15" with a 500GB hard drive, 2.8 C2D and that went for £650.

I would take the 500GB SSD out though as it won't sell as well with that in, in my opinion.

Your current at a guess has a 9400m in, the latest Intel 4000 is better.
 
I sold a 2008 Alu MacBook 2.4Ghz/4GB/500GB for £350 last November. It's essentially the same as your machine other than a Firewire port. That still had 6 months Applecare on it. It was worth £400, but it went for mate's rates.

I'd keep the old one to be honest.
 
Thanks for the input guys.

Interesting about i5 vs i7 is there any benchmarks that compare the two running games?

My MacBook Pro is the one with the Nvidia 320m IGP, I would take out the 500GB SSD and maybe get £250 for it and possibly £550 for my MacBook Pro with 8GB, 250GB HD and 10 months Applecare boxed as new. Looked at completed listings and Macs similar to mine seem to go for around £600. :)

Obviously would like to sell it on the forum but like as already been pointed out they go for peanuts!!! but I'm pretty confident I'll get £550 after fees on the bay (fingers crossed :)

@MagicBoy do you not think my machine being 2 years newer and having 8GB memory, Nvidia Graphics, Core 2 Duo instead of Core Duo and 10 months Applecare is not worth an extra £150?
 
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pumaz said:
@MagicBoy do you not think my machine being 2 years newer and having 8GB memory, Nvidia Graphics, Core 2 Duo instead of Core Duo and 10 months Applecare is not worth an extra £150?
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It's the same base machine as the one I sold. Core2Duo 2.4Ghz with an nVidia 9400M, same chassis, same chipset etc. Both can take 8GB RAM. Your later one has a few extra pixel shaders on the GPU and a Firewire port, otherwise it's identical. eBay prices on the whole tend to be higher than private classifieds, then again you get shafted on the new fees structure. I reckon it's worth £475 tops with the Applecare and the RAM.

As for i5 vs i7. It's the same CPU bar any obvious change on clockspeed and a bit of cache. The main extra feature is Hyperthreading which is pointless 99% of the time. HT and the cache will make a negligible difference when running games.
 
As for i5 vs i7. It's the same CPU bar any obvious change on clockspeed and a bit of cache. The main extra feature is Hyperthreading which is pointless 99% of the time. HT and the cache will make a negligible difference when running games.[/QUOTE]

What kind of performance increase should I expect to see going from 2.4Ghz C2D + NVidia 320m to i5 1.7GHz + HD4000. Also heard the HD4000 runs slower on a i5 than an i7 is this true?

the 11" Air would be a much better machine for my needs than my current MacBook mainly because of it's size but I'm worried it might not perform as well for gaming etc. mostly because of Nvidia v's Intel graphics.

Thanks
 
The mobile Intel processors do have HyperThreading, i5 or i7. The lack of HT only applies to the desktop models. This alone is why I never recommend an i7 with the notebooks. The i7 does have some extra features but you more than likely won't need them. Stick with the i5.

The performance increase you'll gain will be significant, depending really on what you do obviously. Don't use Geekbench as a measure of performance, benchmarks in general can be far too vague. The HD4000 will be nearly twice as fast as the 9400M.

The big issue with all these machines, as I'm sure you've experienced, is heat. They heat up and throttle pretty easily, and can be a real pain. This said, it will be better than your current machine in this respect too, so if you are having no issues there, the new one will be absolutely fine. Personally tried playing TF2 on my MBP while my iMac was away, and frankly it was unplayable, but then again it's a huge change.

I'd seriously reconsider the 11" vs the 13". I'm all for compact size, but very few find the 11" comfortable to use.
 
Just pulled the trigger and ordered a 11" MacBook Air i7, 8GB and 256GB SSD Came to £1185 on Apples HE Store :D Expected delivery between 12 -14 September. Time to sell my MacBook Pro etc.

I spent allot of time on Google today researching this Mac and it gets nothing but praise from nearly everyone and the only real negative seems to be that it's style hasn't changed! I went for the i7 for the fact it adds an extra 300MHz and 600MHz in Turbo and it will give it greater resale value when the time comes to sell. Also when spending this sort of money on a tiny little machine! what's an extra £100?

I went for the 11" because at the moment I have a 8.9" Netbook and a 13" MacBook Pro and I absolutely know this is the size for me :)

Btw guys I keep seeing my MacBook Pro's graphics referred to as the 9400M, I had the previous MacBook (2008) with that, This one however is the Nvidia 320m (2010) and is much better ;)
 
Is the HE price the same regardless of whether you are buying for uni or anything else? Just had a look and that spec comes to £1300, that's all.

Personally don't think it is at all worth the extra money, but hey, either way you get a great machine :) And why people complain about "old" designs I really don't know - it is still a lovely looking and well built machine, so what do people really expect!
 
lamboman said:
Is the HE price the same regardless of whether you are buying for uni or anything else? Just had a look and that spec comes to £1300, that's all.

Personally don't think it is at all worth the extra money, but hey, either way you get a great machine :) And why people complain about "old" designs I really don't know - it is still a lovely looking and well built machine, so what do people really expect!
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Yes mate it's the same price and you also get a £70 gift card for the App store etc. and free Applecare for 3 years, there is a link posted in the HE thread :)

I agree with you about the design and have still yet to see it bettered by any of these Ultrabooks! having said that it would also be nice to see Apple come up with a new design, (Black carbon maybe) as this will be my 3rd Mac following the same design in the last 4 years!

A couple of questions

I'm very confident I'll get £600 for my MacBook Pro on the Bay (done loads of research) However I would like to sell it on the forums for £550 simply because I'm not keen on Paypal. Do I stand a better chance of shifting it here or AV Forums?

I've bought Mountain Lion from the App store and will be getting Mountain Lion with my new MacBook Air. Am I entitled to sell the One I bought off the App store (Burn it to disk) with My MacBook Pro?

Thanks
 
The 13" stayed C2D until the early 2011 model. It fundamentally didn't change in two and a half years other than a bump of the graphics chip in mid-2010.

Apple couldn't fit a dedicated GPU into the 13" and indicated that the C2D + Nvidia 320M provided a better end user experience than the faster Arrandale processor and Intel integrated graphics. A number of the new technologies they were pushing in OS X like GCD and OpenCL wouldn't work on the Intel graphics. The HD 3000 graphics changed that, probably after Apple gave Intel an incentive to sort it!
 
Logsi said:
Really thought they axed the C2D models in 2010! :eek:

Was that the low end model of the time?
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No, If memory serves me correctly it was the high end Model with a 2GHz being the Low.

Still a fantastic machine, plays games like COD, CSS and Trackmania very well :)
 
Decided I'll try and sell it on here before the bay :

Keep checking tracking on the the MacBook Air but still saying "Processing Items 0 Dispatched: 1 - 3 business days Delivers 12 Sep, 2012 - 14 Sep, 2012" :(

Seems a long way off yet!
 
I only recently got rid of my Late 2008 Unibody which had the 2.8 C2D and 9600GT. Was a very capable machine still!

Hope you have more luck selling it on here than me. Had a load of interest and people always backed out at the last second.
 
Cheers Buddy, how did you sell yours in the end?

I'm still very happy with the performance of my MacBook and main reason I'm upgrading is size, The reason mine looks like new still is because it's never had the use it deserves (also look after my stuff!) but the new 11" Air and it's portability will see a massive amount more use :)
 
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