Soldato
Looking to get a refurbished Macbook air for travelling and editing photos in Lightroom on the go any ideas what model I should get with a budget of £500.
Macbook Air for travel
- Thread starter bingham67
- Start date
The Macbook air is a pretty old machine these days, let alone anything refurbished/second hand. The CPU is the latest model is 5th gen i5 which is 3 generations behind now.
I really wouldn't recommend one for photo editing if you are serious because the screen is utter garbage and that is putting it politely.
I really wouldn't recommend one for photo editing if you are serious because the screen is utter garbage and that is putting it politely.
So what would you recommend?
For £500, honestly? Something running windows and use different software.
If it must be a Mac then it really depends on how serious you are about photo editing. Macs hold their value exceptionally well and they are very much a premium product so £500 really does not go very far. You only have the option of 3 machines but each has its own drawbacks.
The Macbook air makes a fine Facebook machine but it has some big drawbacks if you are doing 'proper work'. As I mentioned the screen is poor and is not colour accurate which is a problem for photo editing, the CPU is slow and at this budget could be a model with only 4gb of RAM (watch out for this). They are also pretty tight on storage.
If you not serious about photo editing for £500 you'll probably be able to pick up a 2015 Air second hand but you have to realise it will come with all the pitfalls of being second hand like the battery could be well on its way to being expired and the condition will vary and the machine is low spec. You will get a better brand new machine running Windows. If you want something that is 'refurbished' then you will be likely looking at an older machine.
If you are serious about photo editing then your only option is a new style Macbook or an older Macbook Pro.
New style Macbook is a very small and sleek machine but the main drawback is you will have to join #donglelife as it only has 1 Type C usb and the CPU isn't great but turbo's very high. I would take one over an air any day but I also think its out of budget.
MacBook Pro will be much older (2013?) but it will have the decent screen you need to edit photos properly but will likely have even more of the pitfalls of buying a second hand laptop (battery, condition etc).
Option C is to spend more money because £500.
If it must be a Mac then it really depends on how serious you are about photo editing. Macs hold their value exceptionally well and they are very much a premium product so £500 really does not go very far. You only have the option of 3 machines but each has its own drawbacks.
The Macbook air makes a fine Facebook machine but it has some big drawbacks if you are doing 'proper work'. As I mentioned the screen is poor and is not colour accurate which is a problem for photo editing, the CPU is slow and at this budget could be a model with only 4gb of RAM (watch out for this). They are also pretty tight on storage.
If you not serious about photo editing for £500 you'll probably be able to pick up a 2015 Air second hand but you have to realise it will come with all the pitfalls of being second hand like the battery could be well on its way to being expired and the condition will vary and the machine is low spec. You will get a better brand new machine running Windows. If you want something that is 'refurbished' then you will be likely looking at an older machine.
If you are serious about photo editing then your only option is a new style Macbook or an older Macbook Pro.
New style Macbook is a very small and sleek machine but the main drawback is you will have to join #donglelife as it only has 1 Type C usb and the CPU isn't great but turbo's very high. I would take one over an air any day but I also think its out of budget.
MacBook Pro will be much older (2013?) but it will have the decent screen you need to edit photos properly but will likely have even more of the pitfalls of buying a second hand laptop (battery, condition etc).
Option C is to spend more money because £500.