Macbook (spec me)

nas · 29 Sep 2014 at 17:12

I'm after a macbook air/pro, budget of around £700. Need abit of schooling on these as there are many variants (or so it appears). Windows user so have little experience with these.

Is £700 a sensible budget, is it worth stretching for a pro? (I will only be using this for browsing the net, word processing, spreadsheets etc and watching films etc)

How would the pro justify the extra expenditure with the above usage?

I've seen these, which would be the better buy here?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Apple-Mac...omputing_Apple_Laptops_ET&hash=item19f46b7c5e

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Apple-MacBo...ref=lh_ni_t?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2VPOIWO29LS62

Thanks

sbi5ar · 29 Sep 2014 at 17:44

1) Can you get access to the higher education discount? (as that is an automatic ~15% saving)

2) Wether the budget is sensible, depends on how big you want the SSD to be... 128 GB then yes, any more then no.

3) Have you tried looking on Apple's refurb website? (I believe they too have a ~15% discount applied)

Edit: Refurb website: http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/specialdeals/mac

Peerzy · 30 Sep 2014 at 10:24

For your usage, get an Air. Not only will it be cheaper but it'll be better suited to your needs.

dav3evans · 1 Oct 2014 at 10:10

Peerzy said:
For your usage, get an Air. Not only will it be cheaper but it'll be better suited to your needs.

+1 on this. From what you've said, you have no need for dedicated graphics, or even the Iris graphics, so that will be plenty fast enough and very easily portable too.

Super-Spy · 1 Oct 2014 at 10:43

Yes, given your usage the Air is the best option both in terms of cost and aesthetics/ergonomics.

Only spend the extra money for a pro if you are doing media productivity work such as photo or video editing. Most other functions such as browsing, word processing etc don't need much power.

Also, if you will only be string word docs etc and not pixel heavy photos, music or video, you won't need a particularly large SSD