Since my previous post asked if that moment was the right time to buy a new, assumed to be Mac, laptop, this one will ask whether now or the next few weeks might be a good time to buy a previous generation MacBook Air or a soon to be previous generation MacBook Pro.
With the new MBAs now shipping, retailers including Apple, are discounting remaining stocks of old models. Here are two tech website articles on the topic:
macnn.com/articles/13/06/11/ … p.for.930/
macnn.com/articles/13/06/11/ … ow.as.749/
And this will get you to Apple’s refurbished MBA prices. Note discounts running as high as 33% for a 2011 model.
store.apple.com/us/browse/home/s … acbook_air
This link will get you the the refurb MacBook Pro prices, which run as high as 25% off.
store.apple.com/us/browse/home/s … acbook_pro
For the MBA, the new models seem to offer these pluses:
Much longer battery life, up to 12 hours.
Faster Flash drives if you have a lot of disk I/O
WiFi-AC, which is the future, and some new Bluetooth capabilities.
The negatives:
The computational power is about the same. A more powerful CPU is balanced by a slower clock to save battery power.
This is the early production run for the new model, so there may be glitches. Also, it’s not yet available in refurb, so no discounts.
That said, if you don’t need a longer battery life or faster disk access, you might get more bang for you buck with an older model. Just make sure you’re comparing equivalents. The base 11" in the old had 64 G of storage. The new base 11" has 128 G for the same price.
Also, you have fewer choices with refurb. Personally, I wouldn’t buy a new laptop with less than 8 G of memory. Only one of the current refurb MBAs has more than 4 G.
Me? Right now I’m planning to wait for the refurbs of the new model in a two or three months. I don’t have to upgrade my MacBook that quickly.
–Mike Perry