I suppose this will be a marmite listing: the Mac-lovers will love it and think it is a bargain, the Mac-haters will hate it and think it over-priced. As the owner of an iPhone and two iPads I'm firmly from the Mac-hater tribe, they are ridiculously over-priced for what they are and rely on proprietary bits to work with many other devices, so I'm voting cold on this one. I can see that many will be attracted by £50 off the sticker price though (my only issue is that the sticker price is far too high to start with).
Alan

Good deal, but for £10 more go for the model with 8GB memory, direct from Apple.
Ok its a refurb, but I've bought Apple refurb before and its just as good as new, usually a customer return within their (14 day?) cooling off period, and then re-wrapped in new packaging like new with 12 months warranty.
http://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/G0RH0B/A/refurbished-133-inch-macbook-air-16ghz-dual-core-intel-core-i5

hot

​Hot from me.

Great deal!!

Will the O2 priority "£30 off £400" spend also work instore? Amazing if it does!

I suppose this will be a marmite listing: the Mac-lovers will love it and think it is a bargain, the Mac-haters will hate it and think it over-priced. As the owner of an iPhone and two iPads I'm firmly from the Mac-hater tribe, they are ridiculously over-priced for what they are and rely on proprietary bits to work with many other devices, so I'm voting cold on this one. I can see that many will be attracted by £50 off the sticker price though (my only issue is that the sticker price is far too high to start with).
Alan

A good device for people with certain needs - I looked myself but it lacked a couple of features I needed (I got an x260 - better battery life by miles, built-in mobile) and I didn't pay much more than this due to ed discount.

On the Merritt of the offer, I'd say poor. £50 off some thing costing £699. I'd offer a guide figure of 7%

And this is hot because?

cold. old model 4gb, as now new model is 8gb. also internal logic board is now one peice, so don't get it wet as it will be a right off. also no future up grade ability.

4gb ram may not be enough. Can't be upgraded and future OS upgrades will suck the hell out of 4gb

Apple: Modern-day masters of planned obsolescence

Don't worry: Apple will charge you £150 to upgrade it :wink:

I don't like the wasted space next to the screen just looks like it could have supported a bigger screen for the size it takes up, the new macbook gets my vote, I think the macbook air is going to be discontinued later this year.

Price wise if you can use the o2 code then this is a good value starter to a macbook

It has £100 off the original RRP and then £50 off after that, so a £150 saving on the new model. For that you have a generation older processor and 4GB less RAM, not great, not awful.

Good deal, but for £10 more go for the model with 8GB memory, direct from Apple.
Ok its a refurb, but I've bought Apple refurb before and its just as good as new, usually a customer return within their (14 day?) cooling off period, and then re-wrapped in new packaging like new with 12 months warranty.
http://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/G0RH0B/A/refurbished-133-inch-macbook-air-16ghz-dual-core-intel-core-i5

listen, i've got a macbook and barely even use it for its purpose and its a thing of beauty.

great aesthetics/quality, i much prefer it over a windows based laptop which are generally of horrendous quality!!

Clearly never used a ThinkPad

​Wow so the new one is water proof, this past me by, wonder who's technology they "burrowed" for that?

​"absurd Apple price" I think you'll find that the word "absurd" is not needed in this case, just use "Apple price", and we'll know what you mean :wink:

My guess would be that's what he was looking at when he came up with the opinion!

Thanks for the one sensible post in a sea of dislikes.
As a PC user all my life, will I notice such a shock if I buy a Macbook?
I like the build quality and aesthetics compared to most PCs, I use a Thinkpad for work and Dell XPS at home. I don't mind PCs but it doesn't have the long lasting build quiality.

Fickle mind I guess...

"the Mac-haters will hate it and think it over-priced"- I myself is not a Mac/Apple user, but I think the hate of most "Mac-hater" are hating toward the overprice, rather than the products themselves (if others were like me). It's like the Beats headphones (which now also owned by Apple)...that are competent products, but it's a joke that the they cost like £100+ more comparing to other big brands such as Sony, Sennheiser heaphones that are on par or a bit better in performance.

Most people buying Apple and Beats are more like buying into a fashion product, rather than spending the money toward actual performance and practicality. Also people that think MacBooks are "better quality" than Windows Ultrabook etc they are kidding themselves...as MacBooks are just Foxconn parts wrapped in shiny "Aluminium wrapper/cover". When Foxconn use to make motherboard, they weren't even up there competing with the likes of top dogs Asus and Gigabyte...the only reason why Apple using them is most likely they cost lower than the alternatives, and is able to deliver "acceptable" quality and performance rather than going for top performance from other manufacturers that would cost more if they were to use them.

I went in stages. When I bought my iMac I was running mainly windows on it (for specialist forensic software) but after finished that I found that the fusion drive only works on Mac OS. It does take some getting used to in terms of commands but I could never go back to windows now. The computers you mention are more comparable to the Macbook Pro to be honest. I'm not sure an Air will replace your XPS unless you spec it out and then it becomes nearly the same price as the Macbook Pro retina. The main thing is that you will get a PC that just works straight away and hardly ever crashes with Mac OS without installing constant updates etc. I love my Air the most out of all my macs but I think the base model is amazing for travelling or as a 2nd machine. It will take some getting used to but I would 100% say you won't regret buying a Mac. For you I would advise waiting until the new Macbook Pro comes out if your going to use it as your main machine. This will drive the price of existing retina MBP and even the new air down . I had an XPS for work for about 3 months (this was a few years ago) and I much preferred the build quality and keyboard of my MBA. Even more weird was that for a SSD model it made noise every time i used it! If you do want to buy now I would say get the refurbished one with 8GB direct from Apple or actually buy the Macbook 2015 from KRCS at £749 (if you can live with 1 port and not being too powerful) as these will probably hold their value a bit better for resale if you decide to buy MBP. The Air is my favourite bit of tech I own but not 100% sure it is right for you being an XPS user. I think you might miss the high resolution screen. Hope this long answer helps rather then confuses!

I have one of these for the past two years and it's a good machine apart from one thing which means I wouldn't recommend this unless it was substantially cheaper.

The screen on this is atrocious, it is literally shockingly bad. It's not even the low resolution making text blurry. But the viewing angles and colour reproduction are really really poor. It honestly gives me a sore head if I use my iPad then switch to this the difference is that stark. Really I'd recommend people either go with the new MacBook or the MacBook Pro retina 13. I thought I wouldn't notice the screen when I bought it but it really is that poor after you use it for a few weeks you notice it. Even use something like excel, the refresh rate is that low that when you scroll around the excel sheet, you notice the grid lines disappearing and appearing as the screen refreshes to draw the lines so you get a wave effect with lines popping in and out. Same thing with Safari try to scroll down a page with lots of text and you'll notice blurry text and distortion.

Also 4gb ram just isn't enough if you are a heavy web browser, If I have 20-30 tabs open I started seeing slow down and tab crashes that can't stay in memory. I would recommend at least 8gb/256gb ssd configuration.

Really it's best to hold out until June when the it's rumoured there will be a redesign of the retina MacBook Pro that is meant to replace the MacBook Air. And before anyone says I'm an apple hater as well as the Mba I have an Apple TV 4th gen, iPhone, iPad Air and a time capsule router.

Heat as it's a good price for this model, although the 4 GB RAM and non-Retina screen are a bit stingy. Having said that, you pay for great build quality, solid reliability and excellent customer service. I've gone back and forth over the years with both Windows and Mac computers and, for me, they both have their pros and cons. Let's be honest, most hardcore Windows fans are gamers and a PC makes perfect sense for them. But for anyone earning money from their computer (especially in a creative profession like mine), the Mac is often a better choice.

I say this having just sold a Surface Pro 4 after five months of usage. I loved everything about the concept and design but it was the single most unreliable piece of technology I have ever owned. I had to return three other devices before finally getting one without a fault and it proceeded to give me some of the most frustrating experiences on a computer I've ever had. The battery life was absolutely horrible, sleep simply didn't work (even after numerous fixes), the interface would have scaling issues every time it was plugged into a monitor and I simply lost count of the amount of freezes, refusals to login, hangs on restart… etc etc. Enough was enough, back to a Mac for me.

Knock them all you want but Apple simply make devices that, for the most part, work. They go to sleep properly when you close the lid, wake up properly when you open it and provide battery life that is exactly what they claim. These are the things which spoil you with Apple computers and disappoint you when you go back to Windows. Yes they are expensive, but if you're not a gamer and don't want to be endlessly tinkering with hardware to get it to work exactly as expected then ask yourself how much your time is worth.

I paid 150 quid for sim spec , 2nd hand laptop

ok it 1" smaller and doesn't have ssd , but even so

:cuckoo:

and I can upgrade ram , by myself for < 150 quid !

brilliant thanks for the contribution, next time I look to buy something I will go for a second hand one because its always cheaper.

The Apple moaners are certainly out today :disappointed:

same price at Costo with 2 year warranty, may be slightly more expensive if you aren't a member.

http://www.costco.co.uk/view/p/apple-macbook-air-mjve2ba-133-inch-with-4gb-memory-186521?utm_campaign=FY16P9W2b&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=Promo&utm_content=Hero-1&utm_term=MacBook

As an owner of 2 windows laptops 2 android phones I am firmly in the mac-lovers group. Ah I am also a software engineer.. :smiley:

Gosh, a software engineer. In that case I stand corrected.

I guess you get my point.. Mac and Windows are two different systems but with pros and cons on both. It is down to each person to choose a system to suit their needs. Simply saying oh its overpriced is a bit pointless, because it may be overpriced for you, but for someone else it might not be, and is a better solution for their needs :smiley:

TBF the reason he probably points that out is that nearly every (not all) people I know who work in IT use either a Mac (based on Linux) or a Linux based machine. The very fact Microsoft have just integrated terminal into Windows 10 is testament to that fact! It is to try and bring devs back to windows.

Real mac-heads wouldn't appreciate you saying their OS is based on Linux, it's UNIX based!

you're right. sorry. Linux is a clone of UNIX. I got Linux on the brain at the minute. If the new Macbook Pro isn't something special I'm actually looking at the Dell XPS developer edition and just run windows and mac OS X in VM (I don't need to game on a laptop!) Stick that fan boys!

The XPS 13 9350? I just got one of those and am running Ubuntu 16.04 on it. A few minor bugs aside I am loving it :smiley: .

Can't see the exact model number on Dell website. It's the i7-6560u with 512GB SSD and 16GB RAM that runs 14.04 LTS with full support. Guessing they will have to provide 16.04 support too ASAP. I'm far from a Linux expert but need to become one (though more CentOS and other red hat based distros) over the next 3 years. Figured I could sell my Macbook Air, Macbook Pro none retina (speced up) and the Chromebook Pixel 2013 I've just bought and just use that one machine. I bought the Pixel to see if would like Linux more on decent hardware and I do. I started using lubuntu on my old netbook. Mental that on 2GB RAM with upgraded SSD I can run full 1080p kodi on that old atom GPU and CPU! Think I can do 99% of my computing in Linux and the other stuff in VM so it will come down to the new MBP or that. Weight, battery, screen (less issue for me tbh) and keyboard and trackpad being the key requirements for me. I think if I could have a Macbook Air but with power and of Pro I'll be happy. If the new MBP is that I'll probably get that as get 3 year warranty and discount as a student but if it isn't or price is just stupid then I'll go with the XPS as hardware wise will be similar and no windows required :-)

Also find it annoying that on the higher model you can't spec down to the 1080p none touch screen on the XPS...main reason? Matte! Since when did the world think work users not into design or Photoshop want bloody glossy screens?

I have the i7-6560u with 8GB and 256GB SSD. Got a windows 10 version of the outlet then just wiped it and installed Ubuntu :smiley:

Cheers for that. Definitely helps a lot.
I would definitely aim towards a MBP instead of the air. I also keep my laptop till its pretty much dead. Forgot to mention I bought the XPS back in 2010! The battery was the first thing that gave up, which I replaced with an ebay generic. Work's ok so far.But it's definitely starting to slow down and I can feel it will let go soon.
I will keep my eyes peeled for future MBP deals instead. Thank you!

Maybe most people like an operating system that works!?!?

Windows os a nag of ****.

I have a 2 grand pc sitting doing nothing because they cant design a decent OS.

​this made me laugh! what I really don't like is the direction Microsoft are heading in! people talk about Apple being a closed wall but Microsoft are making it harder and harder for people to dual boot and are even looking into making it impossible to find run anything but windows 10 on some machines they produce. I've got windows 7 professional on my gaming PC and am fairly happy with that. I have noticed windows update seems to not work a lot of the time on windows 7 now and have similar issues with office 2011 on Mac at the minute. it's almost like they are trying to force or trick people to update to windows 10 even if it's not suitable for their hardware or usage in the hope of publishing update figures and make people buy subscription based office...oh...wait...

One of the key reason I bought and Air in 2012 was that the 11 inch had 9 hour and the 13 inch had 12 hour thanks to Mac OS and Haswell. Back then nothing could touch that combination and especially with portability of the Air. Things have changed a lot as there are loads of good ultrabooks, but in real world heavy usage i used to get about 6 hours and still probably get nearly that now on my 11 MBA. I think whatever you go for the biggest difference from 2012 onwards is battery life. For all people slate the MBA screen they forget that a big reason Apple keep it is for that 9 and 12 hour battery life. Like I said for you I'd wait but you'll notice a massive difference from your laptop to any new post Haswell laptop.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn. :neutral_face:

Is this bigger than an ipad

Yes its both physically bigger overall and has a bigger screen. The "Normal" iPad screen size is 9.7", the top of the range iPad Pro has a 12.9" screen and the MacBook Air in this post has a 13.3" screen

This is back on again from today :smiley: