Family laptop – macbook air?

Current window laptop is grinding to a halt, only had it 3 years and it’s got to go.

After the painless experience that has been owning an iPhone I’m thinking a macbook might be worth a go, but they’re so flipping expensive. Would a macbook air do the job for general tatting plus the odd bit of gopro messing on iMovie? Nothing strenuous, just clipping a couple of hours into a couple of minutes. Or would i be better off with a used pro?

I reckon if your not needing the portability benefit of the MBA then a well specced referred MBP would be a better bet for the movie editing…
More RAM, bigger SSD, better connectivity and ports….

It’s making a few cuts on iMovie, not multi-layered, colour-corrected documentary film-making. I’m sure an Air would cope just fine.

Mac book air is very old…. and unlikely to get updated..

I’d steer clear.

If you don’t need a laptop now, I’d wait for the next update of the MacBook, got to be soon, then get that.
Or towards the end of the year they have to update the mbp with new processors.

Disk space is most important, get as big an SSD as you can, then buy a usb drive. For basic gopro editing either will be fine, but the mbp probably a bit better.

Nothing strenuous, just clipping a couple of hours into a couple of minutes. Or would i be better off with a used pro?

I do that painlessly on a 6 year old Dell I3 Win 10 laptop. On the road so using my 17″ Dell I5 2 year old laptop that cost 500 quid. What you doing to yours that makes it not work?

Current window laptop is grinding to a halt, only had it 3 years and it’s got to go.

Why, what have you done to it? Computers don’t magically get slower as they get older, that’s a myth. Mine is 2008 vintage and as fast as the day I bought it (actually, probably faster thanks to a RAM and SSD upgrade).

Factory reset it, it should be exactly the same as when you bought it. Whack Windows 10 on there, maybe upgrade it a bit as above, it should see you right.

Beat me to it Cougar.

It’s all just 1s and 0s and on or off and processors and ram and hard drives don’t become noticeably slower over their useful lifetime. The software does.

You’re commenting on the price so obviously aren’t loaded. Go for a much cheaper windows machine with equivalent specs or spend an evening reinstalling everything on your current machine.

Factory reset would probably help to an extent, but it’s a compaq laptop that came fully stocked with bloat ware, and it wasn’t a great spec laptop when it was new (<£500).

But exporting a video from windows move maker takes forever. Literally half an hour plus to export as an mp4 video, my phone will do it in a minute or less, just a bit fiddly doing it over wifi.

If a MacBook Air wouldn’t be much better I’ll save the cash and get a decent windows one, I don’t use it enough to warrant spending £1500+

When did a MacBook hit £1500! I bought my Mrs one a couple of years ago and it was about £700.

Brexit?

Factory reset would probably help to an extent, but it’s a compaq laptop that came fully stocked with bloat ware, and it wasn’t a great spec laptop when it was new (<£500).

A clean install of Windows 10 wouldn’t have any bloatware.

How much RAM is in it? Can that be upgraded? http://uk.crucial.com/gbr/en

Where are you geographically, is it easy to get it to me? I’ll sort it out for you in exchange for a 12 month Premier subscription.

RAM is 8GB so should be ok, processor is the problem I think it’s a AMD something or other.

I’ll have a look at it tonight and see if I can get windows 10 on it and get rid of all the stuff we don’t use. If I can get it running smoother, I’d be more comfortable getting a better windows laptop, I just like how I’ve not had to mess with my iPhone at all over 2 and a bit years, my previous android phone needed a factory reset couple of months after the first year.

@cougar I’m in Cannock, don’t think you’re that local iirc?

East Lancs so no. And I’m sorry, I realise that my assumption you didn’t know how to sort it may have been patronising, I was just trying to help.

If the CPU is pish then you’re pretty snookered TBH. The RAM should be more than ample, unless your videos are huge.

I think if it were me I’d W10 it – https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/accessibility/windows10upgrade – then consider throwing an SSD in it if it seems usable.

No worries, I’m a bit rusty with laptops these days, I use my phone and tablet for everything, proper computers seem overly complicated and I worry about messing it all up.

I’ll have a fiddle (wahey) and report back later

Brexit?

Pretty much. Apple put the prices up of all existing hardware, plus priced the ‘new’ stuff amusingly high when the latest Macbook Pros were released. I can just about understand the newer stuff, but stock that is already sat in stores? Boo-urns!

Anyway, Apple really are MS circa 2000. Enough money to make Solomon blush, but can’t innovate for shit. Apple Pro, Macbooks, Macbook Air just being left for years without refreshes, yet prices stay the same. Even the iPhones are just the same thing year on year.

/rant

OP, get a second hand MBP 2015, or a windows laptop.

But exporting a video from windows move maker takes forever. Literally half an hour plus to export as an mp4 video, my phone will do it in a minute or less, just a bit fiddly doing it over wifi.

Half hour for decent high definition clips sounds about right, are you comparing like for like on the phone? The laptop will have more out and out power than your phone.

If I can get it running smoother, I’d be more comfortable getting a better windows laptop, I just like how I’ve not had to mess with my iPhone at all over 2 and a bit years, my previous android phone needed a factory reset couple of months after the first year.

On the flip side I’ve have 2 Google nexus phones in the last few years, neither had a factory reset, neither needed any kind of maintenance other than clearing out pics etc.
Best bet is to backup what you have, do a full reset on the laptop and start with a fresh windows 10,it will be the cheapest option to start with and could solve a lot of your problems.

Jam bo Mac Book Pros have been around £1000 for quite some time. The new models where substantially more expensive in $’s, then add 15% £/$ move and there you have it.

OP if you could handle a used machine an older Mac Book Pro would be a good option, add some RAM (get to 8) nd SSD (if not already fitted) – you need to check models as newer ines are not upgradable. As above Air is a bit redundant now as the new Pros are so thin and light.

Cougar as you well know Windows machines do just “magically” slowdown due to bloatware and other nonsense which “installs itself” and which is hard/very hard to remove.

I paid £729 for MacBook Air less ran three years ago…

Cougar as you well know Windows machines do just “magically” slowdown due to bloatware and other nonsense which “installs itself” and which is hard/very hard to remove.

Utter bullshit. In modern Windows no program can be installed without the user accepting it. There programmes installed by the user can be removed in about 3 clicks from the add/remove programs feature.

Cougar as you well know Windows machines do just “magically” slowdown due to bloatware and other nonsense which “installs itself” and which is hard/very hard to remove.

Is “installs itself” in quotes because you know that in reality it’s the user installing stuff?

In modern Windows no program can be installed without the user accepting it.

Including Microsoft updates that might not be optimised for your older kit (or even ever tested on it) ?

And what do you mean by accepting it?

Accepting it when it installs, or accepting updates in advance of knowing what they might do to your machine?

Oh, as for the Air… not for video editing, no.

Yes you can set windows updates to review, it’s getting tighter though as you will have to stop updating from that point forward (win 10)but that begs the question how old is the hardware that you are trying to support and is it reasonable to expect anyone to test/support it?

And for a simple run down even while running as administrator program wants to install. Windows asks if you want to to allow xyz software Corp to modify or run something. You hit yes to accept that.
Windows updates you can hit download and approve and you can check each update for the specific old hardware you have. Though if it’s that critical I would suggest having an offline pc to run it or use a vm with a particular build of Windows in it that never updates.

Utter bullshit.

It’s Jamba talking about Windows, this is a given. Credit where it’s due he knows his stuff when it comes to Mac, but he still feels qualified to comment on Windows based on what he used twenty years ago multiplied by fiction.

Including Microsoft updates that might not be optimised for your older kit (or even ever tested on it) ?

Enforced updates causes occasional issues, but the benefits far far outweigh the risks. Major version changes can have compatibility issues sure, but it’s a long old time since I’ve seen an issue such as you describe. Care to cite an example?

I paid £729 for MacBook Air less ran three years ago…

It was last updated, a very mild speed bump, in March 2015, but is now £950.

You just can’t stop progress 🙁

Sorry, you want me to cite a single example of unrequested Windows updates causing older PCs to slow down?!! Do your own googling. Pick your own favourite few thousands of examples.

Air is great for everything BUT movie editing… look for a refurb MacBook Pro.
I use an Air for 95% of my work.

OK but what is the context of your problem here (the one your brought to the discussion) how old is old hardware?
For instance this is the list of macs that will/won’t run the current OS or all of its features
http://www.macworld.com/article/3121239/macs/which-macs-can-run-macos-sierra.html
Old hardware will always be a problem, but Windows also means you can run lots of hardware that wouldn’t be possible on a very tightly controlled OS. Good points are bad points are good points again.

Sorry, you want me to cite a single example of unrequested Windows updates causing older PCs to slow down?!! Do your own googling. Pick your own favourite few thousands of examples.

Yes, yes I do. Whilst you’re Googling, you can start with searching for “burden of proof.”

Something recent would be good, Windows 95 doesn’t count. If there’s thousands then it’ll be trivial to name one to back up your claim, no?

A 3 year old cheap laptop can certainly feel like it has slowed down. Often the cooling design of them is poor and if dust has built up the thermal protection will throttle the CPU to protect it. This is on top of usual bloat and disk fragmentation etc.

A proper clean up, SSD, memory upgrade and fresh OS install can work wonders, but given that it probably has a cheap and nasty screen and keyboard why bother?

A decent laptop will have a screen that is good to look at, and generally nicer to work at. IME a £1k laptop will outlive several £300 laptops, so if you can afford a decent Dell/Apple, whatever, then you won’t regret it.

Laptops are now pretty much like kitchen white goods, you get what you pay for.

Get a MacBook Pro. The Air is OK but the tiny old school screen, the limited processors, and some of the old design features mean that the new MacBook Pro 13″ is better: retina display, faster processor, better storage options. And it is barely any different in size.

The Air will struggle with iMovie compared to the MacBook Pro.

How do you setup a Mac as family laptop, single user account for everything? My admittedly limited experience with Macs would says that despite Unix roots they are designed as single user machines and OS, trying to have several user profiles accessing same data (photos and music without NAS) hasn’t been too easy or reliable.

The Air will struggle with iMovie compared to the MacBook Pro.

For less the Dell xps ranges beats it on every spec, does the 2 in 1 stuff and will do just about every along with having ports…

but he still feels qualified to comment on Windows based on what he used twenty years ago multiplied by fiction.

Yeah, that’s really irritating.

t was last updated, a very mild speed bump, in March 2015, but is now £950.

You just can’t stop progress

that makes more sense. It was this that suprised me:

If a MacBook Air wouldn’t be much better I’ll save the cash and get a decent windows one, I don’t use it enough to warrant spending £1500+

Yeah I mean £950 would be acceptable. But £1500 for a MacBook Pro would be too much cash.

Had a go at installing win 10 on the current laptop, is checked the specs – I was thinking of the old one yesterday this one is a 1.7Ghz celeron processor so a bit retro,it says it should work but it’s not having it.

I’ve uninstalled everything that I don’t use and I’ll try it later and see how it works.