Apple has just reduced the price of the lowest tier of refurbished MacBook Air to $699 — I’ve just seen it pop up on a couple news sites. One would think that the option of getting for such a low price what was a year ago an object of envy would make it a no-brainer. But it is the old version of the famously flat laptop, and although it may seem superfluous to point this out, I feel I should warn our readers that to take advantage of this deal is to buy yourself some grief.
This version of the MacBook Air debuted in October 2010, and it has a Core2 Duo processor that has roots going back to 2008 and before. It was outdated when it first showed up, and it’s a dog now.
For $700 you should be getting a modern computer, and these MBAs ain’t one of those. Only the most recent update makes the laptop worth using for “serious” computing like managing big photo libraries or editing video. If you want to browse the web and watch movies, $700 will buy you a giant screen, modern processor, 4 gigs of RAM, and maybe even a Blu-ray drive.
And if you have your mind set on a MacBook Air (and I don’t blame you, I’m using a new one now and they’re solid), avoid the old ones at all costs! The new ones will be all over the place used and for sale prices around the holidays, so don’t fall for fire-sale prices on junk inventory that would have been overpriced a year ago.