New Laptop recommendations- current MBA painfully slow

[JoeGargery]

Hello
My current MacBook Air is an 11inch with 2GB memory and a 1.6GHz processor. I bought it in 2013. I bought it because it was small and light and the man in the shop said that for my needs, it would be fine. I like that it’s light as I need to take it out often.

I have been fed up with it for about two years because it is sooo slow.
I barely store anything on the computer itself, everything is on external hard drives and in the cloud. For the last two years I’ve been doing everything possible to streamline it - including twice paying a professional. It is better for a couple of weeks then very slow again. All I use it for is basic word processing (Word and Scrivener) and the odd PowerPoint and very basic internet browsing. No streaming or anything. No games. I haven’t got mail on there, photos, iTunes, anything. Yet with nothing else open and apparently not a full hard drive, it will take minutes to open a word document, often has a lag when typing and presents me with the spinning rainbow of doom all the time.

My husband has a v powerful MacBook Pro that is older than my MBA and it’s so fast. He uses it for work so it needs to be top of the range. He tells me I should invest in one like his. But I can’t believe I need absolutely top of the range for the basic things I’m using it for.

What do I go for this time? I’d still like it to be light if possible but the main priority is that it must do what I need. I don’t care about being loyal to apple.

I’m not technically minded at all so the online comparisons just overwhelm me. I thought you lot might have some kind advice.

Thanks in advance.

Unless you are doing great high end video editing in a coffee shop, then I would not go for any Apple product, unless learning a new OS is a challenge.

Most £2-300 windows laptops will easily compete and "fly" compared to your MBA.

Most £5-800 laptops will easily compete with mid range current gen Apple laptops.

Dell xps13/15 will compete and storm last your H's MBP

If your prepared to go for Google's ecosystem a Chromebook Asus c302 for around £300 will give you everything you need (and it looks suitably maccy)

If you want something with s bit more ooomph a Xaoimi mibook pro13 at £700 will give you a Windows ecosystem (If you feel technically minded you can turn it into a hackintosh by installing macos but you loose trsckpad features)

If you want to blow some serious cash Razor blade 13 daily competes with current high end MBPs

At the end of the day it's not the hardware it's the OS ecosystem you should consider. If you've always used macos, then you'll have issues switching to windows or chromeOS.

Thank you for that detailed response.
I’ve used Mac OS for a while but have to use MS for work so am fairly used to both. The one thing I’ve likes about macs is the lack of viruses so id be keen to install as much as possible in the way of protection if moving away from Mac.

Are any of those options light and easy to haul around, do you know?

The Dell XPS 13 is very light and very powerful, you can blow through complex 3d renders while having a coffee or 2. Plus it's upgradable (add more ram & SSD)) and really compact. But overall a bit of a shit battery only half a days work (4 hours)

the Xaoimi is also very compact but less powerful and not upgradable but fair battery can easily get 8 with windows and 17 hours with a paired down Linux distro

I have both plus the Asus c302, but that only really good for web apps and google apps but you can install Android apps too. Again meh-ish battery ( used to get 15 hours now it's dropped to 8)

If you want super light with good battery then the LG gram is one if the lightest, beefy CPU, fair ram, 72 what hour battery so you should easily get a working day plus commute. I don't have that one do I'm basing that off reviews.

The Lenovo ThinkPad 460 has dual batteries one if which can be swapped out in the go, so depending on the amount of batteries you have it could be indefinate runtime.

All other the above can easily fit Iin s small bag and aren't that heavy, the del Xaoimi and Lenovo will all be heavier by a few grams than a mba

Thank you, that’s very helpful, I’ll check those out :)

I’m baffled. My 2015 MacBook is as fast as the day I bought it. I think you might just have rotten luck... Have you tried taking it to actual Apple?

How much do you want to spend and what do you want to do? Anything can be recommended but budget and demand are the most important factors here.

livid21 yes- and they said they couldn’t help. It’s a MacBook Air with a small memory that you can’t upgrade but whichever I was told would be sufficient for my needs. It so isn’t, and I do such basic stuff on it.

@tubeworker, as I mentioned above, I just need to use basic word processing, scrivener if possible, PowerPoint and basic internet searching. Not photo editing or anything fancy.

I’m happy to pay up to £1200 but for that I want it to be fast and reliable and light and I really don’t think I’m asking too much. I was very excited with my MBA and it turned out to be a huge disappointment- a lot of money for not very much except aesthetics.

Overuse of the word ‘basic,’ but you get the picture!

Something's wrong then. My MacBook runs plenty more than that and does everything it says it should. I'm tempted to say just get a new one but I know you've been bitten and won't want to!

Right so word processing, browsing, email, and some other office suite activity. No intense VBA or anything like that, no gigantic spreadsheets, no video rendering, playing computer games that require a discrete graphics card.

For what you’re proposing you can spend anything from £300-£1,500. The cheaper it is the heavier it will be and the less time it will last.

If you’re used to macs then I’d suggest staying with them. Most people who use PCs aren’t comfortable with the 6-monthly format that is really required to keep them running smoothly. Also, cheaper PCs (esp dells and acer’s come with terrible bloatware).

I would recommend a bottom of the line MacBook. They’re £1,249 but if you have a child with a student card you can get a 10% discount. They come with a 256gb internal SSD which is loads for your purposes. The graphics isn’t quite as powerful as the pro, but you won’t need it. It will do everything you want, is light, and will be good at what it does for the next 5 years.

You could get a windows laptop (I have one myself), but unless you’re prepared to spend a great deal of time configuring and really setting it up, and redoing that every 6 months, it will slow down and really start to piss you off. It will also start to slow down considerably anyway around the 2-3 year mark.

You could get a windows PC and put a Linux based Graphical user interface (like gnome or whatever you want to use) on there so it acts like a mac, but it’s a v steep learning curve. This is, however, the cheapest most effective option.

If you’ve got £1,200, a bottom of the range MacBook is what you want. It’ll be good for 4-5 years. It will work and you’re already used to it. Spend more and you’re getting features you don’t need. Spend less and you’ll have to work for the same functionality. If saving money really matters then a windows PC with 8gab+ of RAM, an i3, i5 or i7 latest gen intel processor and a 256gb+ ssd is all you require in terms of hardware. Those specs will be cheap to achieve, but to make them work nicely is either effort (Linux based GUI) or cost (mac, with macOS, which is also a Linux based GUI).

@tubedriver, thank you for that detailed response. This is very helpful to know as I really don’t want to have to faff about with it every few months. I want something that works well and isn’t slow and won’t make me want to kill it. (What I thought I was getting with my old MBA).

You would suggest the MB over the MBP? I can do one better than having a student kid- I am a PG student myself.

@livid21, I know. Problem is, no one can make it not wrong. DH’s laptop is so brilliant that I was so disappointed but I’m prepared to give it another go - I just need the right machine.

Thanks, all

I'm sorry to say that isn't quite true about windows update MS is doing 6 monthly feature updates, like ubuntu and other OS plus frequent patch updates. It's relatively seamless and has exactly the same success and failure rate as Mac. Apple have had some spectacular fails, like last year's i9 over heat.

Now Arch Linux does a rolling release, which is you get the features when they become available, rather than a six monthly bundle or more.

It really is down to your comfort levels OP and what you like. If your a long term MacOS user, stick with it. If you want to get into the guts of customisation then Linux is your thing. There are loads of different window managers, basically the skin/GUI you interact with.

Go with what is right for you, if your prepared to take the time hit to learn the intracasies of windows and save yourself some cash, go for it If you want to get up and running as quickly as possible and port your kit. Then mac your best bet. And if you have bought software you'll have to buy the windows version all over again.

Word, Scriviner and Powerpoint run natively on a Windows Laptop.

A good processor and 16 GB of RAM. A 256 or 512 GB SSD

That should speed you up.

I've never reloaded Windows on either laptop and see no reason to.

MB instead of MBP because MBP has a few features that you don’t need (like a higher grade graphics chip) at the cost of features you will want (like a 256gb ssd instead of 128gb). Also, they’re light and very portable. Same price.

The simplicity of mac is why I got my wife one- she’s not interested in the crap required to maintain a windows PC.

I bought a Chromebook. It's quick, it does exactly what I need and the battery lasts all day.

They're worth a look if you're not strongly tied to Apple.

but the lg gram 13
you can get it from Currys tomorrow

www.lg.com/uk/laptops/lg-13Z980-GAA52A1

£950, latest i5 256gv ssd 8gb ram

www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/lg-gram-13z980-13-intel-core-i5-laptop-256-gb-ssd-silver-10182481-pdt.html?istCompanyId=bec25c7e-cbcd-460d-81d5-a25372d2e3d7&istItemId=-xiwapiiral&istBid=tztx&srcid=198&cmpid=ppc~gg~1011%20(PLA)%20Windows%20Laptops%20and%20Convertibles%20-%20Adaptive~1011%20(PLA)%20Windows%20Laptops%20And%20Convertibles%20ad%20group~Exact&mctag=gg_goog_7904&kwid=GOOGLE&device=m&ds_kids=92700027234655884&tgtid=1011%20(PLA)%20Windows%20Laptops%20and%20Convertibles%20-%20Adaptive&&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIqc3iyODc4AIVAomyCh3d6gBdEAkYASABEgII_PD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds