I've got the latest iMac 21.5 inch with a decent spec. No issues whatsoever. There were some issues with the latest version of MacOS, but they were rectified quite quickly. The hardware is solid - but very expensive compared to Dell etc.

My MBP 2010 just died after 10 years of service - probably power issues, it seems that the voltage on the power rail is bad, causing intermittent SSD and GPU crashes, often already at startup. Probably it'd be still serviceable, but I won't invest any money in this machine anymore. I'll salvage the newish battery, the extra RAM and SSD that was installed during the years and use it all to resuscitate a MBP 2011 machine, once I can get my hands on it (ie after the lockdowns)

Meanwhile I went out and bought a very slightly used MBA-2017 with excellent battery (97%) for 600€ ($650) - if it serves the next 10 years, I'd call it a good investment.

Thought I'd resurrect this thread once again. I finally gave in...and replaced the battery in my MBA again. This was the 3rd change, and about 3 years since the last time.

I think I had a faulty battery for the first change, it only lasted about a year. The second lasted 3 years. It was still functional, but I'd get maybe 2 hours of life out of my computer when fully charged. Since replacing it earlier today, after an hour of usage, the battery was down to 87%.

Every now and then I see that Costco has MacBooks on sale and I'm tempted...but this machine hangs on.

You’ve probably already done this, but have you reset the SMC a few times before or after changing the battery? If the SMC is jacked, even a good battery will “last” minutes to a few hours, even though the actual capability could still be very good.

For the battery that you replaced that died within a year, did something like coconut battery actually show that the capacity had cratered that much?

My ~2012 MacBook Air finally bit the dust. Last Monday I was using it, and the screen was flickering. Then suddenly I smelled something burning, and the screen stopped working. Took it to an Apple Store, and they did diagnostics on it...essentially they can't really do anything to fix it, but I can take it to a 3rd party shop. They charge $85 plus anything to actually fix (if it is a blown circuit it might be as little as $30, but for a new motherboard would be $$$).

Anyway, I'm looking at the new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, and can't really tell what the difference is, other than the ~$200 more for the Pro. Costco currently has them on sale (through Friday, but this seems to recur rather often), Air for $1049 and Pro for $1249. These are both 13.3" screens, about the same as my old machine.

Out of the two, which would you get, and why?

I might still take the old machine to the shop and see what is wrong with it. If it is something cheap, I can get it fixed and have it as a spare. I'm really impressed that it lasted about 10 years.

some differences, but not much .. battery life for one. there's a table showing them in this article, which might be useful

https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/m...-vs-air-vs-pro

IMO, I would say not worth it bothering to fix the 2012 MacBook Air. You got great use out of it for over a decade.

-David

No fans on the MacBook Air, so it runs silently. Also a bit lighter.

If you want to get the 2012 Air fixed, Rossmann Repair Group in NYC will do it. It will probably cost around $100 plus however much it costs to mail it to them. These old machines are very repairable. I still have a 2012 MacBook Pro as a secondary machine to run old abandoned 16 and 32 bit apps that the current day 64 bit machines will not run.

If you're set on getting a new MacBook, the Air and Pro are similar in specs, but the Air does not have a cooling fan, and will run hotter, and will thermal throttle when it gets too hot. The Pro has a cooling fan. Personally, I would get the Pro.

If you want to recover any data off your old MacBook Air, Other World Computing (MacSales) sells an enclosure for the SSD that you can plug into your new Mac to keep using it as an external drive if you'd like.

Thank you, that is extremely helpful!