I'm currently working on a 2015 Macbook Air which I bought new and for which I've had to get a serious repair on once when the screen broke due to a nasty fall on ice. I've generally replaced laptops at about this point, but this laptop is not doing bad. Had a few issues a little while back but was easy enough to resolve myself. I just don't know that I want to shell out for a new laptop, though, even if there's some benefits on both the software and hardware sides of things that I could see being relevant.
If you need better hardware/software for your life to be smoother and your current setup isn't working, then sure. If the worries of data loss or lack of computer if it dies suddenly are in the back of your mind, sure. For discretionary spending, my philosophy is to picture yourself in a few months. Would you regret your purchase of it after the excitement? If so, then hold back. I typically replace mine every several years with a refurbished laptop from a site like TigerDirect since my daily needs aren't heavy and I only spend about $700. At that price for those you usually get a few hundred more in hardware specs from the deal. When I get them I'll just relegate the current OS to a small partition and install a Linux Mint MATE OS and get a bit more performance from it. That works for me since I'm not a heavy gamer or need the specs to render something like 3D video and I have those older systems to fall back on if an accident occurs until it can be replaced. Do make sure you're doing regular backups of your data, though. It's easy to forget, but it's annoying having to pull it off a laptop that's not booting up.
Yeah, learned that the hard way. I'll usually just make sure I have semi-regular backups of anything important, or that it's stored on the cloud in some manner.
It's better to change it than to repair it. Though apple users don't look at specification that much but a lots of things change since 2015. Spoiler: specification {} Though make sure you backup you files in your hard disk first. Damaging your screen might not damage your hard disk. Current models of mac book use the M1 chip than a standard amd64 chip, again average PC enthusiast will enrage but its well received by apple users. I have no comments on it. If you want to replace your current mac book with a windows laptop, which need lots of time for mental adjustments. There are yoga series normal build quality but with decent screen, or surface pro. thanks for the invites.
I grew up on various PCs with Linux as the only OS and have eventually gotten used to all three. Recent Windows was less appealing to me, though. I enjoyed Windows 7 for a while.
Depends on what you use it for. Word processing? It's perfectly fine. Rpg Maker games, should be fine. Crisis? Graphics Design? Machine Learning? You shouldn't be using a notebook. Windows 11? ...on a MacBook?
Nah, I had a Stinkpad (Lenovo Thinkpad) for 5 years before that running Windows 7 and Ubuntu. Before that, just a bunch of Ubuntu.
Then great, though if you want a mac book air replacement you probably don't need any intensive processive powers. Windows 10 right now are less sucks compared to before. Though looking at windows 11 and gnome 40, KDE 5. windows 11 engineers and designers look like monkeys. but each have their fair share of problems. especially wayland dose not work well with Nvidia GPU. Though, with WSL2 windows (window 10 pro) can open BTRF files and fully supports fuse. you can run linux docker easily on windows. If you work on Alpine in docker you can use pick windows. Though I doubt you can do much on 2015 mac book air. Like Graphical, but if you need to use software like xcode, you should get another mac.
Old-school and open-source, lol... GiMP for Image Editing (Never had an issue here.) Audacity for Audio Editing (It has been recommended that I switch to GarageBand. May happen eventually.) BBEdit for Programming. (Though I've even used vim at times) XCode was a bit annoying at times, unfortunately. For actual sound quality, without building a custom laptop or PC, my impression was that Macbooks had the market beat at least when I last checked late last year, but I might be wrong on that front.
If your in to sound I recommend deliciated DAC and amp even small ones sound better like Cyberdrive Clarity Feather, creative super xfi, AudioQuest Dragonfly. Though that's the one of the factor of how i choose my laptop too lol, sound quality matters. as for speakers, they all sucks, just some are less sucks.
Yeah, I posted my setup in another thread here. I've been messing around with trying out new earbuds because the Jabras have started to get old, though none of those have shown up yet (Between, Sentien are the two relevant ones iirc)
I don't think you should change your laptop if it can do all the tasks you need it to do. If it can do everything you need it to do, why change it?
It depends on how you take care of your laptop and how often you update it. I own a MacBook pro circa 2011 and it looks brand new. My mom is using it now to watch YouTube. I upgraded the hard disk a few years ago and it works excellent for doing minimal tasks like browsing the internet. Granted, I can’t update it beyond Maverick or else it will be too slow. So, I think you can keep your MacBook air and just avoid updates to the latest OSX unless you are sure it won’t slow down your machine. Googling other users experience with the updates will help, especially those with the same laptop model as yours.
There is a saying, if it ain't broken, don't fix it. If you are feeling things aren't performing as good as they should be after defragging(if not on an ssd), or getting an ssd(if not on an ssd), And making sure it isn't an issue with a specific app bogging things down, then get a new computer. Just a side suggestion, try Krita for image editing. It's made more for digital painting then image editing, but it offers a much better user experience. Any time someone opts for a laptop for sound quality, it makes me face palm. All the laptops have pretty crappy speakers and you are better off with an external speaker, and if you use a headset, as mentioned a DAC is the way to go. You'll get way better sound quality then any laptop offers.
I often replace my laptops every 3-4 yrs? both mac and pc, cause the specs tend to get outdated by then. And no I don't like full-blown desktop computers cause I like to keep my stuff portable, and I want to be able to work on side gigs on coffee shops etc. - Currently have an m1 mac, and a razer blade rtx 2070