What to upgrade to? (Current = 2011 13" i7 MBA 4/256)

[Buzz]

Once sweet piece of kit now getting a bit long in the tooth. If there was a reasonable way to take it to 8/512 it would probably still be usable. What's the most practical/affordable/portable at least 8/512 lightweight laptop these days in 13" or 15" to use a replacement? OK for say 8/128 to start with, if SSD is swappable for a reasonable price. No touch bar desired.
Thanks.
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[jdc]

For your MBA a bigger drive is easy.

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/.../2010-2011

More ram, not possible. No MBA can get a ram upgrade.

If you want upgradeable ram and SSD, then you will have to get something different than a MBA.

You best option is what Grateful11 did.

Budget?

[anonymouse1]

need more info re needs and budget.

Sigt unseen, I'd pick either a current 13' MBA, or a 13" MBP, probably without the touchbar. but the MBP has only two ports at all including power-- two Tbolt 3/USB3.

[mattkime]

What do you use the machine for?

[sekker]

If the keyboard, trackpad and screen all work, you are not going to see a huge jump if all you use is that as a laptop.

Almost all of the updates since then are for:

1) True all-day battery life. That appeared 4 years ago. This was a big deal for college kids, as is meant leaving the charged at home/dorm.

2) Better Intel graphics. Depends on what you need. If you are only using as a laptop and not gaming, probably not going to notice.

3) If your SSD is not full, then the modest RAM is not going to be a big bottleneck with normal use.

4) I think the newer trackpads will have more gesture options, but you might not notice what you never had.

[Buzz]

General machine stuff, nothing too heavy. Newer MBA kinda makes sense. Budget not totally critical, but would like to be under about $1800 tops.
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[sekker]

Buzz wrote:
General machine stuff, nothing too heavy. Newer MBA kinda makes sense. Budget not totally critical, but would like to be under about $1800 tops.
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A new battery and updated SSD would make that machine feel new.

The most expensive new MBA is under $1600
https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbo...=MQD42LL/A&step=config#

[Grateful11]

So far I'm really pleased with the new MBA. It's a good bit snappier than my 2012 MBA. The battery life
is really nice. I was helping my son prep his old gaming PC laptop to sell and we used the new MBA on
battery power for about 3 or 4 hours and it only dropped 15%. I didn't want to spend a lot of money and
know the MBA will do what I want it to do. As far as storage I can always just send larger files to one of
the HD's on the iMac thru the LAN.

BTW: Prepping a Windows PC for sale is way more difficult than a Mac.

[anonymouse1]

New/refurbished MBA for the best value and no need to buy adapters. Might find one for $800-900.

2017 13" MBP FOR THE Retina screen and horsepower. Probably all of the $1800.