So we are thinking about buying a Mac. Neither of us have ever used or even touched a Mac before. We've kinda narrowed it down to the Apple 13.3" MacBook Air MD760LL/B. Does anyone have an opinion on this model? It'll only mainly be used for internet and some office stuff (Microsoft word, excel, etc.)

Since it only has 128gb flash, is that a concern? I'm not real sure the difference between flash and a regular hard drive. Only thing I know about flash memory is usb flash drives.

Will my external hard drives work with a Mac? It's a WD My Passport 2TB. That's about all I know about it.

Thanks for you help.

Upgraded to the 512gb flash HD and I love mine! I do a lot of international travel and it is great laptop.

Your external hardrives will work... you will need to reformat them but that isn't a big deal.

Is that model that I posted "upgradeable"? If so is it as easy as a PC?

Reformatting the hard drive may not be that big of a deal, but mine is almost full lol.

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Upgraded to the 512gb flash HD and I love mine! I do a lot of international travel and it is great laptop.

Your external hardrives will work... you will need to reformat them but that isn't a big deal.

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thats not true. You don't have to reformat the hard drive to work with mac. You only have to reformat the drive if you plan to use it as a backup for time machine

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Upgraded to the 512gb flash HD and I love mine! I do a lot of international travel and it is great laptop.

Your external hardrives will work... you will need to reformat them but that isn't a big deal.

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thats not true. You don't have to reformat the hard drive to work with mac. You only have to reformat the drive if you plan to use it as a backup for time machine

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That actually depends. While most will work just fine, some Mac/External HDD combinations just do not play well together until the HDD has been formatted by the Mac OS.

Source: I'm a Mac technician

I recently got the cheapest iMac just for iOS programming, and I think it's great. Definitely recommend the Magic Trackpad if you use it with an external monitor and keyboard. Much more responsive and intuitive than anything I've tried with a PC.

That Air will be a nice rig for you, but no, you won't be able to upgrade the flash drive later. For that reason, you may want to consider uograding to the 256GB drive. Also, I'd look at going with 8GB of RAM if you can swing it.

Definitely agree with the comments regarding upgrading to 256GB HD and 8 GB RAM. I have an 11' MBA and a 15" MBP with Retina

We switched to Mac about 9 years ago and never looked back. First was iMac then Mackbook now MacBook Pro Retina. Wish I could use our most recent laptop as my work machine istead of a Dell. It's lighter and way more powerful, and the battery lasts about 5 times as long.

The Macbook Air is upgradable to 512gb but only as an option after you select the 256gb version. It is an extra $300 but well worth it in my opinion.

Yes the external hard drives work but as stated by the Disarmer, if it is going to be used regularly with your Mac... save yourself the trouble and go ahead and reformat it.

http://www.technologyx.com/pc-hardware/storage/apotop-introduces-smartsuit-microsd-adapter/

Is there any reason to suggest a Macbook Pro over the Macbook Air?

My experience: I have about a 7 year old Macbook Pro and have loved it. Sooner or later I will need to upgrade it, but as long as it keeps running well, I won't bother. I have only had to replace one component, the hard drive, a few years ago. I don't recall how many times I have updated the OS, but I just do it if I have to and am currently running 10.7.5. Time Machine is a great feature. It completely saved me when the hard drive died and I back up completely once a week.

5 year old MBP still running strong. Will probably upgrade to an Air after next year's refresh with Intel Broadwell processors.

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So we are thinking about buying a Mac. Neither of us have ever used or even touched a Mac before.

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I'm saying this a someone who has probably 15 Apple devices at home, but I'd recommend you head to either an Apple store or even Best Buy and just play around with one.

Personally, I love OS X and the whole Apple ecosystem, but it's not for some people. So go play with one for 15-20 minutes and see how you like it. There are a number of things that work differently from Windows so it takes some getting used to. Just think of it as test-driving a car.

That being said, get the biggest one (HD and memory) you can afford because you can't upgrade them later.

In theory, your external HD should work, but you may have issues writing to it depending on how it's formatted. If you decide to get another external, don't worry about getting anything that is "Mac specific". You'll have to format the drive regardless of what you get and that will make it "mac specific". I say that because often times you will see the same external HD priced $20-$30 more because it 'works with Mac'.

Thanks guys. I did end up going to best buy today and there was a guy there who worked for Apple. I hit him up and he spent the time to "teach" me the mac. After the purchase, he brought me over to the side and helped me set it up. So far so good.

Thanks again.

What about IMAC?

Of you can deal with the of method Apple uses to store files, and locate them, more power to you. They are high quality products I just don't like their file structure.

I use both a Mac and a PC. I don't see how their methods of storing files is any different.

Users>Name>Documents, Pictures, Downloads, etc ...

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Of you can deal with the of method Apple uses to store files, and locate them, more power to you. They are high quality products I just don't like their file structure.

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I actually find it easier to find files on my Mac than I did my PC

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I use both a Mac and a PC. I don't see how their methods of storing files is any different.

Users>Name>Documents, Pictures, Downloads, etc ...

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Maybe it's changed since I last worked with a Mac, which was quite a few years ago. Either that or the guys computer I was using had his files all squirrely. Either way, Apple makes a fine product and best of luck to the OP.

I've been looking around for a new travel laptop and found this 13" Macbook Air refurbed for $779. It looks like a good deal to me, would any of you Mac folk shy away from it for any reason other than the memory? I don't think I'll be doing anything that's too memory intensive.

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Of you can deal with the of method Apple uses to store files, and locate them, more power to you. They are high quality products I just don't like their file structure.

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Huh?

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I use both a Mac and a PC. I don't see how their methods of storing files is any different.

Users>Name>Documents, Pictures, Downloads, etc ...

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Maybe it's changed since I last worked with a Mac, which was quite a few years ago. Either that or the guys computer I was using had his files all squirrely. Either way, Apple makes a fine product and best of luck to the OP.

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it's been the same storage methodology since 2008 when i bought my first mac

Posting for the first time on new 15" MBP. Just got done transferring data from 2009 MBP. Pull the trigger!