Questions about the Mac? Get them answered here.

It is the best decision you would ever make in your life...your life productivity will increase multi-fold using Apple MacBook Pro Retina. I recommend the following:
1. Buy the max hard disk space available if you plan to download your pictures and videos from your iPhone and iPad AND old emails. I bought a 256GB hard disk and have only 16GB left. FIrst analysis is how much space you will occupy in the new MacBook and decide accordingly. You cannot upgrade later.
2. You don't have to install Parallels at all.
3. iWork is great, but you don't have Access. If you need Access, then I suggest you install NeoOffice. Cost is US$ 10 per year. It has everything and more than Office Professional and it will work flawlessly on Retina Display. I evaluated all the other Free Office softwares and chose NeoOffice.
4. I have Parallels and my old Office 2003 Professional, but seldom use it. I use NeoOffice everyday, but miss the feature that iWork would offer me to upload all iWork files automatically on iCloud! I already have bought Keynote and plan to buy Pages and Numbers soon. Unfortunately Apple has stopped trial versions of iLife. I wish they would allow trial before purchase.
5. I do miss Outlook and the ease of emails in Outlook. Mail in Apple is not great. Other than Outlook, you can give up Office.
6. Of course you have one more choice - you can choose Office for Mac including Outlook - NO Access -, over iWork.
I hope this helps.

• Answered by Ruumi D
• 21/05/2013
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Hi

Flash storage is essentially a really big USB memory stick instead of using a standard Hard Drive which stores information on disks inside the drive. here are the Pros/cons to flash:-

Faster to access information from the drive
More realiable as they have a lower failure rate
Even more reliable as if the mac is dropped beyond repair you stand a very good chance of recovering your information without issue as their are no disks inside which are usually shattered/scratched resulting in a loss of information
help to make a unit lighter and more portable due to small size

Expensive
Small sizes

hope this helps

• Answered by Simon F from Darwen
• 9/10/2012
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Looking at the pictures, it appears that the RAM is soldered to the MB, so you probably can't upgrade it. It does appear that the Flash Storage could potentially be upgraded, but it uses a proprietary card format (not the more common SSD 2.5" drive format), so you probably won't be able to get a larger card from Apple anytime soon (and if you could, it would be less expensive to just buy the larger storage now).

• Answered by John A from Del Mar
• 13/06/2012
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First, upgrade to 10.6 Snow Leopard. You can purchase this at some stores, but only if they still have supply. They will not have it on display and you have to specifically ask for it. You can also order it online directly from Apple:
store.apple.com /us/product/MC573Z/A/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard

Once you have 10.6 installed, you can update to 10.6.8 and use the Apple Mac Store to upgrade to 10.7 Lion because the MacBook4,1 and MacBook4,2 do not support 10.8 Mountain Lion. However, you might need to call Apple Care in order to purchase this over the phone, as they no longer list 10.7 Lion in their app store.

• Answered by Miles R from Lakewood
• 24/05/2013
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I've had everything Mac has to offer. My uses are about like yours, with the addition of using a dictation/transcription program. I also do some streaming of movies & such. While I have a big desktop iMac, a couple of 15 inch Macbooks and a couple of iPads, I find I use the 13 inch Air much more than any of the others.

It's the ultimate in portability (just as good as an iPad), unobtrusive on my desk at work (where the Microsoft darkside holds sway), and the external CD drive works great. It's by no means necessary with all the developers who let you download their software directly, but I just like having the CD/DVD option.

Anyway, I don't think you'll be disappointed if you spring for the Air. I haven't been.

• Answered by Kay J from Port Orchard
• 28/10/2012
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No, but it is a great idea. What will happen if something goes wrong during the install, like a power failure? How many days or weeks will it take you to replace your data? Buy an external hard drive, and open "time machine" on the mac. Simple.

• Answered by Daryl T from Junction City
• 9/12/2012
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