[rkomorn]

I loved mine but I'd be lying if I said it gave me three years of acceptable performance.

Sure, I can blame Chrome and JS, but ultimately, the core 2 duo and 8GB RAM did not keep up very long.

[kennywinker]

There was an 11” air with an i5/i7 - i splurged for 16gb of ram when i bought it in 2015 and it lasted me 10 years.

It still works, but a few specific apps started to really drag on it.

[rkomorn]

I guess, but that kinda means I would've needed to improve my 11" MBA's longevity by buying another, more recent, 11" MBA though. :)

[JessieJanie]

It really pays longevity wise to get max ram!

[rkomorn]

Sure, but the 11" MBA I bought was max specs at the time it was released and the point is: it didn't last long.

[kennywinker]

Timing. The core 2 generation was right before we hit a plateau in processors. An i5/i7 macbook from 2014-2015 felt pretty good for 5-6 years, until the m1 came out, and you can coast for another 2-4 years being annoyed some people have a faster machine before they start baking features into the OS that make your machine feel even slower. That’s 7-9 years of use depending on your tolerance for being behind the curve. Mine’s high, so I got 10 years out of it.

Conversely if you bought an i7 macbook in 2019 it would have felt out of date in just 2-4 years, when everyone has an m1 or better and things are starting to slow down from OS changes that expect apple silicon.

If you bought an m1 just a year later in 2020, i’d guess you’re feeling fine 6 years on.

[rkomorn]

Again: I bought a max spec model when it was released.

I didn't wait years to buy the max spec model of a previous generation or something.

I'm well aware CPUs got better and whatever arguments people want to make.

None of this changes the fact that the initial 11" MBA was borderline obsolete from launch.