0:01 hi Apple lovers and welcome to another episode of the tech Hub in today's episode it's a apple Budget Buy series episode where I review OD appletech which is still usable and affordable today this episode looks at the MacBook Air 13in which was released in 2017 is it still worth it in 2025 let's find out let's start the episode [Music] okay so it's been a while since I did one of these Apple budget buys is specifically opening and testing a device I've got from eBay uh cavat at the beginning all the prices we talk about is uh connected to eBay listings I
0:47 spotted this on an eBay auction um and realized I haven't I've only done one MacBook Air episode which was the 2014 model and that was very disappointing due to the ram so this one um three years newer um at 2017 and it does eight have 8 gigs of RAM as well so I'm interested to see what the differences there uh so we're going to um talk about the specification we're going to unbox and see the condition of the machine I got I've had it for about a week and I've not opened it yet so I'm itching um and then we'll see what use I can make out of it with some testing so let's have a look so let's dive into the details of the Apple Mac hook air 13in from 2017 this is one of Apple's classic that
1:34 continues to hold its own for basic tasks and Casual users so let's break down and see what makes this machine tick starting with the design it's thin light and absolutely iconic weighing just 1.35 kg or roughly 3 lb the MacBook Air 13in 2017 stays true to its name portable sleek and built for Mobility now of course one of Steve Jobs highlights of his key note is the way he presented uh the original MacBook Air which was in a envelope so that's a classic scene right there now let's get into the specification so it's processor it's powered by a 1.8 GHz dual core Intel Core I5 from the fifth generation while this processor isn't a Powerhouse by today standards it's capable of
2:21 handling everyday tasks like web browsing email and basic productivity as for the ram you've got 8 gigs of RAM of L P DDR3 memory clocked at 1,600 MHz for a light multitasking it does the job just fine as for storage it comes in with 128 GB solid state hard drive it's fast and reliable but let's be honest you'll want to keep an external drive or cloud storage handy if you want to work with larger files very good for the basics but um again very much Basics but you definitely need a cloud option here or external storage 128 GB just doesn't doesn't cut it now for the graphics this machine features Intel HD graphics 6000 while it's not meant for gaming for heavy Graphics work
3:08 it's enough for light photo editing and streaming videos uh we will also test that out along with apple arcade speaking of the display the 13.3 in screen features a resolution of 1,440 by 900 now it's not retina but it gets the job done with decent colors and brightness especially if you're sticking to basic work tasks or streaming content in terms of ports Apple kept things user friendly on this model with two USB 3 ports a thunderbolt 2 port a SDXC card slot and of course the mag safe charging port which we all still love for its reliability and safety one of the standout features of the 2017 MacBook Air is its fantastic battery life Apple
3:56 claimed up to 12 hours of wireless web use and even now you can get close to that depending on your usage it's a great option for those long days away from a charger however with the age of the machine now this shouldn't be expected due to um battery degrading uh so we'll have a look in the settings on the one I'm looking at we'll have a look at the cycle count we'll have a look at what it says the battery uh condition is today the keyboard and the trackpad on this machine are classic apple the keys have a good amount of travel making typing comfortable and the track pack remains one of the best in the game smooth precise and responsive as for the software if you own a 13in MacBook Air from 2017 you might be wondering what is the latest
4:41 Mac OS version I can run well the answer is mac o Monteray this version released in October 2021 is the newest operating system officially supported on your MacBook Air Monteray brings several exciting features like Focus mode universal control if you have other compatible Apple devices and enhance privacy features it's worth noting that the newer Mac OS versions like ventur or anything beyond require updated hardware and AR compatible with the 2017 MacBook Air however you could use the open Legacy Patcher to update to the newer versions but my reviews are for the average consumers and that's a bit more advanced so I'm not going to run into that today um but out of the box officially it's not compatible with
5:28 anything else so is the MacBook Air 13in 2017 worth it 8 years later in 2025 let's unbox it and take a look okay so like I said I've had this nearly a week now and I've held up uh held off from uh unboxing it now I have pre-opened the box but I assure you I've not taken it out so let's have a look oo I was not expecting a laptop bag check that out I might oh hey there's a HDMI adapter fantastic I was not expecting this at all this is really nice uh I might just have to keep that
6:13 one for myself when I do get these OD models um I do look for ones with boxes because it adds to value of cheap Tech already look at that absolute classic box now you wouldn't have thought this was just such a small SLE machine based on the size of this box and it does make me wonder if this would go against their carbon um neutral um policies of today but anyway uh a natural box so let's open it up and have a look yes yes yes this always makes me happy too the film we'll look at that in a minute so we have the charger and the Main's plug they haven't done a very good job uh putting it back in but um from
6:59 experience it is a pain in the ass to re put this in so here's the Main's plug and the mag safe um they've made an effort with the original packaging but uh I'm probably not going to keep it on myself these always make me laugh is there stickers oh there is stickers and a manual looks like the the screenshots from the Mac OS though do look like Sonoma so that's everything in the Box let's take a look at the machine so I'm expecting good condition I'm not expecting sparkling now uh looking at the back it's in actually really good condition I'm not seeing any thing that caus me concern at the moment the lid's
7:47 in really good condition and usually it's the lids that um take a bit of a batter in let's open it up oh wow password is password that means they have um factory reset it uh which is disappointing when I open a machine I want it to be um from the GetGo screen um now I'm not going to take the time to reinstall the software to get to the boot up screen um because it does take a while so when we do testing we'll go from just logging in um but here it is no immediate concerns with the screen I mean there are some marks on it but look at
8:32 that I never had one of these personally I always had um MacBook Pros so I never had a MacBook Air in that era but like I said this is the second one I'm testing so let's put it through its paces and have a look okay so I've got it all plugged in so let's see if it Powers up not sure if you heard that on my microphone picked it up um but good start it's booting up not a bad boot time now I'm not there we go uh they have just set up a a normal user I always fact to restore it so I want to get it to the point where you have to set it up like a brand new product I'm not going to do that for the purposes of our testing today because it can take a
9:20 while um but anyway apparently the password is password Here We Go and that's Monteray now that's not actually a bad boot time but again I'd expect that from any new device because theoretically it should pretty much be empty let's yeah I could sign into my account but I probably will to check out the app store for the purpose of the testing so this is 2017 it is 1.8 it is 8 gigs of RAM plenty of storage left so 98 gab left after the system now what I am really interested to find out is of course um the system report to see how good the battery is because like I said it's
10:05 eight years old so these things are going to start needing new batteries or um not be usable battery here we [Music] go where are you 32 Cycles battery condition normal that is phenomenal 32 that just means that it's being been charged 32 times essentially that is incredible for the year um I could not be happier with that right now uh oh my God amazing okay let's uh get it connected to the Wi-Fi and see if there's a software update it's currently running Mac OS
11:00 okay Wi-Fi is connected let's see if there is a software update it's up to date okay one less thing for me to do so let me sign in and then we shall see what we can use this for um which is the point of this test okay so I've successfully just uh signed into the App Store I don't want to sign in to everything on the iCloud for the purpose of my testings um now from memory um I believe this is the newest version where it will take the authent code so I've got two form factors set up with my Apple ID um it ask for it here it was expecting the code which is great previous models if that doesn't come up just put it at the end of your password uh but if memory serves this this just
11:46 does that so um let's download an apple arcade game um just to see if it's compatible with anything there let's go with um good good old snake iio now I'm not expecting the world when it comes to download speeds uh however that's installed pretty quickly it l um so let's see if it will play now when I've done these tests before I'm waiting 5 10 minutes for an app to install so I'm really quite impressed on how quickly um that loaded here we go
12:32 snake iio well that's looks like it's working to me I'm not saying all Apple arcade Cade games are going to work uh but ultimately this one does so test number one success let's have a look at um one of the office apps from Apple as well as a Microsoft uh app as well so do pages and we'll also do word I think where I usually go wrong with these tests is I download multiple apps at the same time download one at a time if you're going to use these OD machines um they are here we go download an older version of pages because the newer one doesn't work now again if memory serves right Mac OS
13:19 monter is the only App Store that gives you that option it's really hard to get previous versions to download on other app stores because the appes don't work anymore so um the newest one is Pages isn't compatible with this machine so it asked me if I wanted to download a newer version so I'm super happy with that okay so it took Pages uh couple minutes to install I've certainly had it worse so let's just make sure pages does load like I said it is an older version um of the program there we go pages is working absolutely fine um I'm not going to check all of the Apple office suite um however I do want to have a look at of course the main Rivals people either use Pages numbers of keynote or office uh for Microsoft which is word excel and PowerPoint so let's give word a try
14:06 again downloading no version of Microsoft Word app this is a great feature of the App Store if if the current version doesn't work uh but like I said this is the um oldest App Store version that that will do that a download speed's pretty good I'm probably going to test that out in a minute um but I'm getting that's downloading at 20 megabytes per second and I've got a gig um connection speed which I usually tend to get 800 700 Megs out of um Wi-Fi wise but that's on devices with Wi-Fi 6 we're do an internet test in a minute waiting for word to install there the uh dongle they've sent this is Thunderbolt 2 um which really only Apple used that size for it's a HDMI dongle so I'll sell that
14:51 with it and as much as I do love that laptop case it came with I will bundle that as well to hopefully get a uh a good deal word a while to install probably good four five minutes um let's uh just check word is working um apart from the internet I'm not really going to test a lot else I mean I know photos Works calendars work so everything that you would use in the iCloud is working on Mac OS Monteray um I'm seeing a big difference between the 4 Gig model um 2014 version and this one um I'm I'm surprised how Snappy it is actually um but as we can see word is loading absolutely fin um so yeah so for office suite absolutely fine I'm not
15:37 going to test iMovie because for me that's more of a semi-prone I know iMovie worked on the 2014 version it's going to be a lot quicker and snappier on this version um so what have we done we've done productivity with office suites uh Apple arcade I'm not saying every game's going to work but let's face it none of the Apple arcade games are that intense that they're not going to work so you've yourself for productivity for some gaming let's check the internet speed um and then we will stream something um from Netflix to see if you can stream in Netflix and chill here we go um that's pretty good score look um Mid 300 megabytes on on the Wi-Fi U Mine is usually capable of
16:23 about a gig um so that's a good sign let's check out Netflix okay Netflix is loading let's just see if we can stream something yes we are um wrestling lovers in this house absolutely fine for some netflixing and chilling look not a problem okay so uh after this testing let me uh give you my thoughts on this in 2025 so before I give you my conclusion let's talk about the pricing so I got this for under200 uh it wasn't an
17:10 auction um I think the reason I got it so cheap was because of the timing of the auction so the prices I'm going to kind of run through with you are based on eBay Buy It Now prices I'm expecting to get about 2 to 250 for this machine probably the higher end there because of his condition especially that battery which I'm so happy about uh on average I could say you could probably pick one of these up for 200 to220 if you play the auction game well maybe 10% to 20% less than that um considering you can get an M1 version of the MacBook Air uh of course that's different form factor and we're not doing a comparison today that's not what this is about uh however you can get those from anywhere between 400 and 500 so I would say um £250 as a maximum for
17:57 this model so the ultimate question is is it usable in 2025 yes if you want web browsing little bit of productivity it will edit your photos as well in apple photos it's good for the Apple ecosystem um a little bit of gaming on uper arcade and some Netflix and chill so video streaming not a problem so I think that's a tick tick tick all the way there so thank you for watching this episode of the tech Hub do you have this model are you thinking about getting one give me some comments uh below and as always please be kind please like this video And subscribe to me you can also follow me on Instagram and threads at techhub wituk and check out my brand new website at
18:43 www. techhub uk.co I'll see you on the next episode [Music] sh
