What features are important for a casual user?

Question

What features are important for a casual user?

I am getting a Macbook Air for my wife. She uses it mostly for email, banking on Chase website and photos. No heavy apps such as Photoshop. Some Word use (maybe Pages if she likes it), no Powerpoint or Keynote. She uses the calendar and Notes.

I configured the Air on-line to have the standard processor, 13 inch display, 4 GB RAM and 256 GB drive.

My question:

Should I upgrade the processor, RAM or drive considering her use?

She questioned whether she should have the 11 inch or 13 inch monitor. We are both over 65, so I thought that the 13 inch was a good choice since she had a Windows computer with a 15 inch monitor and going to an 11 inch monitor could limit her with the size of the screen. However, she liked the portability of the 11 inch screen.

Posted on Mar 8, 2014 9:36 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Mar 8, 2014 9:40 AM in response to EricGAnderson

Stick to the 13" screen. Otherwise, it should be fine.

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Answer 2

Mar 8, 2014 9:52 AM in response to EricGAnderson

I wanted to ask if the faster processor would be really noticable to anyone or what use of the computer would make a upgrade to 8 Gigs of memory noticable?

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Answer 3

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Mar 8, 2014 9:55 AM in response to EricGAnderson

For what you described as what she would do there is really no advantage to spending the extra money. But, if she is going to be running the Office applications concurrently along with a few other applications, then she will need more RAM. So, if you are willing to spend extra then 8 GBs of RAM is a good choice.

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