With less than six months use, the backlight has now failed for the second time and back off to the repair centre. The repair ecentre did comment the frst time that this was a common issue, which obvioulsy rings alarm bells. My first Macbook pro lasted 3 years and 2 months before a mother board failure meant a $1100 repair or buy a new one. Laptops a mobile and can expect rougher treatment than a desktop PC, however my laptops a cared for and should last longer than 6 months, so be careful when buying even the big name of Apple. On a positive Apple have opened and licenced more service agents which means its a little easier to get to one, but once is enough.

Current MacBook was a replacement for a previous MacBook that had 'cooked' the battery - key indicator is a flickering display. At over 3 years old, the previous one was out of warranty. Apple staff provided a range of options to me and, after much consideration, I accepted an offer of a free replacement. The more I use the MacBook the more I appreciate the quality and features, having been a committed Microsoft user for years. If needed, I can use MS Office 365 on-line at zero cost. Considering the quality of after sales service and the very poor service from the range of MS dealers and products, I would not go anywhere else.

I only just got this yesterday and already I'm so happy with my purchase. The laptop works beautifully and I'm glad I got it. only downside is the earphone jack because I don't have the right earphones but other than that I have no other complaints

It's literally unusable. I send it off for repair, even getting a whole new keyboard the second time through a top-case replacement and 2 months later the same issue is happening on the new keyboard. Please don't buy this laptop, it is a huge pain and dealing with it over and over again is horrible. They refuse to give me a refund.

Build quality is excellent as what you would expect from Apple products. The display however is a big disappointment. I know within this price range one shouldn't expect a P3 display like those in found in pricier MBP. However I still expect it to have at least the same display quality as my early 2015 MBP. Come on, the MBP is almost 4 years old! The old MBP display has significantly better contrast ratio and brightness compared to the Air. I also feel that the colour is more accurate with the MBP. Glad I didn't choose to upgrade to 16GB and 512GB SSD, because I'm going to sell it sooner than what I originally planned to.