2012 15in MBP vs Late 2013 rMBP 13in help!

I have someone that offered to sell me their 16gb RAM, 500 GB HDD, 2.3ghz i7 Quad core with Intel HD 4000 card for $1400. I might be able to talk them down to 1300ish, but not sure. He also said it has Office 2012, Photoshop CS6, After Effects CS5, and Final Cut Pro X. Either way, I'm pretty sure this is a good deal on this but just want some opinions. My other option was getting the mid-line new rMBP 13in (2.4ghz i5, 8gb ram, 256 SSD, Intel Iris Graphics) through either the education store discount or when Black Friday comes around.

For what I will use it for, I'm just a college student. I have a beast of a windows laptop (Sager 8130np), but the battery life and portability is annoying. I play games, record music in my free time, and sometimes put videos together. I will probably run Parallels and bootcamp. I'd prefer an SSD (obviously), but I'm not sure if this 15in model's hard drive is replaceable. Also, I know the 15ins are a lot more powerful than the 13s but do I even need all that power? Also, I've been told that the 15in's bulkiness gets annoying after a while, can I get some input on that?
I guess I also would be up for just buying the 15 in to try out for a bit, then if I don't like it I can sell it. Which would take me back to the original question of if it's a good deal or not.

The 2012 15" MacBook Pro machines ship with two graphic chipsets; a discrete nVidia and an integrated Intel HD 4000. If you can buy that machine for $1300, it would be a very good bargain. As for the software he's going to include, unless he gives you the original disks and serial numbers (licenses), none of it would be legal to you. Also, there is no such app as Office 2012. Office 2011 is the latest version for the Mac. Keep in mind that the 2012 MBP is upgradeable - hard drive and memory. The retina 13" MBP 2013 model is not.

Durantula said:

I have someone that offered to sell me their 16gb RAM, 500 GB HDD, 2.3ghz i7 Quad core with Intel HD 4000 card for $1400.

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Not exactly the best deal here. You can get this (see link below)...13" MacBook Pro, 8gig ram, HD 4000 graphics, 750 gig HD, and 2.9ghz quad-core cpu for $1269:

Refurbished 13.3-inch MacBook Pro 2.9GHz Dual-core Intel i7 - Apple Store (U.S.)

It has a faster cpu, and a larger HD...but it does have less ram (8gig).

As "chscag" mentioned. That included software is not "legal to you" unless the original owner transfers all ownership/licensing to you. With almost everything going thru the "Cloud" these days. The first time you try to update many of these apps (if the developer...Adobe for example)...sees that a serial number is used more than once...they may "lock-up" the apps. Then they will no longer be useable.

- Nick

Nick:

That first machine he's trying to buy for $1300 is a 2012 15" MBP, certainly worth more? Or maybe I'm reading him wrong?

chscag said:

That first machine he's trying to buy for $1300 is a 2012 15" MBP, certainly worth more? Or maybe I'm reading him wrong?

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You're right thanks for mentioning it. For some reason I thought they were both 13" models...especially since the dedicated gpu was not mentioned for the first MBP listed (but I see 15" is mentioned in the title as well).

Here would be the equivalent 15" refurbished model from the Apple Store for $1449 (other than he ram upgrade):

Refurbished 15.4-inch MacBook Pro 2.3GHz Quad-core Intel i7 - Apple Store (U.S.)

Which of course would come with a full 12 months of Applecare (not sure if any Applecare remains on the 15" computer mentioned above).

- Nick

p.s. @OP...I'm not sure it's completely fair to compare a 13" vs a 15" MacBook Pro. The differences in:

- screen real estate
- weight
- and footprint

...are very big deals/differences to some folks.

Just a couple more questions...

He didn't include the graphics card in the description, but do all the 2012 15" ship with both? Surely that's something you would include...is it just a slip on his part?

And yea, it is a little unfair to compare the two, which is why I wanted to get the 15" and try it out, but only if I'm getting this for a good deal which would ensure my money back if I were to resell it to someone else.

Durantula said:

He didn't include the graphics card in the description, but do all the 2012 15" ship with both? Surely that's something you would include...is it just a slip on his part?

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Just a slip on his part. All seller's are "not created equal" when it comes to posting the specs on a computer they're selling. Yes...all 2012 15" MBP's have a dedicated graphics card.

Durantula said:

And yea, it is a little unfair to compare the two, which is why I wanted to get the 15" and try it out, but only if I'm getting this for a good deal which would ensure my money back if I were to resell it to someone else.

Click to expand...

Ask the seller if there is any Applecare remaining on this 15" MacBook Pro.

As I mentioned above...this same exact computer (without the ram upgrade) can be purchased from Apple refurbished for $1449 (+ tax of course). It will come with a full 12 months of Applecare...and you would also have the option of purchasing Extended Applecare for a total of 3 years of Applecare.

Having remaining Applecare on a computer can be a nice selling point...especially if you don't intend on keeping it a long time.

Of course if you can purchase this 15" MBP for significantly less than what it would cost you from Apple...then that has its advantages as well.

- Nick

p.s. FYI...unless you would be keeping this 15" MBP for a VERY short time...don't count on getting all your money back. All computer values depreciate quickly.