Buying an older Macbook

[Justintime11]

Hello,

My macbook pro of 6 years recently died on me. I really want to move on to a new Imac desktop because I love the screen size and the stationary aspect lends well to increased productivity for me. However, I realize I will need a laptop for portability - mainly just streaming movies and tv on the couch/ surfing the web at a coffee shop. Also possibly some light adobe suite work. I think I would like to buy a much older model macbook for $300 or less to meet these needs. I see a lot of them listed used on sites like new egg or ebay. Does anyone have any advice on the best model/specs when it comes to buying such an outdated model? Anything is appreciated. Thanks!

 

[pigoo3]

My macbook pro of 6 years recently died on me.

I think I would like to buy a much older model macbook for $300 or less to meet these needs.

You said that your 6 year old MacBook Pro "died" recently…which would make it a 2009 model. And you mentioned wanting to purchase a "much older" model MacBook.

So the question is…how old of a MacBook are you thinking about? Your 6 year-old MacBook Pro was from 2009. So it's kind of difficult to figure out from the post if the "Older Model MacBook" you want is older or newer than the 2009 MacBook Pro you had.

And FYI (in case you didn't know)…Apple stopped making "MacBooks" in 2010 (but did start them again in 2015).

- Nick

 

[Justintime11]

You said that your 6 year old MacBook Pro "died" recently…which would make it a 2009 model. And you mentioned wanting to purchase a "much older" model MacBook.

So the question is…how old of a MacBook are you thinking about?

Thanks for the reply, sorry if I was unclear. Basically I have a budget of about $300-350 for this laptop that I willbe using for movies/surfing/light work on the go. I'll have an IMac for serious work/power in my studio. I'm wondering if buying something like this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...7766&cm_re=macbook-_-2SN-0001-000C6-_-Product
Is worth it for the extremely low price (and what my best option in that vein would be), or if I should just use that money to buy a new chromebook or something.

 

[pigoo3]

That MacBook in the New Egg link is from 2009…and in my opinion…is not that bad of an option for doing what you want to do with it. As long as you keep things on the "light-side"…it would be ok. It is upgradeable to 8gig of ram & can run the latest Mac OS. And you could install an SSD into it (if you wanted to)…which would make it feel snappier.

The only other thing I would advise is…definitely shop around for the best deal on it. Generally speaking…websites like New Egg and others need to make a profit…and so the prices on them are generally higher. I usually only shop Craig's List. Of course with Craig's List…what you want may not always be posted when you want it.

Here's one for sale on eBay for $209 (much less than the New Egg price)…with free shipping. It could probably use a ram upgrade.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-MacBo...760946?hash=item4878e296b2:g:JB8AAOSwQPlV-Iz0

HTH,

- Nick