On the look for my first macbook... Tips please? Good deal?

Hey there, first post. I've gotten pretty into recording music out of my bedroom and it is time for a new computer. My pc is running slow, it is pretty old now, and I have used Macs before with good experiences and figured I would try one out. I plan on purchasing used, I have a friend who works at a Mac store and she assured me if I met someone to buy one at the store, she would look it over before I paid for it.

Basically, after cruising around on craigslist (I know, gross), I have found that I have a few possible deals, one of which is a 15'' 2008 macbook pro, penryn, 2.6ghz, 4gb ram, solid mint condition comes with original receipt and packaging, or a 17'' with a 2.53 ghz processor, 4gb ram, pretty much the same spec's, but from 2009. I offered $750 for both, and they both pretty much said "if i get no other offers, they would take that", and both of them emailed me back today saying they would take it.

I do intend on playing some games on it (steam games, older stuff, maybe starcraft II/diablo 3, nothing super intense like crysis)... mostly just the home studio stuff, which if my pc now can handle it, this can with NO issue.

Basically what I am getting at is, assuming thes are in perfect working order, are these good deals, and do you have any othe recommendations as far as macbooks go in the used $1000 and under market? Thanks!

$750 is a good deal for that machine. You can use this site for reference:

Mac2Sell - Guide to used Mac & iPod - Evaluation - Argus Mac, iPod, iPhone Occasion

Keep in mind that resale is quite a bit higher on Macs in general. Older games should run fine on it.

If you dont mind the "17 inch screen (due to harder to tote because it is larger) I would go with that because I personally find older the laptops, even when its a tad nicer with the upgraded processor, more things go wrong. Things get old.

My 2 cents

tdietz87 said:

If you dont mind the "17 inch screen (due to harder to tote because it is larger) I would go with that because I personally find older the laptops, even when its a tad nicer with the upgraded processor, more things go wrong. Things get old.

My 2 cents

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Solid state hardware doesn't often fail, but yes, hard drives and fans do. The same is true for any used computer. But that's some of the reason that you pay substantially less than you would for a new machine.