Is this refurbished MacBook a good buy?

Seaxwyn

My daughter wants an MacBook - she is going to art school this year and says that they are very popular among art students.

She's found this: http://www.mapleuk.co.uk/refurbished-white-apple-macbook-laptop-133-2ghz-2gb-mb881ba-93-p.asp - which seems to be good value. A new one would be out of reach of my budget.

But is it advisable to buy a refurbished machine? Are there better options?

I will be grateful for any advice. Thanks!

fwor

There's always an element of risk with refurbs, because there's no way to be sure how well they have been tested.

If you're unlucky enough to get what was originally a customer return with an intermittent fault then, unless it's been extensively soak tested, there's a good chance the fault will still be there when you get it.

Only thing you can do is watch very carefully for the slightest sign of problems during the 3 month warranty period...

buglawton

The price for the one you linked is OK-ish....

Catch seems to be: In the 'in the box' list are no DVDs/CDs for installation of software to make the machine run.

Worryingly, the page says "This laptop is compatible with Mac OS Lion" but does NOT say what operation system version, if any is actually installed.

More worryingly, here:
http://www.mapleuk.co.uk/which-operating-system-on-my-maple-computer-33-w.asp
...it says that UBUNTU is installed as standard.

I'd get such questions cleared up first.

These machines actually fetch around £350 on Ebay if you can find one. Maybe you can get one from a good-feedback seller who is clear about what version of MAC OS is actually installed, and supplies the standard Apple installation discs too.

Saying this as I recently bought one off Ebay after checking listings for a week or so. Take your time and you may get lucky.

Figment

The listing says Apple MacOS X 10.5

faerie~spangles

As a student she is eligible for the Apple student discount. Her uni/college may have finance schemes in place too.

starrybee

John Lewis have the Macbook Air reduced to £599 at the moment - don't know if this is too far out of the price range, and don't how different the specs are between the air and the one listed here are but might be worth a look - at least you get a 2 year guarantee with a more reputabable company

http://www.johnlewis.com/231672700/Product.aspx

buglawton

Good price for the Air, the 128 GB storage offered is good. I'd plump for that to be honest.

PS Maple ought ot make their Terms clearer:

"Well, firstly, what operating systems are available?
When purchasing a Maple computer, the standard price of each machine will include an install of the Ubuntu operating system. During the customisation stage of the order, customers are given the option to have Windows 7 installed on their computer."

Notmyrealname

Seaxwyn wrote: »

My daughter wants an MacBook - she is going to art school this year and says that they are very popular among art students.

She's found this: http://www.mapleuk.co.uk/refurbished-white-apple-macbook-laptop-133-2ghz-2gb-mb881ba-93-p.asp - which seems to be good value. A new one would be out of reach of my budget.

But is it advisable to buy a refurbished machine? Are there better options?

I will be grateful for any advice. Thanks!

It is not advisable to buy any Macbook. The Macbook has a plastic case compared to the aluminium one for the Macbook Pro. There is a common problem with the case cracking. Google Macbook Case Cracking and you'll see exactly what I mean. Apple even instructed their repairers to replace cases for free for out of warranty Macbooks up to 5 years old.

At the price that is, you're not that far off buying a used late 2009/early 2010 13.3" Macbook Pro from Ebay. People look after their Macs so it'll probably be not much different than it was new except some wear on the keys. The batteries are a none-issue as they are designed to do 1000 charge cycles. Mine at 30 months old has spent a great deal of its time on the charger - weeks at a time - and is still at 84% of original capacity after 343 charge cycles, still giving 4..5-5hrs on a charge.

Notmyrealname

buglawton wrote: »

The price for the one you linked is OK-ish....

Catch seems to be: In the 'in the box' list are no DVDs/CDs for installation of software to make the machine run.

I bought a new MBP - it didn't have any. Press CMD-R when booting to boot to the recovery partition.

Worryingly, the page says "This laptop is compatible with Mac OS Lion" but does NOT say what operation system version, if any is actually installed.

Apple charge £20 for a new version of OS X.

More worryingly, here:
http://www.mapleuk.co.uk/which-operating-system-on-my-maple-computer-33-w.asp
...it says that UBUNTU is installed as standard.

I'd want OS X on it and that would be a deal breaker in my opinion for someone new to Macs.

fishybusiness

It is not advisable to buy any Macbook. The Macbook has a plastic case compared to the aluminium one for the Macbook Pro

Come on...there is more to it than that.

I've had both and they are all durable for day to day use.

Pro's have issues standard macbook's don't have, and second hand buyers should be aware of the whole story, not just an opinion.

So, some of the pro's have issues with nVidia video chips getting too warm, and eventually the display will go black, needing an expensive logic board replacement. Apple as far as I know no longer cover these under warranty.

Some pro's also have a strange issue with keyboard lag. Mine didn't ever have a long lasting fix.

On the other side, pro's are faster when working with photoshop and the like, I guess it depends on how heavy the usage is.

I have a 13.3 macbook now, it was an ebay used purchase, and I swapped the drive for SSD and it is superb.

Notmyrealname

fishybusiness wrote: »

Come on...there is more to it than that.

No there isn't. It is a design and material flaw. If it wasn't, why did Apple issue a statement to their repairers to to tell them to fix them outside of warranty for free?



http://macs.about.com/b/2009/04/08/apple-to-repair-cracked-white-macbooks.htm