The Dive Watch Connection

Has any one ever bought a refurbished apple laptop before notice there half the price. Had a friend in MT buy one of EBay seemed a good deal. Just would like to try apple just once and not have to deal with security software. Or are they shit and better off with a new one.

I picked up a refurbished MacBook Air for my daughter.
There is no diffence between that one and the one I picked up new a few years back.

I’m not sure if I’d go the eBay route. I would go amazon or through Apple.

Also, I would only pick up something that has current specs and will run the newer updates

I bought one. It had the usual problems one would expect from that generation. It wasn't a great deal though.

If you can get same generation laptop for half the price with the same warranty as a new one or at least some warranty, then it is a good deal. You can check warranty status online, if you know the serial number.

If you want a laptop that won't piss you off with slow page load times, you need one with an SSD. Also, regardless of screen size, you want at least Full HD resolution. For me, a matte screen and bezel are a must as well.

Absolutely do not get one without an SSD whatever route you go.

if the ebay one isn't from apple itself, it probably won't come with the full apple warranty.

a refurb from apple carries the same warranty as brand new. never bought a laptop that way, but i've bought refurbed iphones and ipads direct from apple and they've been great. but apple won't give you half off with a refurb. so the ebay one probably comes with a much more limited warranty.

refurbed apple laptops are a great choice. working on my 3rd as i type this, and they all came as good as new with warranty, only difference is they ship in a plain white box sans graphics/branding.

refurbs

We had really good luck with Apple laptops. I give one to each kid as they graduate from HS and they have been lasting thru college. I used one for work. I did recently by a new one cause I needed more memory but the 2010 air still works fine. However, I haven’t done refurbished. At least thru Apple, the discount wasn’t enough to bite on. When they bring out a new model/refresh, you can find a little more discount.

^^this is key, buy the previous version just after the new models come out for the best value proposition.
i don't do production work on my laptop, so ssd hdd and a decent amount of processor and memory handle what i do with more than enough efficiency. more often than not, i'm limited by network bandwidth more so than physical resources on my local machine. ymmv.