Looking to refurbish older Macbook which one is best?

[danijay]

Hello everyone!
I am looking to purchase my first Macbook Pro; however, due to limited resources, I will have to purchase an older model. I have been looking at several different options trying to see which model and year would best fit my needs. And I'm not afraid to perform minor upgrades to the machine myself. My biggest concern is buying a machine that is too old and either not upgradeable or buying a machine that is on its last leg and not worth purchasing.
I am not a gamer but I do enjoy listening to music and occasionally editing a photo in Photoshop. Most of the time, the it will be used for work such as lesson plans, data analysis, etc. (high school teacher)
I am currently using a Sony Vaio with an Intel Pentium 2.00ghz processor with 4 gb of RAM.
I'm pretty sure almost any Apple will be an upgrade, but what do you suggest?
Thanks in advance for your time!
Dani

 

[Samuelsan2001]

2012 classic macbook pro, apple still sells them new at an outrageous price but you can pick them up fairly cheaply. They have bluetooth 4.0 and USB3 and thunderbolt and HDMI, throw in an SSD (crucial or samsung usually most recommended) and 8Gb of ram.

To be honest though you'll probably get similar performance upgrading your Viao with an SSD and a few more gig's of RAM.

 

[danijay]

2012 classic macbook pro, apple still sells them new at an outrageous price but you can pick them up fairly cheaply. They have bluetooth 4.0 and USB3 and thunderbolt and HDMI, throw in an SSD (crucial or samsung usually most recommended) and 8Gb of ram.

To be honest though you'll probably get similar performance upgrading your Viao with an SSD and a few more gig's of RAM.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read and reply!
I will look into adding the hard drive and RAM, but thanks for the info on the Macbook Pro. I'm torn between the two. The Sony has been driving me crazy, but I would like to save the money.
Thanks again!
Dani