2011 MacBook Pro for Office etc

[volkwagen1300]

My son is looking for a low-cost laptop to take to school to use for Office etc, nothing too demanding. I see ads on CL in our area for 2011-era MacBook Pros for $350-400. Some even have Office already installed. Is this worth it? Can I expect to get at least 2 years out of it if it seems well cared for? Or would I be better off with a more recent regular MacBook or even low-end PC laptop? Trying to keep this $400 or less.

Thanks,

 

[Jac Robinson]

$350-400 sounds a little steep for that model year. If you are in the US, I would check eBay. At the minimum, I would recommend a 2012 MacBook Pro(this should cost less than your budget). For the price, I think a 2014-2015 MacBook Air would do the job very well (and maybe a little longer). Check eBay for one in your price range.

Would a 2011MBP do the job? Perhaps, but one of the MacBook Airs I mentioned will feel much faster, have better battery life, weigh less, and have a higher screen resolution.

If you don’t care whether or not you have MacOS, then get a low cost PC.

 

[tlab]

I still fairly regularly use a late 2011 MBP for office, email and web use. The main thing to think about is replacing the hard drive with an SSD, and consider upgrading to at least 8GB of RAM. It is a great machine and very easy to upgrade, unlike the glued-together laptops Apple makes these days. It still works fine with a hard drive but it was becoming a bit painful until I upgraded to SSD, and now it absolutely flies.

It doesn't run the latest version of macOS, but for the uses you're describing it will be more than adequate.

They're obviously bulkier and heavier than the 2012-2015 generation, which is a consideration if he's walking with it to school every day.

 

[DrBrush]

My son is looking for a low-cost laptop to take to school to use for Office etc, nothing too demanding. I see ads on CL in our area for 2011-era MacBook Pros for $350-400. Some even have Office already installed. Is this worth it? Can I expect to get at least 2 years out of it if it seems well cared for? Or would I be better off with a more recent regular MacBook or even low-end PC laptop? Trying to keep this $400 or less.

Thanks,

I still use a non-retina mid-2012 MBP every day 8 hours a day. It's been upgraded to 16 Gb RAM and an SSD (make sure you have the SSD), and is perfectly adequate for "normal" use. Mine has been well-used - it has travelled with me almost every day for nearly 7 years now and the GPU is near the end of its life (some strange speckles only when using the discrete video card) but with somewhat lighter use I see no reason why it wouldn't keep going for another couple of years.

 

[jerryk]

Could you find a newer model, say 2013 or later, for the same money? The retina screens are much better. And the newer systems are lighter, less bulky, and have fewer moving parts (ex. ssd drives) that fail.

There seem to be a number of these on eBay that fit your budget.