buying help macbook pro?

Whatever you can afford. If you can afford the 15", get that.

 

15" has quad core and discrete GPU. which helps in video editing. No 13" quad cores.

 

I've always been wary of eBay for something this expensive but CL might serve you well. I would make an appointment to meet the seller at the Genius Bar with the sale contingent on a clean bill of health on the machine. Even if the GB charges you to check it over, it would be worth it in my book.

In addition to the cosmetic appearance of the laptop, if the seller has all the manuals, packaging and cables, it's an indication that the machine has been gently used. Another big plus is remaining Applecare.

 

15" Retina all the way. Pick up a refurbished unit with 16GB of ram. Just get the ram now because you cannot upgrade it later.

Does it absolutely have to be a Retina? You can pick up a 15" Classic with the 1GB video card and upgrade the ram yourself and be at around the same price as an upgraded 13" Retina. To make it lighter, you could rip out the optical drive and replace the disk drive with a solid state.

 

The 8GB or the 16GB? Because remember you cannot upgrade the ram in a Retina. And even if you're doing light editing, you're going to want the ram for future proof's sake. 2013 is the year of the 8GB standard and when you sell the machine, no one's going to want to be stuck with 8GB when people are mostly using 16GB machines.

 

Given that fleBay is extremely biased toward buyers, you would have more protection buying from them than even CL.

 

I would do Apple refurb.

 

That's very, very similar to one I just sold on here. Pretty much identical, including the price.

It's a good deal.