Have I done the right thing?

[Docadd]

This is a million dollar question really but what I am wondering is have I wasted my money?

I have purchased a refurbished MacBook Pro 15inch May 2015 2.5 Ghz. This has cost me through Apple £1699. Now I could of gone for the less spec model (refurb) for £1350 2.2 Ghz and was wondering have I just gone overboard for the sake of it.

To be fair I am an average to basic user of a Mac, play a couple of games, small amount of video editing and general usage. My wife is shortly going to be working from home due to her job so will start using it more for a work device. The reason for the screen is the wife prefer the larger size (que joke!). I'm not overly fond of cloud storage through experience of using a Western Digital Mybook which is unusually slow so why I like the 512 GB drive.

I used to have an iMac mid 2010 but after 6 years it started to go quite slow, now I could of upgraded it but wanted to loose it for the space it took up, hence why I have chosen a MacBook. Now my logic is that this should last me hopefully 7 years of good usage before needing another update.

What I am trying to work out though have I gone to high spec with what I have chosen (basically trying to keep up with he Jones) and should I of gone for the lesser model? I am just wondering for the extra £350 I have spent was it worth it for the SSD 512Gb and the the extra processing power and the improved graphics card. I am basically just trying to get prolong the life of this MacBook for the future. As I say I'm a pretty basic user.

 

[AFEPPL]

Only you know that... you wont see much for the extra paid, i would have gone the other way for sure.
You can always return it and make it apples problem.

 

[bgalakazam]

I don't think you need the dGPU or the 2.5 (3.7 boost) i7. I just got a 2015 model and am very surprised at the performance. I will probably be keeping this laptop for a while (only have a T400 for my car diagnostics and a desktop for my other computers).

Save the money and get a warranty or some extra goodies rather than on the CPU.

 

[davidg4781]

I felt the same way when I purchased my first MacBook. Should I have just got something cheaper.

After a while, I realized I made the right decision. I don't know about you, but I spent days and days trying to decide what is the best to purchase. I had buyer's remorse, but in the end, I realized I made the right choice. And you will realize that too, soon.

 

[Spudlicious]

As long as it wasn't financially stupid for you to get that Mac then of course you've done the right thing. Life is short, so if you can reasonably afford to buy the things you want, then why the hell not? I don't really understand your comment about cloud storage and the WD MyBook, but especially when your missus is using the Mac for work I would advise against relying on the internal SSD for files/content. The chance of failure is very low, but it exists. An external solution provides the nearest thing to certainty, and the neatest way (ie no cables or boxes on the desk) to do that is with cloud/NAS.