Help me decide on this second hand Macbook

[surfer17]

Hey everybody,

My friend is selling his Mid 2010 Macbook Pro 13" to me for $450. Its specs are as follows:

Processor: Core 2 Duo 2.66 ghz
Ram: 8 gb
Hard Drive: 500 gb
Battery Cycles: ~350
Comes with Snow Leopard/Mountain Lion (As per my choice)
The Macbook itself is in pristine condition. I have seen him use it for last 2.75 years and he used it like it was the most delicate thing in the world.

I don't know if its the right choice to go for something like this. I am desperately in need for a laptop. I do also have a Gaming Desktop Rig.

I will be using the laptop for programming (including web development), watching movies and surfing the web.

I would like the laptop to last me 1.5-2 years. I am a student right now graduating in 2014.

What is your opinion on this? Should I get it or not? Few things I am concerned about: No USB 3.0, slow processor and its build, that is, whether it will last as long as I need it to.

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Krazy Bill]

$450 would depend on cosmetic condition IMO as long as everything works fine. It's not a bad price. The specs should last you well beyond 2 years for what you need it for.

Edit: I see you already have a MBAir. Why do you want this one?

 

[negativzero]

It will last until you graduate no problem. If our think it isn't fast enough, buy a ssd and do the optibay modification, it will help with slowness.

 

[surfer17]

$450 would depend on cosmetic condition IMO as long as everything works fine. It's not a bad price. The specs should last you well beyond 2 years for what you need it for.

Edit: I see you already have a MBAir. Why do you want this one?

Sorry, I had it in the past, but I had to sell it to afford my tuition. Forgot to change the signature. Thanks for your response. Appreciate it.

It will last until you graduate no problem. If our think it isn't fast enough, buy a ssd and do the optibay modification, it will help with slowness.

Can you tell me what Optibay is? Thanks for your response.
EDIT: Never mind. I googled it. Should have done it before :S

 

[KUguardgrl13]

Hey everybody,

My friend is selling his Mid 2010 Macbook Pro 13" to me for $450. Its specs are as follows:

Processor: Core 2 Duo 2.66 ghz
Ram: 8 gb
Hard Drive: 500 gb
Battery Cycles: ~350
Comes with Snow Leopard/Mountain Lion (As per my choice)
The Macbook itself is in pristine condition. I have seen him use it for last 2.75 years and he used it like it was the most delicate thing in the world.

I don't know if its the right choice to go for something like this. I am desperately in need for a laptop. I do also have a Gaming Desktop Rig.

I will be using the laptop for programming (including web development), watching movies and surfing the web.

I would like the laptop to last me 1.5-2 years. I am a student right now graduating in 2014.

What is your opinion on this? Should I get it or not? Few things I am concerned about: No USB 3.0, slow processor and its build, that is, whether it will last as long as I need it to.

Thanks in advance for your help.

I'd say you're getting a pretty awesome deal. With the 8 gb RAM, you could run ML pretty well and Snow Leopard would run like a dream. Assuming nothing goes wrong with the hard drive or the logic board, you could definitely get two+ years out of it.

 

[srsub3]

it sounds good.... but I will be afraid of battery life... probably with an sad you will be fine.....

 

[NewishMacGuy]

That does sounds about right on pricing, maybe even a tad cheap. Battery life should still be OK at 350 cycles, but you can check in more detail by:

1. # Menu > About This Mac > More Info > System Report > Power
2. Download iStat Pro widget or Battery Health app (both free)

I would definitely buy a 256GB SSD if you can make do with that space and a hybrid if you can't. Regular HDDs are just too slow for modern computing, but 512GBs cost more than you probably want to spend on this laptop. The hybrids are quite a good compromise if you need a lot of storage space.

 

[Krazy Bill]

Everyone keeps trying to sell the OP an SSD. Yes, they're great and the OP already knows this as he's coming from a MBA. That said, I think the 500gb conventional drive would be just fine. They weren't that bad - many of us were weened on them. And any 3rd Party SSD he buys now can't be transferred to a new MBP when that time comes.

If I were to put any money into that thing it would "first" be a new battery... assuming the old one wasn't giving you at least 5-6 hours of use.

 

[surfer17]

Hey guys, thanks for your advice and suggestions. I made the move and bought it from my friend. I however checked first that the hard disk was working fine, it was. I checked the battery health and it still retains 91% of the charge. As I said, I have seen my friend use it for last 2.5 years and he has kept it as a shrine. Plus he is really good friend of mine so he wouldn't bluff me with a lemon.

So far the HDD is working great. An year down the line, when I have some money, I'll surely upgrade to SSD.

Yes I did have a Macbook Air before. But honestly, other than boot up, I didn't see a big noticeable difference.

I asked my friend to install Snow Leopard and give it to me. I used it for half hour and I missed Mountain Lion. I installed Mountain Lion and this machine runs like a dream.

The best part: There is 0 lag when maximizing windows, switching workspaces, and when launching and navigating the Launchpad. Which is huge as I had a big problem with this on my 2012 Macbook Air.

Now this has a dedicated GPU - Nvidia 320M which is much weaker than Intel HD 4000. So I don't know why its the case that this doesn't lag while the newer Macbooks do (except the 15" ones).

 

[Sparticu$]

$450 is a decent price it beats the hell out of paying for a brand new one.