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I'm buying a used MBP tomorrow morning. What should I check for?

X

xxsktcxx

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 5, 2012
1
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I'm meeting up with a person from craigslist.

I've checked the serial number they provided for me and it's legit. It's the 13 inch unibody, Mid 2010 version. No warranty left.

Ram = 4gb
HD = 250gb
Has original box, wires, CDs, etc.

They claimed to have not used it more than a couple times. So I asked for the battery life, and it only has 48 cycles on it.

It's in pristine condition. No scratches, dents, etc.

I know already to check for:
Make sure serial number is the same
make sure the battery cycle is the same
check that the camera works
speakers
keys (sticky, or what not)
trackpad
dead pixels
put in a DVD to check superdrive
and check wifi

Is there anything I'm missing?

He/she offered me the price of $780 for their MBP. Is that a good price? I can't really find any other for a lower price for this good of a macbook. The lower priced ones have dents, or the batt cycle count is like 900, or they have a cracked trackpad, or other problems like that.

I've already done my research on the Apple website and can find no refurbished one under 930, which is past my budget of 800.

And they are at crazy high prices on ebay..

soo.. whats your opinion? :)

_______________________________

The reason I'm getting this is because right now, I have a normal white unibody macbook with 2gb of ram. I wanted to upgrade to 4gb because I run a lot of stuff at a time like Illustrator, photoshop, etc.

Upgrading will cost me around $50. I have a friend that is willing to buy my laptop for $700. So I thought.. why upgrade only ram for $50, when I can upgrade the whole thing for $80? :D

The thing I hate about my macbook is that there is no backlight for the keyboard. -.- And I like using it at night in the dark before I sleep haha
 
Last edited:
48 cycles? That is used more than a few times but probably not too much.

I would check the obvious

Water damage? Do all the keys work without sticking? cd/dvd recognize discs, drive clicking, dents, stuck pixels, overall condition (ie skateboard stickers all over it or looks pristine?) Adult owned vs kid.


I would also look around at your local Best Buy, they have an extra $100 off open box right now. I picked up a 2011 with warranty 15" i7 quad for $1300
 
For refurbished there are C2Duo MacBook Air's that would fit with your budget if your specific usage can cope with their peculiar specs.
However that used MBP you found looks like a honest deal.
 
You pretty much know what to look for, especially calling apple and verifying the serial. Seems like a good deal.
 
You have pretty much everything covered. My main fear with buying used is liquid damage, so really check and make sure the keys aren't sticky and there's no obvious residue anywhere.

If it comes with the restore discs, put the Applications disc in the Superdrive and restart it holding "D." That will start the Apple diagnostic test that will check to see if the internals are working properly.

Otherwise it seems like a good deal. Good luck.
 
Small suggestion- make sure the screen hinge is nice and tight. I made the mistake of not checking that once on a Windows Laptop and came up with a laptop that I had to open very slowly and could only let the screen go back a small amount.


I got a Macbook Pro mid-2050 a couple of months ago and love it. While to doesn't perform like the new i7 Sandy Bridge ones, the performance is still quick and pleasant. It's about the same speed as my mid-2011 Mac Mini base (2.3 Ghz i5 Sandy Bridge versus the older i5 at 2.53 Ghz on the Pro.)
 
The battery cycle will only ensure that the battery is still in good condition.

The seller may have had their MBP plugged into the mains for most of the time that it was used which would mean the battery count remains unaffected; therefore other components could be in a not-so-good condition.
 
Just FYI, I've had my laptop for 6+ months and use it daily, but it's always plugged to power. My battery shows only 14 cycles. Keep that in mind when thinking you can use battery cycle counts to see how much the computer has been used.
 
Mikesus said:
48 cycles? That is used more than a few times but probably not too much.

I would check the obvious

Water damage? Do all the keys work without sticking? cd/dvd recognize discs, drive clicking, dents, stuck pixels, overall condition (ie skateboard stickers all over it or looks pristine?) Adult owned vs kid.


I would also look around at your local Best Buy, they have an extra $100 off open box right now. I picked up a 2011 with warranty 15" i7 quad for $1300
Click to expand...

Is this $100 in store? or printable coupon? They had one in November that was printable. Thanks for help.
 
Beachguy said:
Small suggestion- make sure the screen hinge is nice and tight. I made the mistake of not checking that once on a Windows Laptop and came up with a laptop that I had to open very slowly and could only let the screen go back a small amount.


I got a Macbook Pro mid-2050 a couple of months ago and love it. While to doesn't perform like the new i7 Sandy Bridge ones, the performance is still quick and pleasant. It's about the same speed as my mid-2011 Mac Mini base (2.3 Ghz i5 Sandy Bridge versus the older i5 at 2.53 Ghz on the Pro.)
Click to expand...

Oh wow, what kind of improvements have Apple made to it by then? Can I please see it? :D

But on a thread related note: I think everyone here has made every suggestion I would've about what to check. But the thing I'd look at is also to make sure the specs he's telling you are right. He could say there are 4gb of ram and only have 2gb in it. Same with the hard drive. Luckily the "About this Mac" menu makes that easy to check.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

What to look for:
-USB ports (bring thumb drives)
-Body damage
-water damage
-sticky keys
-keyboard backlog ghat
-optical drive
-headphone jack
- FireWire port
-etc

Seems like a good idea.
Enjoy & Congrtats

Sent from my iPod touch :apple:
 
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