Is an old MacBook Pro worth it?

[ThunderMasterMind]

Over the past month, I've been thinking about getting a MacBook Pro to replace my 15.6" Toshiba Satellite. My laptop has been great to me, I've had it for 5 years and just replaced the battery in it today. It's not really powerful, but it gets the job done, just not too smoothly. It's rocking an AMD E-350 1.6GHz dual core processor, integrated Radeon HD 6310 graphics, 8GB of DDR3 RAM, and a 320GB HDD. I've done a lot on it, from Minecraft, to Battlefield 4, MS office, etc... needlessly to say, it's done a lot for me, and I've loved it.
My parents got a 13" MacBook Pro this past summer and I've tried it and liked it, so I want to get a 15" MacBook Pro to replace my laptop, but I don't want to jump strait to the current models, because they are crazy expensive, but rather go for an older 2011-2012 non-Retina model, because I feel that they offer a more bang-for-the-buck in terms of something cheeper, and with a few extra features, DVD drive (still use them), exterior battery meter, expandability, etc. they have the same 4th gen processors and RAM that the Pros had until this year, and the fact that It can be expanded is really appealing for me, especially with a low price range. I want to do tasks like, web, email, iMessage, Skype, Photoshop, a little video editing, and maybe a little game here and there. What I really like about the Macs is the fact of them having extremely long battery life. I don't want to go crazy with a beefy laptop, so I just want to keep it down a bit, with more affordable pricing and standard specs.


Now my questions
Is an old MacBook worth it?

Should I wait a bit and look some more and raise up more money?

Is there a better new option?

 

[Apple_Robert]

Nothing wrong at all with your idea. An older Mac can serve your basic needs very well. You just need to be mindful of where you purchase an older used MacBook Pro. I suggest looking at the Marketplace forum on here regularly. There are usually older Macs for sale at very good prices. And the forum members do a very good job of taking care of their Macs etc.

 

[protoxx]

You probably want to get a 2013 version. They got the Haswell cpu. It had a huge increase in battery life.

 

[Patron_Saint]

I'd say at least get a Haswell retina model. I also wouldn't rule out the current lineup. Deals can be had on them already, and if you're aiming for 5+ years out of it then the newer the better.

 

[zhenya]

The older models with the DVD drive were still being sold as new by Apple until recently so I'd try to find some leftover stock or something unless you have a line on a good deal at a good price used, with a warranty. There is one in the refurb store right now for $829.