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Is This A Good Deal For A MBP 13" 2010 Model?

M

mstruve

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 21, 2011
158
0
Hi
I am thinking of buying a used 13" mid-2010 MBP with 250GB HDD from a friend. He has asked for £400 for it and I just wanted some opinions on whether this is a good deal.

It hasn't had that much use and looks to be in very good condition for a 2 year old laptop.

But will it still be up to the job of running all my apps etc - mainly net browsing, iTunes, IM, uTorrent?

Also are there any quick and easy upgrades/improvements you would recommend making to it?

Thanks very much.
 
If it was me, I would buy it. Seems like a good price. But I would take it into an Apple Store first and see if they find any problems with it. Despite the laptop being 2 years old, it should/could sell for more than that 400 euros on ebay. Also, if it's going to be your main computer, I would add some ram to it, and a ssd wouldn't hurt either.
 
It sounds like a good price if it works perfectly. From the hard drive size, that should be the 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo model.

Test it out by playing a DVD, burning a CD or DVD, plugging devices into every port to make sure they all work, etc. A faulty USB port could be an early sign of logic board failure.
 
Nope it cannot run iTunes or browse the internet, it's two years old you need at least a 2012 refurb to perform those tasks.
 
Thanks. Yeah it's the 2.4 ghz core 2 duo model. Is it easy to upgrade the ram?

I'll try plugging a few things in and make sure they all work. If anything goes wrong though I'm buying from a friend so I'm sure he'd take it back.
 
mstruve said:
Thanks. Yeah it's the 2.4 ghz core 2 duo model. Is it easy to upgrade the ram?

I'll try plugging a few things in and make sure they all work. If anything goes wrong though I'm buying from a friend so I'm sure he'd take it back.
Click to expand...

It's simple to upgrade the RAM. You unscrew the bottom and gently remove it. Then you can see the RAM to swap it out. You can gently unplug the battery while doing it, as iFixit shows in the link below, but it's not necessary. If you don't have a spudger, which is an Apple specific tool, you can use the edge of a butter knife, but again, that's optional and if you're only changing out the RAM it's not a big deal to skip unplugging the battery cable.

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing+MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Unibody+Mid+2010+RAM/4319/1

That model came with 4GB of RAM, which is plenty if you're just doing casual things like surfing, email, photos, watching movies, etc. Upgrading to the max (8GB in this case) will always make a computer a little faster and help it with heavier tasks.
 
That's great, thanks very much. Will definitely look into doing that as I upgraded the ram on my mini and it def made a difference.

How about adding an ssd? How much are they and is it easy to do?
 
mstruve said:
That's great, thanks very much. Will definitely look into doing that as I upgraded the ram on my mini and it def made a difference.

How about adding an ssd? How much are they and is it easy to do?
Click to expand...

SSDs are easy to install. Unscrew and original hard drive, then replace with ssd. You can also buy a hard drive enclosure to put the hard drive in to use as a portable hard drive while your machine uses the ssd.

Ssd can go anywhere from 70 bucks for a 64 gb one, 100 for a 128 gb one, 150-200 for a 256 gb one, or 350-500 for a 512 gb one. It all depends on how much storage space you need. BUt if anything, you can buy a ssd with a smaller space capacity, and use the hard drive you took out as a portable hard drive. But then again, you might not need a sdd for the tasks you mentioned you do, but it certainly wouldn't hurt.
 
You can even take out the DVD drive if you rarely or never will use it and put a second hard drive in it's place. You would need what's called a drive caddy to secure the hard drive in that slot. They run roughly $15-50 U.S. depending on the brand.

Here is a link to one just so you can see what it looks like, etc. I have no idea if this company ships to the U.K., and their price is on the high end anyway...

http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/

If you decided to do that, you would probably want the SSD, if you buy one, to go in the regular hard drive spot and the original HD or a new larger one to go into the drive caddy. I've read that there sometimes can be issues with SSD drives in the optical drive caddy slot. Most people have no problems.

Here is a video on how to put in a second drive in the optical drive slot...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2GPBJjUqvg It's not hard, barely more work than upgrading the RAM.You can also buy an inexpensive external enclosure for your DVD drive so you can still use it if needed.

As for SSD's, if you have a second drive to keep your music/movies/photos/downloads/documents, etc. on, you won't need the largest SSD drive. You just keep your OS on the SSD and apps, so they launch and run faster, and that's it. Google how to move your music and photo libraries to the second drive.
 
Last edited:
That's great, thanks very much for all the help.

I went ahead and bought the macbook. I will definitely look at increasing the RAM asap and then have another look at getting an SSD a bit further down the line - still not sure how big I would need it and how I'm going to organise my media etc.
 
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