MBP 2015 13.3 UK refurbished

[Wando64]

I am interested in purchasing a MBP retina 13.3 and I found an Apple refurbished offer in the UK for a i7, 500gb SSD, 16gb ram for 1,449 GBP. The same model new is going for 1,729 GBP.

This seems a great offer, however I am torn as whether to wait for a new model or not.
My main concerns about a new model are the possible disappearance of ubiquitous standard ports, such as USB, HDMI, SD etc...
How substantiated are the rumours of these ports no longer being included (I do appreciate that rumours are rumours after all...)
Also worried about the GBP losing more value against the USD and UK prices going up as a consequence.

I guess, I would like to know if the new models are likely to have any "killer" feature that would justify the pain of having to use USB-C hubs for everything.
The CPU upgrade alone is not what I would consider a must have.

also, can anybody confirm if UK refurbished MBPs are coming in a retail box or a brown box?

Thanks

 

[treekram]

If Apple believes that the GBP devaluation is not going to be short term, then they'll probably increase the prices - but who knows when they'll do that. I don't think it will happen in the next week, but it may happen in the next month. If Apple believes there's going to be instability for both the GBP and euro, they may wait and see what the currency markets do and what other computer manufactures are going to do.

If the MBP has USB-C with both Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.1, then it will replace the current Thunderbolt ports. There are not-so-painful ($25) options to do USB-C to HDMI and it's not too much of an inconvenience (in most cases, HDMI devices are not portable) so I think that could be a likely candidate to go. A number of people seem to feel the Magsafe port will go and charging will need to be done via the USB-C port. Not having USB-A ports is a major inconvenience as you'd have to get some type of device to use the vast majority of flash and external drives available today. I would think that Apple would wait before getting rid of those and I haven't heard any concrete rumors that they'll do away with them completely.

 

[Wando64]

It has already been sold.
One good lesson learned here. Good stuff on the refurbished store go fast.

EDIT: Another one just became available so I just took the plunge and went for it.

 

[treekram]

It has already been sold.
One good lesson learned here. Good stuff on the refurbished store go fast.

EDIT: Another one just became available so I just took the plunge and went for it.

Glad you got what you wanted.

I think the GBP will be down for several months at least. I would think that when Apple introduces the new MBP, they're not going to price the UK models to the point where it's very attractive for people to buy there in the UK vs. their home country. So there's a good likelihood that the price will be higher than the current model. At the moment, Apple is trying to figure out how to price their current products in the UK, people are trying to figure out when/if prices will be higher, people on the continent are trying to figure if they should go to the UK to buy. Looking at the possible scenarios, I don't think the price will be substantially lower than it is today. Yes, prices of the current model will take a dip once the new model is introduced but by then there's a good chance Apple will not offer them at substantially lower prices than it is today to reflect the GBP devaluation.

 

[T5BRICK]

It has already been sold.
One good lesson learned here. Good stuff on the refurbished store go fast.

EDIT: Another one just became available so I just took the plunge and went for it.

It's a great computer. I've had mine since last April and it's been great. If I had it to do over again, I would have saved $200 and went with the 2.9GHz i5/16GB/512GB model instead of the model with the i7 upgrade. It's just not worth the extra money.