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testudoaubreii

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 14, 2014
109
13
Hello. I am looking for a macOS device for my audio production hobby (acoustic music, voice over, podcasting...etc). I have a device in my sights, a mid 2012 13" MacBook Pro with an i5 2.5GHz, 16GB RAM and 500GB HDD for $400. It looks like it is great condition and has a new battery. I really like the fact that it has all of the ports I need, especially the separate headphone and mic jacks.

Is this a good deal for a device that is this old?

Thank you in advance for your help and suggestions!
 

MBAir2010

macrumors 604
May 30, 2018
6,975
6,354
there
Yes, 16 gb and you can always upgrade the drive cheaper than ever. I would buy that because airdrop works with that model on ipads
 
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albertfallickwa

macrumors 6502a
Jan 27, 2014
543
40
I have the exact same laptop (in addition to my 2018 MBP 15) and upgraded it with a 1 TB SSD from Samsung. Works like a charm even though I had to get the hard drive cable replaced recently.
 

GoldfishRT

macrumors 6502a
Jul 24, 2014
611
350
Somewhere
I wouldn't buy it just based on the age of the internals and the terrible screen and weight. I know it's like $100 more but you can get a 2015 retina 13" for about that price - that would be my recommendation.
 

PVDHell

macrumors regular
Sep 4, 2018
101
300
PVD
I had one of those back in the day, well actually mine was a top spec 15”, didn’t work that well eventually. I sold it in 2017 for $350 cash. I wouldn’t pay $400 now (two years later).
 
Last edited:

DTECHQUE

macrumors member
Oct 3, 2017
53
152
Where are you buying the machine from? If it's eBay, I would ask the seller to lower the price a bit. Then I would use the extra money saved to buy an SSD. Since you are using it for audio purposes, the extra speed will help you import/export files quicker.
 
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