Hi All,
I need some tips on buying a second hand Macbook Pro 13 inch from 2018.
I am a IT Engineer with 15 year of work experience, but i am less versatile if it comes down to mac computers.
A few things that i look for.
1: Must have at least 6 months to 1 year apple care from the moment i buy it second hand. (can be renewed apple care, i guess thats not possible?) THIS IS MY BIGGEST CONCERN for buying second hand apple macbooks due how they are constructed and thus repair costs.
If you guys say buy new with a 3 year apple care instead, i will do that, as i dont want to end up with a second hand laptop with a expired apple care after 6 months and a repair bill of 400+ USD because the butterfly keys are broken or such...
Unless its possible to extend a existing Applecare as long its still active? then i renew it for 1/2 more year. I believe the laptop may not be older then 365 days in order to extend it to a total max of 3 years of apple care..
2: Test butterfly keys on double strokes by using a notepad app on the laptop.
3: Check specs if they correspondence with what the seller said spec wise.
4: Any particular quick hardware tests i can do? is there a recommended application, to test the SSD IOPS/ Battery Cycles, RAM Mem-test? Something that i can do within 5~ minutes to determine its hardware, being ok and ideally do a Fan test to test temperature and noise.
And check heat generation from heatsink next to touch bar area and bottom of the laptop.
5: Flexgate?! not sure what that is i heard the term a few times.
6: Beside factory reset anything else i need consider? find my ipad for macbooks is turned off?
Not sure if i need be mindfull for a macbook pro being associated with someoen else his/her apple ID or not... not sure if that exists..
Anything else that you recommend me to check?
I dont want to buy new due the yearly incremental refreshes etc, i feel its not worth to buy it at retail price.
As i will be looking at the 2018 model with quadcore I5 or i7, 16 GB RAM not the 8 GB version. 256 GB or up SSD capacity.
What do you guys think would be a fair price for a secondhand 2018 macbook pro 13 inch in this range?! i am thinking around 1200~ USD?! ideally a bit lower... closer to the 1000 USD range.
I will be mainly doing video editing via FCPX. I see them for sale here in hong kong second hand around 500~ USD less then retail. Those 500~ USD saved i put forward to a replacement laptop 2 years later (another second hand for example of a 2 year newer model)
Thanks for your help in advance!
I need some tips on buying a second hand Macbook Pro 13 inch from 2018.
I am a IT Engineer with 15 year of work experience, but i am less versatile if it comes down to mac computers.
A few things that i look for.
1: Must have at least 6 months to 1 year apple care from the moment i buy it second hand. (can be renewed apple care, i guess thats not possible?) THIS IS MY BIGGEST CONCERN for buying second hand apple macbooks due how they are constructed and thus repair costs.
If you guys say buy new with a 3 year apple care instead, i will do that, as i dont want to end up with a second hand laptop with a expired apple care after 6 months and a repair bill of 400+ USD because the butterfly keys are broken or such...
Unless its possible to extend a existing Applecare as long its still active? then i renew it for 1/2 more year. I believe the laptop may not be older then 365 days in order to extend it to a total max of 3 years of apple care..
2: Test butterfly keys on double strokes by using a notepad app on the laptop.
3: Check specs if they correspondence with what the seller said spec wise.
4: Any particular quick hardware tests i can do? is there a recommended application, to test the SSD IOPS/ Battery Cycles, RAM Mem-test? Something that i can do within 5~ minutes to determine its hardware, being ok and ideally do a Fan test to test temperature and noise.
And check heat generation from heatsink next to touch bar area and bottom of the laptop.
5: Flexgate?! not sure what that is i heard the term a few times.
6: Beside factory reset anything else i need consider? find my ipad for macbooks is turned off?
Not sure if i need be mindfull for a macbook pro being associated with someoen else his/her apple ID or not... not sure if that exists..
Anything else that you recommend me to check?
I dont want to buy new due the yearly incremental refreshes etc, i feel its not worth to buy it at retail price.
As i will be looking at the 2018 model with quadcore I5 or i7, 16 GB RAM not the 8 GB version. 256 GB or up SSD capacity.
What do you guys think would be a fair price for a secondhand 2018 macbook pro 13 inch in this range?! i am thinking around 1200~ USD?! ideally a bit lower... closer to the 1000 USD range.
I will be mainly doing video editing via FCPX. I see them for sale here in hong kong second hand around 500~ USD less then retail. Those 500~ USD saved i put forward to a replacement laptop 2 years later (another second hand for example of a 2 year newer model)
Thanks for your help in advance!
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