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Processor speed vs. time

rye9

rye9

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 20, 2005
1,347
77
New York (not NYC)
So, I see that there's a couple refurbished Macbooks on apple's site, and they've piqued my interest. I'm a junior in college, using last revisions 13" MBP (got it after my freshman year), and it's been a great machine. My younger brother is about to enter college for 4 years, and is not as tech savvy and probably doesn't need the "pro", and will happily settle for just a MacBook. Would it be unwise to get a refurbished MB for him? Also, the two on apple's site are last year's and this year's model, with the only significant difference being that one is 2.26Ghz and one 2.4Ghz... is that processor speed difference going to be significant throughout his next 4 years?
 
The 2.4GHz model also has 320M which is about twice as fast as 9400M. Unless he does gaming, he won't notice the difference though. How much is the price difference? If 2.4GHz is only a little more, then I would go for that.
 
Can you be more specific with what you saw, because I just glanced at the refurb store and I saw several macbooks that were all from this year.

Those are priced at $849, which is $150 off I think.

Personally I think he'd only see a marginal (if that) gain from the processor bump. My mbp is over 3 years old, and I rarely hit processor snags on a daily basis (only really when I have a major project to work on and I have tons of things running). RAM comes up short far too often for me (but then again I still have my original 2GB-archiac, I know).

I would check out online retailers before making a final decision. Often times the lack of sales tax (check up on your local laws first though, because I'm pretty sure Amazon charges sales tax in NY) can be enough in savings to buy a new macbook from that retailer as opposed to buying a refurbished unit from Apple. In fact, if you were to buy from an online retailer for $949, you'd pay no sales tax and most likely no shipping, whereas with Apple's refurbished notebooks you'd pay $849+8.875%=$923, netting you only $27 in savings for a used computer.

You should also check out his campus computer store and the Apple EDU store, because both will offer discounts that will come close to the refurb price. Sometimes campus computer stores even run specials that can drastically cut the price on certain Macs.
 
rye9 said:
$90 more...?
Click to expand...

I would get the 2.4GHz then. It's only 90$ but the GPU is much better and it's something you cannot upgrade in the future. Even if he doesn't play games, I think the 90$ is worth it. At least it will be when you're going to sell it.
 
do you have a microcenter nearby, if so go to microcenter.com, they often have open box deals and great MB sales.
the current price is 949.00
 
rye9 said:
So, I see that there's a couple refurbished Macbooks on apple's site, and they've piqued my interest. I'm a junior in college, using last revisions 13" MBP (got it after my freshman year), and it's been a great machine. My younger brother is about to enter college for 4 years, and is not as tech savvy and probably doesn't need the "pro", and will happily settle for just a MacBook. Would it be unwise to get a refurbished MB for him? Also, the two on apple's site are last year's and this year's model, with the only significant difference being that one is 2.26Ghz and one 2.4Ghz... is that processor speed difference going to be significant throughout his next 4 years?
Click to expand...

Refurbished MacBooks are fine. But don't look at the processor speed, it doesn't make any noticable difference. The most important thing is to check that the MacBook has the new 10 hour battery and not the old 6 hour battery. _That's_ the significant difference between last years and todays MacBook. And the old battery is supposed to last for 300 charges, the new one for 1000 charges. Over four years that is at least one new battery he has to buy with the old model, possibly two.
 
gnasher729 said:
Refurbished MacBooks are fine. But don't look at the processor speed, it doesn't make any noticable difference. The most important thing is to check that the MacBook has the new 10 hour battery and not the old 6 hour battery. _That's_ the significant difference between last years and todays MacBook. And the old battery is supposed to last for 300 charges, the new one for 1000 charges. Over four years that is at least one new battery he has to buy with the old model, possibly two.
Click to expand...

The previous gen has 7-hour battery life which is supposed to last for 1000 cycles, just like the current one (all built-in batteries have 1000 cycles IIRC). The even older MB with user-serviceable battery has 300 cycles
 
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