Purchasing a brand new used MBP

[Gewch]

Hello,

Long time lurker, first time poster.

I must admit, as a life long PC user I feel pursuaded to give Macs a shot. With that being said, I have been feverishly looking through Craigslist/Apple Store/fleabay to find the best deal. I am hoping some of you long time Mac users can offer me some insight on which MBP to purchase. My budget is about $1300. The Macbook will be used primarly for online college courses. A high secondary use will be for iTunes music collection and managing photo collections. I will not be doing anything *too* intensive, I just want to get the best bang for my buck. Here are some details:

I found a local offer through Craigslist for the newer 13.3" 2.26Ghz 2Gb RAM, 160Gb hard drive for $800.00. The owner purchased this from Apple about 6 months ago. There are only 2 scratches on the bottom of the laptop.

I found another offer through Craigslist for a 15.4" MB471LL/A. The owner has confirmed the laptop is in pristine condition. He purchased this from Apple in Dec of 08 with AppleCare that is valid until 12/11/11. The price he is asking is $1250.

I have been looking at the new 13.3" MBP directly at Apple using the Education discount. For $1099 + taxes I would get the newest low end MBP with 4Gb of RAM.


What are your thoughts? Would it be smart buying the 13.3" older version and spending $100 bucks on new RAM/HD? I am concerned about the older 15.4" MBP - seems like its identical hardware to the 2009 versions although it also has AppleCare. Would I be better off just going to the newest 13.3" from Apple?

Thanks in advance for your expert advice.

 

[elpmas]

I found a local offer through Craigslist for the newer 13.3" 2.26Ghz 2Gb RAM, 160Gb hard drive for $800.00. The owner purchased this from Apple about 6 months ago. There are only 2 scratches on the bottom of the laptop.

i think that is your best bet :]
is your university an authorized distributor? mine is going for $950 for the 2.2 and $1200 for the 2.5.

 

[runebinder]

Personally I would go for the new 13" with the education discount.

You get the satisfaction of it being brand new rather than second hand, it's got the most up to date specs of the 3, claimed 10 hour battery life, it'll have the best resell value, and from reading some of the other posts the 320M is a capable IGP and more than enough for what you say you'll use it for.

Buy the new shiny

 

[Hellishness]

I found another offer through Craigslist for a 15.4" MB471LL/A. The owner has confirmed the laptop is in pristine condition. He purchased this from Apple in Dec of 08 with AppleCare that is valid until 12/11/11. The price he is asking is $1250.

I have a feeling that that means nothing...anyone with me?


But, if I were you, I would go with the brand new 13"