UK Late 2008 15" MBP with some defects

[tejaykay]

Dear All

I am looking for price advice to sell my soon-to-be retired MBP later this year. I am going to sell this laptop and then my wife and I will share her 13" MBP.

The specs are as follows:
Late 2008 15" MacBook Pro
2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB RAM
512MB GDDR3 Graphics Memory
750GB MomentusXT SSHD (upgraded in 2012)

There are two key issues to consider:

1. The laptop has to constantly be plugged into a power source. The battery is sufficiently old that if the laptop is left unplugged it depletes itself to a state where the laptop will not switch back on. I then have to run the process of trying to reset the PRAM, or holding the power button down whilst the battery is removed. A new battery may solve this, but I have happily left it plugged in permanently at my desk for the past 6 months.
2. There are a series of hairline cracks in the top-right of the display. This was caused by the aforementioned wife stepping on the laptop in 2009. The LCD is unaffected and it’s difficult to notice the cracks when the monitor is on – they are mostly located over the screen bezel/black surround.

I’d really appreciate your advice on what GBP (or USD) price I could expect from selling this later in the year? Hopefully the sale will support the costs of upgrading my wife’s MBP.

I can share photos of the screen cracks if you consider these to be a major issue.

My thanks in advance.
Tim

 

[PBG4 Dude]

I have a late 2008 MBP as well with a crack in the glass. The drop in selling price due to the cracked glass kept me from selling mine.

When I was looking to sell mine, I was told about $300 due to the cracked glass when $600 was the going rate for the same model without cracks.

 

[keysofanxiety]

Genuinely you'd be really lucky to get £350 for it, it's not a hugely competitive machine and the problems with the battery & display means it's not economically viable to repair those issues.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Genuinely you'd be really lucky to get £350 for it, it's not a hugely competitive machine and the problems with the battery & display means it's not economically viable to repair those issues.

Agreed, people still love the 17 inch machines but those issues put it at about £200-£300 for me as well.

This is one of those few occasions where you might get more on ebay, where a bidding war for a 17 inch machine may push up the price...

 

[keysofanxiety]

Agreed, people still love the 17 inch machines but those issues put it at about £200-£300 for me as well.

This is one of those few occasions where you might get more on ebay, where a bidding war for a 17 inch machine may push up the price...

Agreed but I think the OP mentioned it was a 15" So probably even less.

Honestly, even the higher-end C2D chips still have pretty poor performance, like 1/2 of the CPU benchmark in the 1GHz rMB. Such a shame as I love the upgradeability of the 08/09 models, with that delicious hinge and battery/HDD compartment.

Of course throwing an SSD in there should run Yosemite fine but ... unfortunately they're getting long in the tooth.

 

[tejaykay]

Hi All,

Thanks for your responses. Based on this information I think I may punt for £200 at best for the machine. I think a new battery would solve the need to never unplug it, but these are getting harder to find and still quite an expense.

I will miss this machine as it was a huge leap from my PowerBook G4. It still runs really snappy in Yosemite. Heaven forbid you should open something like iPhoto though!

I've definitely changed my Mac user habits over the last 5 years and I know I will never need a powerful Mac again. I'll be eyeing up the Retina MacBook in 2/3 years time!

Thanks again,
Tim

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... with that delicious hinge ...

Couldn't agree with you more!