Just curious, what have been the slickest deals you have ever had on Macbooks of any type? For example, you picked up an MBP for $1500 and sold it after 3 years for $1500 or you got a $2000 MBP for half that or something like that? Not looking for specific answers to anything other than some frugal curiosity.
Got the late 2013 rMBP for £1200 for the £1500 model brand new from ebay, its a bargain and is as good today as the day I bought it.
never bought a new one and I'm assuming this is what OP means? if not got an ibook G4 for £0.99 plus £8.00 shipping
I got the deal of a lifetime on my 13" rMBP, it's a 2014 model with an i7 and 512 GB SSD and I only spent about $700. The battery's still in good shape and it's still got AppleCare on it too.
I got a broken 2006 Macbook for $150 and repaired it for about $50 in parts. Way back then they were selling for $900 used. This is before people caught on and started paying way too much for broken Macs on eBay to repair and resell them. Several batteries later, RAM and SSD upgrades it is still my main laptop. I don't need much out of a laptop. All I use it for is some diagnostic work or network configuration at a clients location. As Mac OS 10.7 is getting a bit long it the tooth. I'll be installing Windows 10 or Elementary OS soon.
I got a used early 2011 for $80 about 3 months ago. The case had marks and scrapes, one corner was dented on the body. There were some very minor dust particles under the glass that were visible under very specific conditions. In fact, it took me two weeks before I noticed the dust. Once I clean it up, everything worked perfectly. Threw in 8 GB of ram, Samsung SSD, and it flies.
After the 2016 MBPs were launched plus accompanying price rises, I rushed out to get a 2015 base model 13" MBP and got £200 off the £999 list price. Shortly afterwards, Apple raised the price of that notebook to £1249 - a £450 (+56%) increase from what I paid.
I bought a brand new 2009 15inch unibody MBP for $850 INCLUDING Apple Care from my brother's university(they were clearing out old inventory) back in 2010-2011. After about a year it started giving me consistent problems, so Apple decided to replace it with a brand new 2012 unibody MBP. They gave me the top of the line model because I upgraded RAM on my old one and they didn't want me to have less RAM than before. They also gave me a pro-rated refund on the Apple Care of the old machine. In the end, I ended up spending less than $1000 for a laptop that was worth $2500+tax+Apple Care. It's still going strong after I put an SSD in it.
Back in 2011 got a 15" 2010 MacBook pro that had been water damaged for $100 because they thought it didn't work. Turns out it worked fine with an external monitor. I used it that way for about 6 months, then something else broke. I took it to Apple and it turns out it was under AppleCare. They did $2100 worth of repairs for free and didn't even mention the water. Basically replaced every single thing inside the unit, and got a new screen to boot. I used the machine for 4 more years and sold it for $350.