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What should I buy?

V

Volker

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 4, 2012
22
0
I was at my local microcenter, and they are selling a macbook 17" 2011 i7 2.2ghz 4gb of ram, 750gb hard drive. The unit is apple refurbished, and does come with one year of AppleCare.

Or

From the apple refurbished store is a 2013 MacBook Pro i7, 8gb, 750gb hard drive.

I have heard bad things about 2011 MacBook Pro, I'm trying to get 5-6 years out of my mac. I use my mac mostly for virtual machines, and work.

I hope u can help me decide which is the better mac to go with.

Thanks
 
Volker said:
I was at my local microcenter, and they are selling a macbook 17" 2011 i7 2.2ghz 4gb of ram, 750gb hard drive. The unit is apple refurbished, and does come with one year of AppleCare.

Or

From the apple refurbished store is a 2013 MacBook Pro i7, 8gb, 750gb hard drive.

I have heard bad things about 2011 MacBook Pro, I'm trying to get 5-6 years out of my mac. I use my mac mostly for virtual machines, and work.

I hope u can help me decide which is the better mac to go with.

Thanks
Click to expand...

There is no doubt that the newer one will be better. Thousands of 2011 15" and 17" MBPs have been affected by Radeongate (the GPU failure). Even logic board replacements fail to solve the problem.

By the way, what are the exact specs of the 2013 MBP? It's too vague. Is it retina or non retina? Is it 15" or 13"?
 
yjchua95 said:
There is no doubt that the newer one will be better. Thousands of 2011 15" and 17" MBPs have been affected by Radeongate (the GPU failure). Even logic board replacements fail to solve the problem.

By the way, what are the exact specs of the 2013 MBP? It's too vague. Is it retina or non retina? Is it 15" or 13"?
Click to expand...

Hard drive, so I'm going to say non-retina. I agree, go with the newer one. More ram seems to be the desire by the majority on this forum. The hard drive space is pretty trivial. You'll probably eventually swap it out for an SSD if you want it to last for a few years. You are probably better off buying one with smaller HD space and then swapping it out to an SSD ASAP (sorry for all of the abbreviations).
 
I'd recommend the newer one, unless you really want the 17" form factor
 
Your post doesnt contain much info.
Why do you even consider the 2011 model?
 
You want a computer to last you 5-6 years, yet you're entertaining the idea of buying one that's already 3 years old?
 
I was looking at getting the 17 inch because it looks to be a very good deal. And the 13 inch I'm looking at is non-rentia.
 
The newer one will do a better job for a longer time. I've never even seen a 17" so I can't see which I'd prefer, I'm very content with my mobile set up and a monitor.
 
How much do the two models cost you?
What are your priorities?
What are you using your macbook for?
 
Newer is always better if for no other reason you will be able to upgrade OS's longer and keep software up to date. Been there, done that. My older 17" MBP has an operating system that is 2 versions back due to lack of capability. I'm loving my new 13" rMBP.:)
 
Depends on whether you want a bigger screen or 13".

If the 17" is an open box, and is offered at $900 or so, jump on it. You can resell it and make enough to buy a newer retina. I lucked out and got a high-res/anti-glare 17" for $925 ( with full factory warranty).

The 17" is a lot more capable performance-wise.
 
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