What to do with an OG Intel Macbook?

Discussion in 'MacBook' started by VI™, Dec 19, 2013.

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  1. VI™, Dec 19, 2013

    VI™ macrumors 6502a

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    Aug 27, 2010
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    Shepherdsturd, WV
    #1
    I have one of the first Intel Macbooks. It's white and other than some discoloration on the case and a dead battery, it still works great. I upgraded the RAM to either 8GB or 16GB and it's a great little machine for what it does.

    So, what do I do with it? E-bay shows that working ones go for about $200 and it looks like batteries cost about $100. I have a new late 2013 15" rMBP with 16GB RAM and Nvidia 750m, i5 Mac Mini with dGPU, and a Wintel box I built for gaming as my 3 main computers, so I’m obviously in no real need of the computer itself.

    My thoughts were to try and sell it and put the money in the vacation fund for me and the girlfriend. The other idea was to see if a buddy of mine whose family owns a tablet as their main computing device would buy it for $100 and take the money and buy them a battery. Other than that, I could always donate it somewhere, but I’d prefer to give it to the previously mentioned friend before I do that.

    Anyone have any ideas?
     
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  2. yangchewren, Dec 22, 2013

    yangchewren macrumors regular

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    Dec 1, 2012
    #2
    If you decide to sell it to your friend:

    If its the original Macbook. It'll have a coreduo processor and is upgradeable to Snow Leopard at best. To have an up-to-date OS, Ubuntu or Linux Mint can be installed on it.

    Also if it is a pre-2008 macbook, the ram has not been upgraded to 8GB (6GB at most). But even the lowest maximum ram - 2GB, can suffice for web use.

    Lastly, to make things appear newer, you could always give the discolored areas a scrub down with a magic eraser sponge.
     
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  3. Bear, Dec 22, 2013

    Bear macrumors G3

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    Sol III - Terra
    #3
    Due to the age of the MacBook, I'd sell it (and not to your friend). After the battery you never know what might fail next, especially if it still has the original HD.
     
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  4. g4manimac, Dec 24, 2013

    g4manimac macrumors 6502

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    Jan 22, 2013
    Location:
    Arkansas
    #4
    Yeah its hard to get what their (worth) which is why I have like 4 of them and numerous others for parts.The best one I have I got for 25 bucks with free shipping I put a hard drive and ram in it and haven't done nothing to it but paint it and it just so happened to be a early 2009 with the 256mb graphics and its updated all the way so I lucked out on that one.If you were checking prices on ebay you must have overlooked the $18 batteries which of course aren't original but they do give you a working battery which ups what little value it has.


    Also I wouldn't hesitate to give it to a friend it would be perfect for any need that a tablet can't fulfill.
     
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