Which refurb?

[conkerbot]

Well, my finances have finally put me in a position to get my first mac. I was kinda thinking either blow it all on a fully-specced 17" MBP (but after hearing the problems I decided against it) so now I'm gonna wait for the iMac refreshes. To tide me over though I was going to get one of the lower mac portables, and was looking at the MBAs until I glanced at the Mac refurb store

I saw two April 2010 models:
-13" 2.66GHz C2D with 4G ram and 320G HDD £849
-15" i5 2.4GHz with 4G ram, 320G HDD and the Hi-Res Anti-Glare Screen for £1,199
(for both machines I'd put in an SSD and maybe up the RAM)

So, to the owners of these machines, are there any problems I should be aware of? Is the performance of the i5 much greater than the C2D in Mac OS? Is the 15" battery really 8-9 Hours, because I love long battery life and the 13" has 10 hours so that might swing it if the 15" can't live up to at least 7.5h+. On these machines I'm looking at web, email, wordprocessing, iPhoto, iMovie and maybe the occasional Steam gaming session (not fussed about high settings on the games, just as long as they're playable).

Oh, and is Apple's Refurb Store reliable in terms of quality?

Thanks for your help and advice, hope to stop being an newbie soon

 

[-aggie-]

I don’t have the refurb for the 13 inch you’re looking at (I have the 2009 model), but I’d go with the 13 inch, if I were you. Better battery, processor, with less price vs. just a little bit bigger screen is a no brainer.

 

[vincenz]

Yes apple refurb is pretty much the best you can get. Everything is usually brand new except for the mobo.

 

[Satori]

I have the 13" MBP you are considering, everything is sweet as...

 

[Blipp]

I was kinda thinking either blow it all on a fully-specced 17" MBP but after hearing the problems I decided against it

Care to elaborate on what problems you're referring to? If it's the locking up under heavy load issue that was buttoned up in the first month with a software patch and there aren't any other lingering problems waiting to be fixed. I'm running on a 2011 17" and it's been fantastic since the patch.

 

[NickZac]

2011. The only issue with the 2011 is how you will make everyone jealous from it's ridiculous level of WINNING.

 

[conkerbot]

Care to elaborate on what problems you're referring to? If it's the locking up under heavy load issue that was buttoned up in the first month with a software patch and there aren't any other lingering problems waiting to be fixed. I'm running on a 2011 17" and it's been fantastic since the patch.

Yeah was mainly thinking about those problems, but thinking about it logically for what I need a low(er) priced notebook and a fully specced iMac will be better -Photoshop, Unity, Web browser and multiple text editors open at once really works best with the bigger screen good to hear the problems are fixed though, if the new iMac's fail spectacularly then the 2011 17" will be my backup

2011. The only issue with the 2011 is how you will make everyone jealous from it's ridiculous level of WINNING.

Lol, but for the price difference I think the 2010 will be quite winning enough when paired with the Sandy Bridge iMacs