Many of us have seen the new Macbooks that were announced by Steve Jobs on October 14, 2008. They've been all over the news and on TV. These new Macbooks are indeed a thing of beauty with their "unibody" aluminum enclosures and their LED backlit displays. These new innovative features are cool and all but one question I've been struggling with is whether or not these new Macbooks are worth the purchase, given the expensive price tag that come with them. Let me share my insights with you as I make a short argument for holding off on these premium items until they either drop in price or go refurbished. Actually, now that this thought has rolled out of my head, I'm going to go ahead and push forward a promotion for the old Macbooks; more specifically the previous generation of Macbook Pros. I think refurbished units of these models holds the greatest value for those interested in purchasing a Macbook. There's no denying how chic and innovative Apple's new Macbooks are. They just scream out sexy and me wants. However, before I go into all that, you have to know that the new Macbook Pros come with heavy price tags. Let's take a standard 15-inch Macbook Pro with a 2.4 GHz Intel processor and the basic configurations that accompany the default model. This will run you $1999.00. That's damn pricey.
Now what do you get for that besides the "unibody" chassis and LED display which I've mentioned before? Well, you get a new chipset and two Nvidia gpus powering the computer. This is certainly nice to have. Now you can play games or do graphic intensive work. You get a cool chicklet keyboard and a glass, single button multi-touchpad; two very eye pleasing components. You also loose your FireWire 400 connectivity in place of FireWire 800 and switched in is a new mini DisplayPort in place of the DVI port. Don't know if I like these last two changes, but OK I'll keep roll with it. You also loose your Apple Remote, which came included in older models. So that's pretty much all that's new and at least important to take note of. Now let me bring out the old 15-inch Macbook Pro with similar hardware configurations. I'm going to focus on the MacBook refurbished model for the greatest savings, and I'll make my point for going the refurbished route after I describe what comes with the notebook first. Of course you're not going to get all the new features I just described in the paragraph before. But you still get a great computer. The same Macbook Pro with an identical setup of Intel processor, memory, hard drive, and SuperDrive will cost you $1099. That's an absurd $900 in savings. Heck, you can buy another computer with that! Or bump up your RAM or even get a bigger hard drive. Whatever you do, examine for yourself whether or not the "unibody" case, the LED display, and the dual gpus are worth that much to you. Because almost everything else is the same. You even get similar factory installed software. I don't know. I've thought about it. How about you think about it too? The refurbished nature of the Macbook Pro is probably what gives the item its most cost savings. Let me address this part as I'm aware that there's a negative stigma to everything that's refurbished. Apple Certified Refurbished products are fully functional units.
Apple puts them through a stringent refurbishment process where it inspects, tests, restores, and repackages these products. They also carry the same 1 year limited warranty the new products have. So a refurbished Macbook Pro is essentially a new Macbook Pro. You wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Apple's a big and well reputable company. I'm sure there won't be any funny business going on behind the scenes. Apple's always put out quality products and I'm sure this would apply to their refurbished units as well. Given that the differences between the new Macbook Pros and the old refurbished ones aren't that significant to me, I'm more inclined to purchase and even recommend others to go with a refurbished Macbook Pro. Perhaps down the road when the new Macbook Pros drop in price will I consider purchasing one of these new play toys. You can pocket quite a large amount of money, $900 worth of savings simply by going refurbished. Why not consider it today?
Now what do you get for that besides the "unibody" chassis and LED display which I've mentioned before? Well, you get a new chipset and two Nvidia gpus powering the computer. This is certainly nice to have. Now you can play games or do graphic intensive work. You get a cool chicklet keyboard and a glass, single button multi-touchpad; two very eye pleasing components. You also loose your FireWire 400 connectivity in place of FireWire 800 and switched in is a new mini DisplayPort in place of the DVI port. Don't know if I like these last two changes, but OK I'll keep roll with it. You also loose your Apple Remote, which came included in older models. So that's pretty much all that's new and at least important to take note of. Now let me bring out the old 15-inch Macbook Pro with similar hardware configurations. I'm going to focus on the MacBook refurbished model for the greatest savings, and I'll make my point for going the refurbished route after I describe what comes with the notebook first. Of course you're not going to get all the new features I just described in the paragraph before. But you still get a great computer. The same Macbook Pro with an identical setup of Intel processor, memory, hard drive, and SuperDrive will cost you $1099. That's an absurd $900 in savings. Heck, you can buy another computer with that! Or bump up your RAM or even get a bigger hard drive. Whatever you do, examine for yourself whether or not the "unibody" case, the LED display, and the dual gpus are worth that much to you. Because almost everything else is the same. You even get similar factory installed software. I don't know. I've thought about it. How about you think about it too? The refurbished nature of the Macbook Pro is probably what gives the item its most cost savings. Let me address this part as I'm aware that there's a negative stigma to everything that's refurbished. Apple Certified Refurbished products are fully functional units.
Apple puts them through a stringent refurbishment process where it inspects, tests, restores, and repackages these products. They also carry the same 1 year limited warranty the new products have. So a refurbished Macbook Pro is essentially a new Macbook Pro. You wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Apple's a big and well reputable company. I'm sure there won't be any funny business going on behind the scenes. Apple's always put out quality products and I'm sure this would apply to their refurbished units as well. Given that the differences between the new Macbook Pros and the old refurbished ones aren't that significant to me, I'm more inclined to purchase and even recommend others to go with a refurbished Macbook Pro. Perhaps down the road when the new Macbook Pros drop in price will I consider purchasing one of these new play toys. You can pocket quite a large amount of money, $900 worth of savings simply by going refurbished. Why not consider it today?
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