My T430 was the most basic model you can get, and it was fine, though the stock screens suck. Pretty much any one you find should fit the bill, though if you can, try to find the one with the 1440x900 screen. Its not nearly as good as the modded screen I have in mine, but its cheaper than the 150$ mod and better than the 1366x768 screen most of them came with. Some came with a backlit keyboard, but all models come with a thinklight, a little LED hidden under the bezel near the camera that illuminates the keyboard. Keyboard can be swapped with a backlit model at any time.
I guess just look to make sure it has all the accessories like the charger (don't use a cheap replacement one) and a good battery.
Here's my modding log if you'd like to see what's possible on this machine:
2011 15/17 inch macbook pro's have defective GPUs. I'd avoid them for reliability's sake, since every single one WILL fail at some point. If it's a 13in with just the intel GPU, you should be fine.
I'd still prefer a thinkpad over a macbook though. Thinkpads like the T430 can be had for real cheap, and they can be upgraded. Mine's now got a 1080p IPS screen and a quad core i7. There's a huge modding community around this machine. I've only put around 300 euros into mine after upgrades.
As for the SSD, you can very easily upgrade the macbook or the thinkpad to an SSD if it doesn't have one, you'll just need to use window's media creation tool to make a windows 10 installer (use the windows 7 key on the laptop to activate it) or on the macbook, use internet recovery mode to get an OS, then run all the updates it'll have. You'll need a screwdriver kit to replace the drive on the macbook, but the thinkpad just has one phillips screw to get the drive out.
MrLazy reacted to iamdarkyoshi in MBP 2011 vs Old Lenovo Thinkpad
