2013 MacBook Pro Retina 13 good buy in 2015?

[Rekcut722]

I might be picking up a 2013 macbook pro retina 13 for around $750-$800. Is this a good buy. El Capitan really improves performance on older laptops. For example, my 2010 macbook air is running amazingly well for a laptop, much less a 5 year old one. This being said, should I save up and wait until I have enough money to buy one straight from Apple, or should i grab this deal while i can? (this purchase is through craigslist, which I'm very familiar with)

 

The specs are: 

Processor: 2.4 ghz i5

Memory: 8gb 
Graphics: Intel Iris 1536 md

Storage: 256gb ssd

[KayTees]

I might be picking up a 2013 macbook pro retina 13 for around $750-$800. Is this a good buy. El Capitan really improves performance on older laptops. For example, my 2010 macbook air is running amazingly well for a laptop, much less a 5 year old one. This being said, should I save up and wait until I have enough money to buy one straight from Apple, or should i grab this deal while i can? (this purchase is through craigslist, which I'm very familiar with)

 

The specs are: 

Processor: 2.4 ghz i5

Memory: 8gb 

Graphics: Intel Iris 1536 md

Storage: trying to get them to tell me

I say save up and take advantage of the student discount.

[bucklingspring]

I wouldn't say that it's a good buy. If I were you, I'd look for a refurbished 2013 (or newer) MacBook Pro with a dedicated GPU, or just save up for a current-gen MBP w/ the student discount.

[DarkBlade2117]

As much as I hate Apple, carrying around even a 5 pound laptop is painful. You could look into a Razer Blade though the MacBook is good for school also.

[bucklingspring]

As much as I hate Apple, carrying around even a 5 pound laptop is painful. You could look into a Razer Blade though the MacBook is good for school also.

I wouldn't recommend the MacBook to anybody. I don't know about you, but I just can't live off of one USB port. Especially USB-C, since I don't own any Type-C devices and I hate trackpads, so I always carry a wireless mouse with me. If I wanted to charge my laptop or insert a flash drive with the mouse plugged in, I just couldn't do that without having to carry around a handful of hubs and adapters (You could also just use a Bluetooth mouse, but Bluetooth's reliability is terrible imo).

[Jacktastic-Mofo]

A lot of people ask me to fix their old Macs and after reinstalling OSX I usually recommend they get an SSD / RAM upgrade- and the performance gains are pretty massive. I've even done this to a early 2011 mac book pro and it saw a really big gain in performance after updating to El Capitan and upgrading to an SSD and 8GB's of RAM.

[NickTheMajin]

I wouldn't recommend the MacBook to anybody. I don't know about you, but I just can't live off of one USB port. Especially USB-C, since I don't own any Type-C devices and I hate trackpads, so I always carry a wireless mouse with me. If I wanted to charge my laptop or insert a flash drive with the mouse plugged in, I just couldn't do that without having to carry around a handful of hubs and adapters.

 

 

Not everyone needs to plug things in though. Fewer and fewer people use mice and things everyday and you'd be amazed how few people need more than the 256GB of storage you get in the base model of it. 

 

Late 2013 Macbook Pro retina is awesome by the way. For $750-800 I'd go for it. Does everything I want a mobile system to do very quickly. It has a PCI based SSD instead of the sata based stuff all the windows laptops are still using. Not good for gaming but I'm sure you know that. Lowest price I've seen the new ones go for is Best Buy's $1099 they had up till today. 

[EpicAdom]

I wouldn't recommend the MacBook to anybody. I don't know about you, but I just can't live off of one USB port. Especially USB-C, since I don't own any Type-C devices and I hate trackpads, so I always carry a wireless mouse with me. If I wanted to charge my laptop or insert a flash drive with the mouse plugged in, I just couldn't do that without having to carry around a handful of hubs and adapters (You could also just use a Bluetooth mouse, but Bluetooth's reliability is terrible imo).

I don't think he actually meant THE macbook (12") but what you said is true. I think he's referring to macbook pros.

[bucklingspring]

Not everyone needs to plug things in though. Fewer and fewer people use mice and things everyday and you'd be amazed how few people need more than the 256GB of storage you get in the base model of it. 

Yeah, well... my brain's firmware hasn't been updated since 2007 so I'm slow to adapt to new tech norms. Trackpads are getting much better than they were before, but I still can't use one for more than 5 minutes.

[DarkBlade2117]

I wouldn't recommend the MacBook to anybody. I don't know about you, but I just can't live off of one USB port. Especially USB-C, since I don't own any Type-C devices and I hate trackpads, so I always carry a wireless mouse with me. If I wanted to charge my laptop or insert a flash drive with the mouse plugged in, I just couldn't do that without having to carry around a handful of hubs and adapters (You could also just use a Bluetooth mouse, but Bluetooth's reliability is terrible imo).

My laptop weighs like 5 pounds and makes my book bag feel like a bag of bricks. I've seen people with like 8-10 pound laptops and I Greek bad, they honestly walk in with a sore back. Do you walk around with my only at least 10 pounds of books if not more, plus a laptop, plus all the papers. It's a huge pain. I don't give two shits, 256GB is plenty for a school laptop. Especially since most remove files from previous semester and I didn't even use up the storage from OneDrive and Google Docs so I just clear that. The Razer laptop or MacBook is perfect for university/college. No ifs and or buts about it. No matter if they are overpriced.

[Mew]

If 2013 is the one with Haswell in it, it should be a good buy.

[bucklingspring]

My laptop weighs like 5 pounds and makes my book bag feel like a bag of bricks. I've seen people with like 8-10 pound laptops and I Greek bad, they honestly walk in with a sore back. Do you walk around with my only at least 10 pounds of books if not more, plus a laptop, plus all the papers. It's a huge pain. I don't give two shits, 256GB is plenty for a school laptop. Especially since most remove files from previous semester and I didn't even use up the storage from OneDrive and Google Docs so I just clear that. The Razer laptop or MacBook is perfect for university/college. No ifs and or buts about it. No matter if they are overpriced.

I never complained about the amount of storage or portability. It's a very portable laptop if you don't need to plug anything in except a charger occasionally and for normal average use 250GB should be fine. I was just sharing my opinion on why I personally couldn't use it on a daily basis. I'm not everybody.

[Electronics Wizardy]

As much as I hate Apple, carrying around even a 5 pound laptop is painful. You could look into a Razer Blade though the MacBook is good for school also.

Yep, I have a 8 pound dell m6600. Its fast, cool and quiet. But i don't like walking a mile with that in my backpack. Its power brick weights 2 pounds, more than some laptops.

[ALwin]

I would recommend saving up and getting a new one for the following reasons:

• Early generation Retina Macbooks used proprietary SATA connectors for the SSD, newer ones use proprietary PCIe connectors.  I am not sure when they made the switch, but the PCIe SSD will give you nearly triple the R/W speed vs the SATA.
• You get 1-2 Years of international warranty, I think Apple now offers 2 years globally but I am not certain hence why I wrote 1-2 years.  I've had my first generation rMBP's screen replaced twice for free.  First time was due to the issue with LG panels suffering from screen ghosting.  Second time was after the 1 year warranty period ended (at the time the standard warranty period was 1 year) and I damaged the screen.  They initially told me it would cost $750 to replace but when I went to pick it up they just gave me back my rMBP and told me I didn't have to pay.**
• You have a 14 day no questions asked return policy if you don't like it.
• If you're a student you should have a student discount.
• I'm not a student nor do I own my own business, but I've registered as a business customer and receive discounts.
• Resale value.  I keep mine in near pristine condition using some skins for protection.  https://www.decalgirl.com/skins/laptops/apple

**Name another company that waives a $750 repair bill for something out of warranty.

[NickTheMajin]

I would recommend saving up and getting a new one for the following reasons:

• Early generation Retina Macbooks used proprietary SATA connectors for the SSD, newer ones use proprietary PCIe connectors.  I am not sure when they made the switch, but the PCIe SSD will give you nearly triple the R/W speed vs the SATA.
• You get 1-2 Years of international warranty, I think Apple now offers 2 years globally but I am not certain hence why I wrote 1-2 years.  I've had my first generation rMBP's screen replaced twice for free.  First time was due to the issue with LG panels suffering from screen ghosting.  Second time was after the 1 year warranty period ended (at the time the standard warranty period was 1 year) and I damaged the screen.  They initially told me it would cost $750 to replace but when I went to pick it up they just gave me back my rMBP and told me I didn't have to pay.**
• You have a 14 day no questions asked return policy if you don't like it.
• If you're a student you should have a student discount.
• I'm not a student nor do I own my own business, but I've registered as a business customer and receive discounts.
• Resale value.  I keep mine in near pristine condition using some skins for protection.  https://www.decalgirl.com/skins/laptops/apple

**Name another company that waives a $750 repair bill for something out of warranty.

 

 

The model he's looking at has the PCI SSD. 

[abazigal]

I might be picking up a 2013 macbook pro retina 13 for around $750-$800. Is this a good buy. El Capitan really improves performance on older laptops. For example, my 2010 macbook air is running amazingly well for a laptop, much less a 5 year old one. This being said, should I save up and wait until I have enough money to buy one straight from Apple, or should i grab this deal while i can? (this purchase is through craigslist, which I'm very familiar with)

 

The specs are: 

Processor: 2.4 ghz i5

Memory: 8gb 

Graphics: Intel Iris 1536 md

Storage: trying to get them to tell me

 

The 2013 rMBP is the first generation to run haswell, which benefited greatly in terms of battery life and graphics performance. Since then, subsequent generations have offered only modest improvements at best. 

 

I can't comment if it is a good deal at that price, but it's a fairly good laptop in its own right, spec-wise.