Refurbished Mac Books

[Slatkater]

My daughter needs a laptop for school. She wants a Mac Book but a new one is out of our price range. Amazon has some refurbished ones that seem reasonable, are they any good?

I haven't had a refub mac but I've bought 2 refurb laptops, one from Tesco Outlet on Ebay and one just from eBay from a Refurb company.
Both were grade A and brilliant condition and both with a 1yr warranty. Had to pay postage (£13) to send one away to be fixed, which was more of a pain than returning to a shop but wasn't as much as I imagined.
Just check the Grade and make sure you have a warranty and you should be fine, and you can always return if you aren't happy with the quality.

@Slatkater
That would depend on the budget you have.

I’ve had MacBooks for years. Love them, never ever had a problem with them unlike Windows where it’s viruses galore even with anti-virus in them. I’d never buy Windows ever again my DS has one and he’s 11. I want something that’ll last

I can't remember which poster mentioned Louis Rossman, but he's not exactly an independent spokesperson...Oh Apple service are ripoffs, use my independent repair service instead! Apple are usually quite good at fixing problems via updates, but he's immediately on YouTube ranting, by which time any problem has been fixed. DH had a problem with his phone after a big update, it was outside of warranty, Apple replaced it.

I'm not even an Apple fangirl as I'm the sole Windows/Android user in our family. But the whole problem is the OP hasn't got £1000+ to drop on a laptop, so a refurb MacBook might be better than a budget Windows.

And it's what her daughter wants...
My DD has no compatability issues with her MacBook, I can't see how that would be an issue. It will run Chrome and MS Office if that's what you want. She is doing Graphics at GCSE and uses various programs for that. It runs Minecraft brilliantly ( and Fortnite for the brief time that she was into it).

You might be able to access educational discounts.

I'm using a £300 pc laptop that must be seven/eight years old now. My DH's super expensive and super specced MAC has had various repairs on it, costing more than my laptop! The graphic card/sound card went, which rendered the whole machine a box.

What work is to be done on the laptop? You may have to start from there. Some specialist software performs better on a Mac.

If surfing net and word processing - a cheap windows laptop would do but you'd need to make sure your DD was onside with that.

I almost bought a refurbed Mac (I'm apple for everything else) but the ones I could afford will be out of date soon in terms of supported updates and it's not so easy to take upgrade a Mac's hardware so I decided against it. We speak both languages in their house (Mac and windows) and my windows laptop has saved the Mac once or twice.

I just upgraded my old MacBook Air to a 2017 model Pro, I bought it reconditioned from Music Magpie and it's immaculate - not a mark on it. DH and I both use MacBooks and wouldn't buy anything else. His last one was about a decade old and it ran perfectly, he only bought a new one because he broke the screen and it was too expensive to justify fixing it.

@tinobeans

I've twice spilled liquid on my MacBook Air. The first time, I couldn't even use the keyboard to type my password. The second time, it wiped out the wi-fi card and the battery. Both times it miraculously recovered after spending a week, open, in my airing cupboard. I couldn't believe it when I turned it on, just to check, before taking it in to my local Apple store.

I don't think it's charging, but I always use it plugged in anyway. And, as you can see, the wifi is working just fine.

Worth a try, if you haven't already.

Btw, John Lewis are still selling the MacBook Air 2017 at £769, even though Apple stores have discontinued them in favour of later models. 2 year guarantee, as well.

@Thymeout
Mine's totally dead, no power, nothing :-( I did it before Christmas last year and have tried it periodically since then, but no joy :-(