閱讀983 返回首頁    go iPhone_iPad_Mac_apple

Worth buying used 2009 13" MacBook Pro?

I have an opportunity to buy a used 2009 13" MacBook Pro (my first macbook ever) from my friend for $400 and was wondering if you guys think this is worth it? I know the price is really low but my concern is that I'm a web designer/developer who needs something portable when I have team meetings or working out if the office and I'm stuck between getting this older model or waiting for the new models and spending $2000+ on a 17".

 

If I do pick up this 2009 MacBook pro I'd be upgrading the ram to 16GB and adding a SSD + Lion

 

What do you guys think? Will the smaller screened C2D macbook pro be sufficient enough for my needs? Hopefully others in my field can chime in!

No, that machine is likely worth more like $700, something is wrong with it.

 

Laptops don't last all that long, 4 maybe five years tops. They get all dust inside. the 13" is weaker machine.

 

2009, that's over 3 years, and then your going to add a expensive SSD, 16GB and Lion? just for another year of use? Why are they selling it so cheap? Why are they selling it?

 

 

You only have SATA 2, can't use all of that SSD.

 

IMO if your in the $400-$800 market, get a cheap PC Win 7 laptop, you'll get a warranty too.

 

Win 7 will last 10 years, you make System Restore disks right away and you can restore your machine yourself.

 

With Apple 10.8 is coming out, then more and more and it just add's up being in the elite club.

 

Really no longterm value with Apple gear anymore, especially laptops.

 

If you really want to strach your buck, a Windows 7 64 tower, you can upgrade all the parts.

 

My friend made a XP machine last 10 years for $1200 and six packs of beer for geeks to install the OS again.

The reason for it being $400 is because he's a really good friend of mine and he doesn't use it anymore after building a new desktop. It's in a really good condition.

 

My concern i guess is if it'll be alright for the type of work I'm doing for the price I'm paying, or if it's worth just buying a newer gen MacBook pro.

 

I'm quite IT savvy (I run a PC as my main workstation) but having an iPhone and iPad 2, it would be nice to have my mobile workstation on the same platform :)

 

I do understand the point of it being 3 years old though, I'm just not familiar with the reliability of apple laptops over the long run.

Hello, For $400 seems like a good buy to me, what have you got to lose. Buy it and see how it works for you. If you don't like it then sell it.If you do sell it, then conatct your friend first and tell them about  why you are thinking of selling it. A friend who offers you a great deal, might not be your friend anymore if they think you are pulling a fast one.

What are you using now?

More then likely a Windows PC, whether notebook or desktop.

Honestly there is nothing special about any Mac computer. It is a computer just like any other. I use both types of systems so I have a semi unbiased opinion ( I am a long time Windows user).

The only thing Macs had going for them was there supposed immunity to viruses and malware. Which has now ended and will get worse in the future.

As far as the quality of the overall computer. From reading this and many other Mac forums they are no more or less reliable then any good Windows PC. Both are subject to hardware and software problems. But they cost a lot more money, for the exact same hardware.

 

The model your friend is selling wasn't a bad computer when it was new, 3 years ago, but now it is 3 years old. It is on the bottom of the list of Macs that can run Lion and more then likely will not be able to run Mountain Lion, the new OS X version coming out something later this year.

Not sure if that system can have 16GBs of RAM installed, I don't thing it can (8GBs tops). In any event 16GBs is way more expensive then 8GBs. 8GBs about $50, 16GBs about $200+.

With a 3 year old notebook computer anything can go wrong with it at any time and with an Apple Mac since there is no more warranty on it they are expensive to fix.

 

If you really need a notebook computer then I suggest you add about $600 to your current budget and look at getting a Win PC notebook. At least with a New computer, Apple or other, you will have at least the basic original included warranty with it.

 

If this was just to fool around with and get use to OS X as an OS then I think it's not a bad price. But for a working computer, used for actual work related tasks, you would be better off buying new.

This MBP is totally inappropriate for what you want to do.  When you say you want to increase RAM to 16 GB (which this MBP will not accept) and add a SSD (an expensive storage medium), you are in effect trying to make a Corvette out of an Impala chassis.  If this is to be used for vocational purposes, the 17" MBP option that you mention is the correct one.

 

Ciao.

Heck, I'd buy it for $400 then turn around & slap it on eBay for a "Buy it Now" price of $675 plus shipping .

You're getting some bad advice here.  There's nothing wrong with buying a 2009 machine, and as has been pointed out that's a good deal.  Macs are not "time-limited" as ds store would seem to suggest.  I've never had a Mac laptop wear out.  I've still got a 10 year old PowerBook G3 in perfect working order in a cabinet, and an 8 year old PowerBook G4 in frequent use.  Contrast this with every single Windows machine, from a variety of manufacturers, that my wife's small business has purchased...  they have all, every single one of them, become unusable within 3-5 years.  Perhaps it is possible for a Windows expert to purchase just the right hardware and fine-tune the system just right to keep it going longer, but a Mac requires no expertise to keep it running for a very, very long time.

 

The only question in my mind is, would the machine do what you need it to?  That depends on what kind of web development you do.  If you're heavily into the graphic design end of things, and need to run the current versions of demanding graphic design apps, it may not be.  The graphics capabilities of the 13" are nowhere near the power of the 15" or 17" machines of the same generation.  However, if you work more on the coding end of things, there's nothing particularly demanding about that.  The only thing that might cause you a problem there is the 13" screen...  there's nothing quite so nice as being able to have three different pages of code shown side-by-side on a nice big 17" screen!    And, of course, if the only thing you would need a mobile machine for is checking e-mail and previewing web sites for clients, it would be more than adequate as-is.

I have a 15 inch Macbook Pro and it needed a software repair and i was in the middle of a court case and didn't know that's all it needed and bought the macbook air to get me through the case...come to find out the macbook pro only needed a software repair   Now i'm going to sell my macbook pro and don't know what i should sell it for?  Here are the specs:

 

15.4"

2.4 GH2 Core i5

2 x2G Ram

320GB-5400 RPM

Glossy Display

 

Lion OSX

Ilife

Iphoto

garage band

imovie

While this thread is old, I've decided to comment on ANYONE considering a 2009 Macbook Pro, even a 2008 13" Aluminum Pro. Heck, I'll even touch on a late 2008 13" Macbook running an SSD! As a background, I've spent the last couple of years (as a hobby) upgrading friend's MacBooks & Macbook Pros. An Apple buyer is paying $1000, if not $2000 for a machine and frankly no one is ready to spend that kind of money and have it be obsolete in 3, even 5 years. What I'VE FOUND, is this... As long as it's got 2 Cores, and can run 64bit, then it's still well worth investing in. (As long as the price is right, of course!)

 

The biggest concern is really the Graphics chipset, which can't be changed, but until you dip into the MacBooks w/Core Duos (these AREN'T dual Cores!) you don't have laptops which come w/small dedicated graphics chips that threaten to not run 1080p video flawlessly (although I've still ran almost every 720p movie, MKVs even, quite well on 2006 MacBooks). As long as a Macbook has got shared graphics (like a 2009) and can dip into the hard drive for memory to run things (be it slower that video ram) it will always have enough to run what an average user needs.

 

The BEST thing you can do for a performance bump is toss in an SSD, and the great thing is a 2009 only needs a SATA II SSD which can often be had for cheap. I've played with all sorts of laptops and a Core 2 Duo running an SSD will feel SO MUCH FASTER than a i7 Quad Core w/a traditional SSD. Remember THAT when you are obsessing over a i5 Dual Core vs. i7 Quad Core... all you need to ask yourself is which one has an SSD. The feeling of "speed" traditionally breaks down to "read & write times". A mechanical HDD saturates around 1GB/s which translates to 40Mb/s-100Mb/s read/write times (if not SLOWER). An SSD, even running SATA II, will run and great near220Mb/s-250Mb/s and will translate to being blindingly fast when it boots your computer in 8-12 secs! A i7 Quad Core w/a 1TB mechanical HDD will STILL only get 40-100Mb/s read/write times. What a waste to bottleneck such a processor. Get a cheap Core 2 Duo, toss in a Sata II SSD and you will not believe you own eyes.

 

Bottom line, what you'll find is the it is the costly DDR2 RAM that will effect if an upgrade is worth it. I took a 2008 white Macbook (which can only run SATA I) and put a SATA II SSD in it. Lots of people claimed, b/c it can only run SATA I, and a mechanical drive can run SATA I, that I would see no speed increase. WRONG. Oh boy were they! 8-12 sec boots, programs opened in 5 secs vs 30 secs. The ONLY problem was the cost of maxing the RAM to 6MB from 2MB. A 4GB stick of DDR2 RAM is nearly $100. A single 4GB DDR2 stick was BIG for it's day. Not many laptops could even make use of 8GB of RAM, so 4GB sticks are quiet rare. Translation is the cost of the RAM upgrade will exceed the cost of the SSD most likely!

 

In the end, I agree with commenters that understand a Macbook/Macbook Pro will likely LAST 10 years (notice I didn't say will not be obsolete). It's the BUILD QUALITY which you are buying. Laptops inherently have fixed hardware and by nature will become obsolete at some point, but it's nice to buy something that will still run, but just isn't as useful as it once was. Despite this thread being over 2 years old, even today, in late 2014, I'm considering buying a 2008 13" Aluminum Macbook which is running a cheaper DDR3 RAM to upgrade, and doing that, along w/tossing in a 256GB Samsung 470 SSD (like used in the late 2010) and having a great portable 13" MBP for cheap. It's only shortfall is the non internal battery that gets only 5hrs vs. 2009 getting 8hrs.

 

Thanks for your answer. Very helpful!

Thanks maclife 74 for your thoughtful post.

Here’s my question, if you see this and have time to answer.

I have a 2009 13inch macbook pro.

A couple of years ago coffee was spilled on the machine. It appeared to be dead.

I did not want to spend $700 at the mac store to repair it.

So I had nothing to lose, following fixit instructions and opened the case and cleaned the top surface of the logic board with Q tip and alcohol.

This bright it back to life. (I have not yet gone back to remove the logic board to clean the other side.)

I have some whirling ball issues.

Do you think it is worth it to replace the hard drive with a SSD Samsung EVO 256GB? Should the back of the logic board be cleaned first?

Thanks.

Any liquid will usually corrode electronic parts - some more and quicker than others and do not mix well. Cleaning it two years later is most likely not going to help. Depending on which OS version you are running, you may not have enough RAM installed. That would help the spinning beachball issue.

Thanks, babowa!

the 13 inch 2009 macbook pro has 2GB ram.

The HD  has 119 0f 159 GB free if that is relevant.

 

When I cleaned the top of the logic board - I wiped away the stained areas and that worked very well to make the computer workable.

What OS version? If it's Lion or later, a minimum of 4 GB is recommended, more is better.

最後更新：2017-09-18 08:30:42

  上一篇：go is it possible to know if the Awatch series 3&n...
  下一篇：go my credit card info says its invalid when every...